I love Berlin. I LOVE Berlin. It is such a cool city. Who would of thought the Germans were so awesome?? Granted, it IS freezing, but, as Kelly again insightfully pointed out, Berlin knows how to do winter in a way that Paris doesn’t. The French capital just seems to close itself off and hibernate in the chill, whereas Berlin seems to embrace it and flaunt that fact that it is painfully cold, but hey, we’ll deal! Christmas markets are running rampid throughout the city, and we’ve seen so many giant Christmas trees that we’re actually keeping a count (right now it is at 10). And the food is so good! And so cheap!! Everything about this city is clearly just amazing.
We got in to our hostel at about 9:30 yesterday morning, and it is the best thing ever. Warm, HUGE room, super helpful staff-awesomeawesomeawesome. We went to the cafe attached and got the best breakfast I’ve ever had–seriously–for five euro. FIVE EURO BUFFET. As in, fresh fruit platter, veggie platter, meat platter, cheese platter, cottage cheese, multiple kinds of bread, rolls, and toast, atleast five different cereals and muesli, jams, nutella, everything. I died. It was incredible! I’ve rarely ever felt so comfortably full.
Afterwards we had enough energy to explore the city and did the majority of our sightseeing checklist within a few hours–thankfully most of the sights are within walking distance. Although we did have to wait outside for an hour at the Reichstag to climb to the dome. But it was pretty cool once inside. You’re basically on the roof of their government building and overlooking the city. We also went to the Bradenburg gate (Christmas tree number 1!), the Holocaust memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, etc, etc.
At Potsdamer Platz we stumbled upon our first Christmas market which is officially my favorite thing about the city. Cute little stands decked out in lights and selling glorious amounts of food. From gingerbread to roasted nuts, chocolate by the tons and sausages all over the place. I ate a curried sausage….withing a minute. Downed that thing. So good! We also got mulled wine (which I got again tonight and will forever remind me of Christmas in Germany) and it was also amazing! They lend you mugs and if you don’t go back for your deposit you can keep them, so of course I have a nice little souvenir!
We headed back to our hostel pretty early last night, understandably. I think we were in bed by about 9:00, but that’s alright because it gave us a pretty good headstart today. We walked around the East Side Gallery, a large section of the Berlin wall still intact and covered in artwork celebrating the destruction of the wall. Some of them were really interesting–I’ll have to post pictures later. After that we walked down the Karl Marx avenue, which I guess is just socialist buildings? I think that’s what Kelly’s guidebook said. Then we took the U-Bahn over to KaDuWe, the largest department store in Europe, with an entrance like a magical forest of sorts. Clearly I was in love. We went up to the gourmet food floor and ogled everything before picking out lots of chocolate and I had some chicken as well.
We walked down the main shopping drag, Krufurstendamm, for awhile before becoming painfully exhausted and hiking to the largest bookstore we could find and camping out in the cafe. I read 100 pages of a book–we were there for awhile! I’m so glad Kelly likes to read so much as well…it was nice to stay for so long without having to worry about the other person getting bored!
Final stop of the day–Gendermenmarkt. The ULTIMATE Christmas market. It is so, so beautiful! We walked around and got more wine and I had some weird bread thing with cheese spread and ham that everyone seemed to be devouring (and for a good reason because it was delicious). We also had some gingerbread and sugared nuts and sampled everything we could find. There was a man dressed up as a Christmas tree on stilts. And a stage with people dressed up in ridiculous costumes and singing in German. Life couldn’t have gotten any better at this point.
We made a quick detour back to another Christmas market (third of the day…obsessed?) to buy nutcrackers and then headed back for the night. I think we’re going down to the hostel bar later because it is karaoke night and that obviously needs to happen. Tomorrow is our last day in Berlin? What ever will we do?
Go to Switzerland?
