intro to Berlin

I went to Berlin with kiddo Ch, partly because my new-old friends C&H were there for the month. With their help and quite a bit of tourist motivation, we packed a lot into one week!

I don't have a good plan for processing all this so I'll start with an overview.

Monday: Train from Zürich to Berlin. Which, remarkably, was not delayed. Took the bus to our hotel, Bob W Mitte, just in time for it to start pouring rain. 5,197 steps.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof (actually taken as we were leaving and not when we arrived, but still - what a job it must be to clean all that glass!)

Tuesday: Welcome to Berlin. Breakfast with C&H at a café near the hotel. Then on to the "Berlin mit Bus" public transit audio tour, which wasn't perfect (particularly when the bus got re-routed and we had to scramble to hear the stops we missed) but functional for getting a first look at the big sights. On the way we stopped for a look at the animal enclosures at the zoo from the roof of Bikini Berlin and a substantial morning snack at the restaurant on the top floor of the KaDeWe. The tour ended at the East Side Gallery, then we set off on foot across the Oberbaumbrücke on a mission to find a döner stand (not too challenging, this one did the trick nicely), back for a rest at the hotel and a trip to the grocery store, then dinner with C&H near the Hackesche Höfe. 26,736 steps.

Delicious falafel. Whyyyyyyy can't Zurich also have delicious falafel?

Wednesday: Ch's Choice. Visit to the roof of the Reichstag with C&H followed by coffee, then the zoo (inspired by Tuesday's sneak preview), lunch at the Bikini Kantini, and the Computerspielemuseum. After a rest we met C&H for an evening random walk that took us through the Nikolaiviertel. 26,911 steps.

Ch is seriously considering leaving home to live with the meerkats.

Thursday: Museum day. Second breakfast at the Humboldt Forum Bistro followed by the Altes Museum (penises!), Neues Museum (Berlin! I get that you have a lot to work through but we need to talk about colonialism. Also, is it not considered good practice these days to warn people about displays of human remains??), a proper sit-down meal at a touristy restaurant in the Nikolaiviertel, the Berliner Dom (stairs!), the Pergamonmuseum (ancient cities!), and the Neue Nationalgalerie (art!). Five Guys for dinner (can't be cultured *all* the time). 25,055 steps.

The Medea Sarcophagus in the Altes Museum "shows four scenes from the Medea myth following the homonymous tragedy by the Athenian poet Euripides." Penises, broken off and otherwise, were something of a theme during this trip. It would not be fair to pin the blame for this entirely on the almost-teenage boy in the party.

Friday: Consumerism. Got up late, ate breakfast at the cafe directly next to our hotel, wandered back to the Museumsinsel to take a few more pictures, met C&H for lunch at the Ratskeller Schöneberg. Then Urban Nation (see how we snuck a bit of culture in there?), the Mall of Berlin (it's a mall), Uniqlo, Muji, the M&Ms store (tired of linking things), dinner with C&H at the Bikini Kantini, and last but not least: the Haribo store! Whew. 19,661 steps. 

If AI tried to design a toy for me and my two kids it would probably come out like this pillowy axolotl pushing peanut butter cups. And yet, we do not need one.

Saturday: Last Day Grab Bag. Breakfast with C&H and a farewell walk near Bahnhof Friedrichsstrasse followed by, appropriately, a visit to the Tränenpalast. Then the Museum für Naturkunde (somewhat traumatic: displays straight outta the 19th century, with screaming kids!). Found a place to eat lunch and another one to sit out a thunderstorm. Then visited the Zionskirche (isn't much to see...but maybe a church that takes itself seriously shouldn't be much to see?). And the Museum der Dinge (?! deserves its own post!). We had an afternoon snack at the French café across from the hotel, took a break, then went shopping for food for the train with a peek at the St.-Michael-Kirche next door. And packed. 17,547 steps.

All week we were asking ourselves whether the grey crows of Berlin were, well, crows? Or what? We decided they were East German spies because we couldn't get close enough to one to take a picture. This stuffed one at the natural history museum couldn't get away. Apparently they are Nebelkrähe, hooded crows, corvus corone cornix. They can mate with the more-familiar-to-us carrion crows (Rabenkrähe, corvus corone corone) but according to the internet, they prefer not to.

Sunday: Train from Berlin to Zurich. Which did not stop in Zurich. But we made it home! 3,400 steps.

Sigh.

More soon, I hope!