After going to bed late we slept in again this morning and took our time getting ready. Once we were up at put together we all decided to go out for a walk. Doris took us into the nature preserve again near her place although this time we walked a different route and came upon a large enclosed pasture full of deer. They looked like caribou or reindeer in the way that they were small but had impressive, fuzzy antlers. Doris said that they weren't reindeer but something else that she didn't know the name of in english.
Anyway we watched the deer for awhile before heading back to the apartment but rather than go straight in we decided to take a walk around in her neighborhood. We found a little corner ice cream shop. Feeling adventurous I tried a double scoop of Zitron and Waldmeister. Zitron was lemon and was delicious - I love lemon ice cream and I don't understand why it isn't popular in the states. Waldmeister was unidentifiable. It may have been vanilla and lime or it may have been vanilla and irish cream, whatever it was the flavor got lost in the lemon. It looked pretty though.
After our walk and ice cream we all piled into Doris' car and headed out to meet her son Norbert and her sister Renate for dinner at a Turkish restaurant. It was a pretty good meal although there was a snafu with the ordering and I think the waiter got confused and put a plate of calamari in front of me when I thought I had ordered the curried chicken. I asked if there was some sort of mixup but no one seemed to know so I started eating it thinking it was my dinner. It turned out that Norbert had ordered the calamari in addition to his dish but wasn't sure if I had ordered it too. Stupid language barrier! I felt bad but everyone else thought it was pretty funny. Luckily I didn't eat ALL of it.
After dinner we spent a quiet evening at Doris' place because Kirsten and I had to be up the next morning at 4 to catch our flight home.
Fast forward to the next morning. Up with the sun. We sleepily say our goodbyes to Hedda and Kendra who were leaving on Wednesday and sleepily make our way to the airport. Many thank yous to Doris for driving us. I slept for the flight to Amsterdam and we made our connection to Newark there without any problems. I was surprised to see that they are still doing the additional screening and containment of passengers at the gates for all flights to the US. They have TSA agents manning metal detectors and xray machines and asking each passenger questions about their carry ons. Yes it's as inefficient and annoying as it sounds. But we did make a stop at the duty free shop to purchase a bottle to declare to customs and this time we thought Aquavit would be a good choice since we drank so much at the wedding reception and before with Roland and Susi at their place.
Our Continental flight to Newark was just as bad as it was coming. No delays this time but we did get split up again - I don't know if it's because we keep using the site like travelocity or because it was a codeshare with Lufthansa but getting split up keeps happening to us and for some reason we aren't given the opportunity to switch our seats around. I got an aisle seat with a broken tv monitor a restless infant next to me and a restless leg behind me an overactive bladder next to me and a headrest all the way down in front of me. Fortunately I had a book to read, sudoku and crosswords to do and sleep to catch up on or it would have been a completely miserable flight.
We arrived in New Jersey about 11:30, survived the severe scrutiny by our customs officials, and caught the train into the city. Since the train took me to Penn Station, I just went upstairs to work for five hours while Kirsten went home.
So that was our awesome trip to Germany! We had a great time traveling around with Hedda and Kendra as well as with Ingrid and Doris in Berlin. Also extra special thanks to Doris and Roland and Susi and their kids for putting us up, feeding us, and taking us around Hamburg, out to Heide Park, the soccer game, and to the Hofbrauhaus. Hopefully we can return the favor to you someday soon. And of course best wishes to the newlyweds, Volker and Christine who probably are not reading this since they're on their honeymoon but we hope we'll see you again soon too.
Until our next adventure. . . Prost!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Germany Day 9: White Wedding Part Zwei
Okay, so obviously we're back home now and getting caught up with our normal lives but that doesn't mean that I've forgotten about the conclusion of our German trip! Nope, far from it! So now to relate our last two days in the Hanseatic State of Hamburg:
We all slept in after our night out with Susi and Roland and then spent most of the day packing up and getting ourselves ready for the reception. After the reception, Roland and Susi along with their kids were heading off on an international journey of their own to Denmark so Kendra, Kirsten, and I would be spending our last two nights in Doris' living room.
So by three we were all dressed and loaded into the car and went over to Doris' place, dropped off our luggage and picked up Hedda and Doris and headed to the reception, which was being held at a nice banquet hall overlooking a pond somewhere south of Hamburg. The first half of the reception was standard fare. There were drinks and mingling out on the terrace before hand and then we all went inside for the dinner. Kirsten and I were seated at a table with some of Volker and Christine's english speaking friends which was nice of them, their friends were also very nice and mostly spoke in English so we could follow along even though they were not completely confident in their abilities in the language. And as the night went on our table seemed to become party central with our new German friends ordering round after round of schnapps. Mostly a liquor called Aquavit which is actually Scandanavian and has a very odd aging process. The load it up onto boats and ship it to Australia and then back. Apparently the length of time at sea and the motion of the ocean help give the liquor it's unusual flavor.
The dinner was very nice, we started with a white tomato soup with truffles followed by a main course of steak, potatoes, and vegetables in a red wine sauce, and a hazelnut mousse type dessert. One thing that was interesting was that before and after each course was served a representative from one of the tables would stand up and give a speech or toast to bride and groom and room at large.
After dinner the DJ put on her music and there was dancing and more mingling out on the terrace. At one point the Hamburger SV soccer mascot came by so everyone could get a photo with him and everyone sang the HSV Forever and Ever song. Volker and Christine also did this thing where they sat back to back with one of their shoes and one of the other person's shoes in their hands and were asked questions that they had to respond to by raising the corresponding shoe. Questions like, who is the jealous one? Who does the dishes? Who is good with money? Who is messy? Etc. If they agreed most of the time it was said that their marriage would last. Volker and Christine got a 75% so pretty good odds.
They served cake and currywurst at midnight and we finally left to go back to Hamburg at about 1:30 while the party was still going strong and got back to Doris' place an hour later. Another late night for us!
And I'm sure you're wondering, "Currywurst? What's that?" Well we've been told by quite a few people that it's the junkfood of choice in northern Germany and we had tried it in Berlin and prior to the soccer game with mixed results. The stuff in the crock pot at the reception was quite good though. Essentially it seems that it is summer sausage (or whatever the equivalent is) is cut up and stewed in hot cocktail sauce with curry powder mixed in. Now obviously there are some nuances to making good currywurst and it seems to be similar to getting a coney dog in Detroit or a slice of pizza here in New York - there are lots of places out there selling it and most aren't very good, but when you find a good place you don't go anywhere else.
We all slept in after our night out with Susi and Roland and then spent most of the day packing up and getting ourselves ready for the reception. After the reception, Roland and Susi along with their kids were heading off on an international journey of their own to Denmark so Kendra, Kirsten, and I would be spending our last two nights in Doris' living room.
So by three we were all dressed and loaded into the car and went over to Doris' place, dropped off our luggage and picked up Hedda and Doris and headed to the reception, which was being held at a nice banquet hall overlooking a pond somewhere south of Hamburg. The first half of the reception was standard fare. There were drinks and mingling out on the terrace before hand and then we all went inside for the dinner. Kirsten and I were seated at a table with some of Volker and Christine's english speaking friends which was nice of them, their friends were also very nice and mostly spoke in English so we could follow along even though they were not completely confident in their abilities in the language. And as the night went on our table seemed to become party central with our new German friends ordering round after round of schnapps. Mostly a liquor called Aquavit which is actually Scandanavian and has a very odd aging process. The load it up onto boats and ship it to Australia and then back. Apparently the length of time at sea and the motion of the ocean help give the liquor it's unusual flavor.
The dinner was very nice, we started with a white tomato soup with truffles followed by a main course of steak, potatoes, and vegetables in a red wine sauce, and a hazelnut mousse type dessert. One thing that was interesting was that before and after each course was served a representative from one of the tables would stand up and give a speech or toast to bride and groom and room at large.
After dinner the DJ put on her music and there was dancing and more mingling out on the terrace. At one point the Hamburger SV soccer mascot came by so everyone could get a photo with him and everyone sang the HSV Forever and Ever song. Volker and Christine also did this thing where they sat back to back with one of their shoes and one of the other person's shoes in their hands and were asked questions that they had to respond to by raising the corresponding shoe. Questions like, who is the jealous one? Who does the dishes? Who is good with money? Who is messy? Etc. If they agreed most of the time it was said that their marriage would last. Volker and Christine got a 75% so pretty good odds.
They served cake and currywurst at midnight and we finally left to go back to Hamburg at about 1:30 while the party was still going strong and got back to Doris' place an hour later. Another late night for us!
And I'm sure you're wondering, "Currywurst? What's that?" Well we've been told by quite a few people that it's the junkfood of choice in northern Germany and we had tried it in Berlin and prior to the soccer game with mixed results. The stuff in the crock pot at the reception was quite good though. Essentially it seems that it is summer sausage (or whatever the equivalent is) is cut up and stewed in hot cocktail sauce with curry powder mixed in. Now obviously there are some nuances to making good currywurst and it seems to be similar to getting a coney dog in Detroit or a slice of pizza here in New York - there are lots of places out there selling it and most aren't very good, but when you find a good place you don't go anywhere else.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Germany Day 8: White Wedding
Today was Volker and Christine's wedding day so we got all dressed up and drove into the city. The ceremony was being held at the Town Hall or Rathaus which was built in the late 1800s and is very ornate - equivalent to many state capitol buildings and more richly decorated than even some of those. The ceremony itself was held in a special room upstairs which has to be reserved a year in advance. Although the ceremony was in German and was fairly brief, Hedda, Doris, and Susi all explained the gist of what was said and it was all fairly standard although the officiant did take a little bit of time to explain some of the artifacts in the room. Of interest was an unexploded bomb that would have destroyed the Rathaus if it had gone off.
After the wedding and all the photos were taken, there was a champagne toast out on the plaza in front of the Rathaus followed by a brief reception at Volker and Christine's apartment. The official reception will be tomorrow.
The rest of the afternoon was spent being lazy. Roland, Kendra, and I watched Shoot Em Up - a ridiculous, over the top, action movie while Kirsten napped. Roland tried to teach me how to juggle - not successful, at least not yet, and in general we just putzed around.
Later, Roland, Susi, Kendra, Kirsten, and I went out to the Beach Club on the Elbe while Chrissi, Caro, and Karden went to stay with Susi's parents for the night. It was a nice little beach area with cabanas and a large deck with tiki torches, a bonfire, and lots of chairs and benches from which to watch the big container ships cruise up and down the river while drinking beer and eating pizza. So we did that for awhile. Then we left to go back downtown for a bit but not before I took a trip down a giant slide we found just outside the parking lot.
The drive back into the city took us through the Reeperbahn - the red light district which mostly looked touristy and a little predatory. However Roland did point out this back alley that was all walled off with a lot of neon red light coming from the other side and a huge pack of people surrounding that was for men only. The fact that it was walled off was rather creepy and disturbing. But eventually we settled for having drinks at the Hofbrauhaus - an outpost of the Munich original. Aside from Susi - who was our driver for the evening - we all ordered giant liters of beer that came in enormous mugs that at first we wanted to buy but then realized it would take a lot of bottles of beer to fill. We also ordered some sort of delicious dessert that was sort of like a coffee cake but was cut up and jumbled with some nuts and other things. So we ate our dessert, drank our beer, listened to the band play German folk music (with a few American songs thrown in) and watched some of the people around us - making up stories for them and just generally having a great time.
After our liters of beer we were feeling quite full so we drove back to the house and sat around for a bit trading stories and laughs until we finally went to bed after 2am.
After the wedding and all the photos were taken, there was a champagne toast out on the plaza in front of the Rathaus followed by a brief reception at Volker and Christine's apartment. The official reception will be tomorrow.
The rest of the afternoon was spent being lazy. Roland, Kendra, and I watched Shoot Em Up - a ridiculous, over the top, action movie while Kirsten napped. Roland tried to teach me how to juggle - not successful, at least not yet, and in general we just putzed around.
Later, Roland, Susi, Kendra, Kirsten, and I went out to the Beach Club on the Elbe while Chrissi, Caro, and Karden went to stay with Susi's parents for the night. It was a nice little beach area with cabanas and a large deck with tiki torches, a bonfire, and lots of chairs and benches from which to watch the big container ships cruise up and down the river while drinking beer and eating pizza. So we did that for awhile. Then we left to go back downtown for a bit but not before I took a trip down a giant slide we found just outside the parking lot.
The drive back into the city took us through the Reeperbahn - the red light district which mostly looked touristy and a little predatory. However Roland did point out this back alley that was all walled off with a lot of neon red light coming from the other side and a huge pack of people surrounding that was for men only. The fact that it was walled off was rather creepy and disturbing. But eventually we settled for having drinks at the Hofbrauhaus - an outpost of the Munich original. Aside from Susi - who was our driver for the evening - we all ordered giant liters of beer that came in enormous mugs that at first we wanted to buy but then realized it would take a lot of bottles of beer to fill. We also ordered some sort of delicious dessert that was sort of like a coffee cake but was cut up and jumbled with some nuts and other things. So we ate our dessert, drank our beer, listened to the band play German folk music (with a few American songs thrown in) and watched some of the people around us - making up stories for them and just generally having a great time.
After our liters of beer we were feeling quite full so we drove back to the house and sat around for a bit trading stories and laughs until we finally went to bed after 2am.
Germany Day 7: Kirsten and Kyle's Hansa Park Adventure
Today Kirsten and I woke up early and caught the train up to Lubeck where we transferred to a train to Sierksdorf to visit Hansa Park – yep, more roller coasters. Everyone else was going shopping so this seemed like a fun alternative.
The park is built on the shore of the Baltic Sea and is also very beautiful and well landscaped. We started off our day with a ride on their star attraction Fluch von Novgorod. The ride is heavily themed and there is some sort of story but it was all in German so we didn’t understand it but it was fun to see all the special effects and atmosphere. The ride itself was very cool with spook house sections going into roller coaster sections back into a spook house section, back into a roller coaster and so on. It may have been our favorite coaster of the trip which was a surprise. You also exited the ride via slide into a dark maze.
After that we went for a ride on their wild mouse which was themed to a mine and had an audio animatronic jug band entertaining the people in line, their starflyer which is a standard swing ride that you find at any park except it goes up a 200 some foot tower. We were very nervous waiting to ride this since I’m not a fan of spinning around and Kirsten isn’t a fan of high heights. It actually ended up being a lot of fun and really wasn’t too scary. We also jumped on their giant trampolines for a bit and rode their other two coasters Rasender Roland which is a mine train which was pretty good, and Nessie their old signature coaster which was showing its age a bit but was still a lot of fun and we got right back in line to ride it again, and their panoramic sky tower. After that we decided to go for one more ride on Fluch von Novgorod, check out their log flume and then head back to the train and try to spend a little time checking out Lubeck which looked very cool. Unfortunately the line for Fluch von Novgorod ended up being over an hour and the log flume took a little too long as well and we missed our train. The next train back was an hour later and by then it would be too late to see Lubeck. Oh well, something to do next time.
So we made another loop around the park but decided we were done and leisurely strolled back to the train station and made our way back to Hamburg where we had a nice barbecue out in Roland and Susi’s backyard.
The park is built on the shore of the Baltic Sea and is also very beautiful and well landscaped. We started off our day with a ride on their star attraction Fluch von Novgorod. The ride is heavily themed and there is some sort of story but it was all in German so we didn’t understand it but it was fun to see all the special effects and atmosphere. The ride itself was very cool with spook house sections going into roller coaster sections back into a spook house section, back into a roller coaster and so on. It may have been our favorite coaster of the trip which was a surprise. You also exited the ride via slide into a dark maze.
After that we went for a ride on their wild mouse which was themed to a mine and had an audio animatronic jug band entertaining the people in line, their starflyer which is a standard swing ride that you find at any park except it goes up a 200 some foot tower. We were very nervous waiting to ride this since I’m not a fan of spinning around and Kirsten isn’t a fan of high heights. It actually ended up being a lot of fun and really wasn’t too scary. We also jumped on their giant trampolines for a bit and rode their other two coasters Rasender Roland which is a mine train which was pretty good, and Nessie their old signature coaster which was showing its age a bit but was still a lot of fun and we got right back in line to ride it again, and their panoramic sky tower. After that we decided to go for one more ride on Fluch von Novgorod, check out their log flume and then head back to the train and try to spend a little time checking out Lubeck which looked very cool. Unfortunately the line for Fluch von Novgorod ended up being over an hour and the log flume took a little too long as well and we missed our train. The next train back was an hour later and by then it would be too late to see Lubeck. Oh well, something to do next time.
So we made another loop around the park but decided we were done and leisurely strolled back to the train station and made our way back to Hamburg where we had a nice barbecue out in Roland and Susi’s backyard.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Germany Day 6: All Kinds of Awesome!
In the morning Kirsten, Kendra, Hedda, Doris, and I took the ferry into Hamburg. The trip took us past all of the cargo terminals along the River Elbe where the cranes were busy loading and unloading the huge container ships. Apparently it’s one of the biggest harbors in the world and it’s crazy to think of how much goes into shipping like that, everything has to get to its destination correctly and all the ships have to be loaded in a way that they’re balanced with an appropriate center of gravity. I guess that would be industrial engineering? Maybe packaging engineers? Perhaps structural. . . I wonder who does that.
Anyhow we landed at the wharf and walked along to water until we came to the dome of the Alter Elbtunnel. Constructed in 1911 it was the first tunnel under the Elbe and features two tubes that terminate in silos or caissons that are identifiable on the shore by their domed tops. We took the stairs up and down but there are six elevators to take you to the underground level, one for passengers, one for bicyclists, and four for cars. Each of the tubes is only one lane wide with sidewalks on both sides and one tube was out of service this morning so there was a policewoman down at the bottom directing traffic. Fortunately most of the automobile traffic uses the other tunnel and we saw only a few cars come and go from this tunnel.
We didn’t walk through the tunnels but only checked out the big elevators and the portals and all that stuff within the dome before heading back up to street level. This time we headed over to the Hafen City which is an enormous urban building project on land leftover from when the cargo port moved to deeper waters. The land is enormous and consists of several islands where lots of new development is going on. The crown jewel of the area will be the Elbphilharmonie – Hamburg’s answer to the Sydney Opera House. We’ll definitely have to come back to take in a show when it’s completed. The rest of the area had a nice mix of standout architecture and infill structures that mixed well with the existing warehouses that line the canals in the area. We walked around for a good while before sitting down at a small café on a plaza where we had some deli sandwiches. Kirsten and I ended up with these meatloaf sandwiches, I’m not sure what they were called but they were pretty good.
We then parted ways with Kendra, Hedda, and Doris and walked up to the Hamburger Dom (the fair) and went in. It hadn’t quite opened yet so we were able to walk around a bit before our ride on Olympia Looping Bahn. The size of these portable rides and pavilions is staggering. I couldn’t imagine hauling all of this stuff around. They had a spook house with three levels, and a huge log flume ride. The fair also had two other roller coasters but due to time constraints I didn’t ride them.
Olympia Looping Bahn was the main attraction though. It’s the largest portable coaster in the world and can be assembled and disassembled in a few days due to Anton Schwarzkopf’s, the chief engineer, cone plug system of supporting the whole structure and large tanks of water acting as the foundation. It is also still the only coaster in the world with five vertical loops. Other coasters might go upside down more times but they usually rely on quick one-two inversions which in my opinion don’t match the loop for sheer thrill and appearance. The five loops are also laid out and colored in a way as to look like the Olympic rings when viewing the coaster from the side. And because it only stays in Germany and is never in one place for more than a few weeks, it’s a very hard roller coaster for an American to ride so it has achieved a sort of mythical status. So we rode it three times and then headed back to the S Bahn.
Oh you want to hear more about it? Well if you must know I thought it was amazing. Not number one but 95th percentile for me. Kirsten wasn’t feeling it so much for some reason although I think she was a bit alarmed by the filthy Russian carnies operating the ride who when the train returned to the station they greeted you with a gruff, “Get off!” And the shoulder harnesses have a tendency to tighten during the ride. The five loops were amazing and I was pretty apprehensive about the ride since loops tend to make me dizzy. And yes after my three rides I was feeling pretty dizzy and high from the high g-forces. However, the first drop, loop, turn, and then two more loops in a row is one of the best opening combinations I’ve experienced.
By the third ride it began to rain pretty hard so we trudged our way over to the U-Bahn and took the train from St. Pauli to Landungsbrucken then transferred to the S-1 to Othsmarchen where we met up with Roland, Susi, Kendra, and Chrissi to go to the Hamburg soccer match against Chelsea. Now granted it was a preseason exhibition game but still we were pretty excited to go to a fussbal match in Germany. We took the bus from Othsmarchen Station out to the Arena and met up with Volker and his fiancée Christine at a biergarten nearby.
The game itself was a blast, Everyone did a good job explaining all the traditions in cheering on their team and seeing as how we had tickets for the bleachers it was good to be able to participate. It was akin to sitting in the student section of a college football team that has particularly rowdy fans. Lots of noise, lots of singing together and waving flags, lots of camraderie It was a great time. And the bratwursts sold at the stadium were exceptionally good as well. Hamburg defeated Chelsea 2-1 and we all piled into the bus and headed back to the house.
Anyhow we landed at the wharf and walked along to water until we came to the dome of the Alter Elbtunnel. Constructed in 1911 it was the first tunnel under the Elbe and features two tubes that terminate in silos or caissons that are identifiable on the shore by their domed tops. We took the stairs up and down but there are six elevators to take you to the underground level, one for passengers, one for bicyclists, and four for cars. Each of the tubes is only one lane wide with sidewalks on both sides and one tube was out of service this morning so there was a policewoman down at the bottom directing traffic. Fortunately most of the automobile traffic uses the other tunnel and we saw only a few cars come and go from this tunnel.
We didn’t walk through the tunnels but only checked out the big elevators and the portals and all that stuff within the dome before heading back up to street level. This time we headed over to the Hafen City which is an enormous urban building project on land leftover from when the cargo port moved to deeper waters. The land is enormous and consists of several islands where lots of new development is going on. The crown jewel of the area will be the Elbphilharmonie – Hamburg’s answer to the Sydney Opera House. We’ll definitely have to come back to take in a show when it’s completed. The rest of the area had a nice mix of standout architecture and infill structures that mixed well with the existing warehouses that line the canals in the area. We walked around for a good while before sitting down at a small café on a plaza where we had some deli sandwiches. Kirsten and I ended up with these meatloaf sandwiches, I’m not sure what they were called but they were pretty good.
We then parted ways with Kendra, Hedda, and Doris and walked up to the Hamburger Dom (the fair) and went in. It hadn’t quite opened yet so we were able to walk around a bit before our ride on Olympia Looping Bahn. The size of these portable rides and pavilions is staggering. I couldn’t imagine hauling all of this stuff around. They had a spook house with three levels, and a huge log flume ride. The fair also had two other roller coasters but due to time constraints I didn’t ride them.
Olympia Looping Bahn was the main attraction though. It’s the largest portable coaster in the world and can be assembled and disassembled in a few days due to Anton Schwarzkopf’s, the chief engineer, cone plug system of supporting the whole structure and large tanks of water acting as the foundation. It is also still the only coaster in the world with five vertical loops. Other coasters might go upside down more times but they usually rely on quick one-two inversions which in my opinion don’t match the loop for sheer thrill and appearance. The five loops are also laid out and colored in a way as to look like the Olympic rings when viewing the coaster from the side. And because it only stays in Germany and is never in one place for more than a few weeks, it’s a very hard roller coaster for an American to ride so it has achieved a sort of mythical status. So we rode it three times and then headed back to the S Bahn.
Oh you want to hear more about it? Well if you must know I thought it was amazing. Not number one but 95th percentile for me. Kirsten wasn’t feeling it so much for some reason although I think she was a bit alarmed by the filthy Russian carnies operating the ride who when the train returned to the station they greeted you with a gruff, “Get off!” And the shoulder harnesses have a tendency to tighten during the ride. The five loops were amazing and I was pretty apprehensive about the ride since loops tend to make me dizzy. And yes after my three rides I was feeling pretty dizzy and high from the high g-forces. However, the first drop, loop, turn, and then two more loops in a row is one of the best opening combinations I’ve experienced.
By the third ride it began to rain pretty hard so we trudged our way over to the U-Bahn and took the train from St. Pauli to Landungsbrucken then transferred to the S-1 to Othsmarchen where we met up with Roland, Susi, Kendra, and Chrissi to go to the Hamburg soccer match against Chelsea. Now granted it was a preseason exhibition game but still we were pretty excited to go to a fussbal match in Germany. We took the bus from Othsmarchen Station out to the Arena and met up with Volker and his fiancée Christine at a biergarten nearby.
The game itself was a blast, Everyone did a good job explaining all the traditions in cheering on their team and seeing as how we had tickets for the bleachers it was good to be able to participate. It was akin to sitting in the student section of a college football team that has particularly rowdy fans. Lots of noise, lots of singing together and waving flags, lots of camraderie It was a great time. And the bratwursts sold at the stadium were exceptionally good as well. Hamburg defeated Chelsea 2-1 and we all piled into the bus and headed back to the house.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Germany Day 6: Triple Colossos
Today was our trip out to Heide Park, an amusement park an hour south of Hamburg. Roland, Susi, Chrissi, Caro, Kendra, Kirsten, and I met up with Doris' other son Volker, the one getting married on Friday and rode out there. This was our first experience on the German Autobahn and all of the stories about it are true. At times the traffic moved very, very schnell. It's truly a testament to German engineering that the cars and highway can routinely operate at that speed. I know ol' Bernie back at home would shake himself to pieces if I ever attempted that. And the highway etiquette was very impressive as well. No one got in the left most lane unless they really meant it and they accelerated enough to get back out. There was no one cruising in the left lane at ten miles below the speed limit yakking on a cell phone for sure.
So anyway, Heide Park was amazingly beautiful. You have to go to Disney World or Universal Studios to see the level of detailing in the states that they have. All of the grounds and rides were so immaculate and so richly decorated and appointed. Clearly Heide Park values quality over quantity (ahem, Six Flags).
Volker and I kicked things off with a ride on their Drop Tower called Scream which had a pirate theme while the rest of our party looked on. Then after that we all piled onto their bobsled coaster which was pretty tame but quite long and had some great curves. This was Kendra's first coaster since she was in college but she enjoyed it.
So naturally we went to their biggest coaster next, Colossos. It's one of the new breed of precision built wooden coasters and was a precursor to my favorite, El Toro. The line was already at ninety minutes at this point so we decided to plunk down nine euro and get three skip the line passes for their most popular rides. Once we were up in the station, Kendra and I paired up for the front seat.
And the verdict: Kendra thought it was a ton of fun. . . but once was enough. I loved it! Granted it wasn't as good as El Toro but easily a 90th percentile ride. Is that nerdy enough for you?
After that we went for a spin on Grottenblitz - their mine train coaster with wild horses engaging in combat, Mountain Rafting - their whitewater rafting ride, Wildwasser Bahn - their log ride, Big Loop - their looping coaster, a gentle boat ride through a garden and then back in time to see some cavemen, and also a stop at their biergarten for some beer and pretzels. Finally their other big ticket ride, Desert Race, opened after having some mechanical problems.
Desert Race is one of those rocket coasters that accelerate from a standstill to a high speed in a very short amount of time using cables, winches, and the power of hydraulics. Usually these rides accelerate and then go straight up but this one made a hard turn to the right and proceeded to do a series of high speed figure eights before abruptly hitting the brakes. This one was also a solid ride - a little short as the rocket coasters tend to be but still a whole lot of fun and one of the better ones I've been on. I really liked the fast turn after the launch.
We ended the day with another ride on Colossos (I actually went twice with three times total) and a spin on their other log flume which had a mine theme. Chrissi, Caro, Volker, and I also took a ride on their pirate themed splash battle ride where you go around this obstacle course in these large boats. Everyone on board has a hand crank powered water gun as do people on other boats as well as people walking by the attraction. Everyone is spraying everyone else with water without mercy for at least five minutes and needless to say we all got completely soaked.
After that we all headed back to Hamburg and a delicious meal of leftover wiener schnitzel. I'm seriously going to have to make it! The rest of the evening was spent hanging around relaxing after the long day at the park.
So anyway, Heide Park was amazingly beautiful. You have to go to Disney World or Universal Studios to see the level of detailing in the states that they have. All of the grounds and rides were so immaculate and so richly decorated and appointed. Clearly Heide Park values quality over quantity (ahem, Six Flags).
Volker and I kicked things off with a ride on their Drop Tower called Scream which had a pirate theme while the rest of our party looked on. Then after that we all piled onto their bobsled coaster which was pretty tame but quite long and had some great curves. This was Kendra's first coaster since she was in college but she enjoyed it.
So naturally we went to their biggest coaster next, Colossos. It's one of the new breed of precision built wooden coasters and was a precursor to my favorite, El Toro. The line was already at ninety minutes at this point so we decided to plunk down nine euro and get three skip the line passes for their most popular rides. Once we were up in the station, Kendra and I paired up for the front seat.
And the verdict: Kendra thought it was a ton of fun. . . but once was enough. I loved it! Granted it wasn't as good as El Toro but easily a 90th percentile ride. Is that nerdy enough for you?
After that we went for a spin on Grottenblitz - their mine train coaster with wild horses engaging in combat, Mountain Rafting - their whitewater rafting ride, Wildwasser Bahn - their log ride, Big Loop - their looping coaster, a gentle boat ride through a garden and then back in time to see some cavemen, and also a stop at their biergarten for some beer and pretzels. Finally their other big ticket ride, Desert Race, opened after having some mechanical problems.
Desert Race is one of those rocket coasters that accelerate from a standstill to a high speed in a very short amount of time using cables, winches, and the power of hydraulics. Usually these rides accelerate and then go straight up but this one made a hard turn to the right and proceeded to do a series of high speed figure eights before abruptly hitting the brakes. This one was also a solid ride - a little short as the rocket coasters tend to be but still a whole lot of fun and one of the better ones I've been on. I really liked the fast turn after the launch.
We ended the day with another ride on Colossos (I actually went twice with three times total) and a spin on their other log flume which had a mine theme. Chrissi, Caro, Volker, and I also took a ride on their pirate themed splash battle ride where you go around this obstacle course in these large boats. Everyone on board has a hand crank powered water gun as do people on other boats as well as people walking by the attraction. Everyone is spraying everyone else with water without mercy for at least five minutes and needless to say we all got completely soaked.
After that we all headed back to Hamburg and a delicious meal of leftover wiener schnitzel. I'm seriously going to have to make it! The rest of the evening was spent hanging around relaxing after the long day at the park.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Germany Day 5: Hamburg From the Water and Air
Paragraph 1 of Day 5: We slept in and had a leisurely breakfast and it was great.
Paragraph 2 of Day 5: Doris, Hedda, Kendra, Kirsten, and I all went into Hamburg with hopes of taking a tour of the Alster Lake which forms the northern boundary of the central city and has many large houses all around it and of the canals which criss-cross the southern part of the central city before reaching the Elbe River. Unfortunately we didn’t get there in time so we had to go with the less popular tour of the canals north of the Alster Lake which wind their ways through the backyards of very opulent houses and apartments. It was neat at first especially going across the Alster with the skyline all around us but eventually it just became a pleasant boat ride as the houses started to look the same. But still, the name of the game was relaxation today so it was nice to sit for a couple hours on a boat and enjoy each others company without running about.
Prior to getting on the boat we had a little bit of time to kill so we strolled about the central area – mainly searching for camera batteries. It was very bustling with people rushing around. It strangely seemed busier than Berlin even though Hamburg is just a bit over half the size. Perhaps it’s because we visited Berlin on a weekend and today was Monday and near lunch hour. Anyway, there were a lot of people about. Not so many bicyclists but just as many dogs as in Berlin.
The dogs here in Germany are so well behaved that leashes seem to be an afterthought. It seems that two times out of five a dog will be off his leash and will be contentedly walking alongside it’s owner without any problems of running around. I don’t think I’ve known any dogs that could be trusted off a leash in a busy urban setting like that so we decided that it was clear that dogs understand German. I mean a whole European country can’t be better dog handlers than I and everyone I know, can they?
After our boat tour we made a beeline for St. Michaelis church to see the inside and check out the view from the top of the bell tower. The church itself dates back to the mid 1600s but has had a few fires and the current building was actually completed in the early 1900s. It is a huge and very bright and airy church. The windows are all clear glass and the walls and ceilings are all painted a simple white or pastel blue. The result is a very cheerful church but still managing to be humbling with its size and beauty. There were a few items that were saved from the previous churches but most of it was from the 1900s.
The view from the top was amazing, you could see that Hamburg is a very low profile city and the skyline is still dominated by church steeples, which was neat to see in a city of nearly two million. We took some great photos and I drooled over the Olympia Looping Bahn roller coaster operating in the distance at the Hamburger Dom. I’ll be hitting that come Wednesday. Hopefully twice! It’s only the holy grail of us American roller coaster nuts.
Kendra, Kirsten, and I took the stairs down and got to see the apparatus that controlled the hands on the clocks and the chime and were amazed that it was just a system of gears, ratchets, and cables. All of which were controlled by a simple pendulum. The whole shebang was stamped 1911 – those Germans and their engineering. . . Completely awesome! We also walked past the swinging bells that play on Sundays and were astounded at how big they were. They were controlled by modern electric motors and rubber belts but I could imagine actually bell ringers jumping up and down on ropes back in the day.
After finally leaving St. Michaelis we hustled back to Roland and Susi’s home for a delicious Wiener Schnitzel dinner. Susi taught Kendra and I how to make it and we’re soooo going to attempt it when we get back. Just delicious!
It was a very relaxing day which is just what we needed after hustling around Berlin for the weekend and a full day at Heide Park tomorrow. Auf Wedersehen for now.
Paragraph 2 of Day 5: Doris, Hedda, Kendra, Kirsten, and I all went into Hamburg with hopes of taking a tour of the Alster Lake which forms the northern boundary of the central city and has many large houses all around it and of the canals which criss-cross the southern part of the central city before reaching the Elbe River. Unfortunately we didn’t get there in time so we had to go with the less popular tour of the canals north of the Alster Lake which wind their ways through the backyards of very opulent houses and apartments. It was neat at first especially going across the Alster with the skyline all around us but eventually it just became a pleasant boat ride as the houses started to look the same. But still, the name of the game was relaxation today so it was nice to sit for a couple hours on a boat and enjoy each others company without running about.
Prior to getting on the boat we had a little bit of time to kill so we strolled about the central area – mainly searching for camera batteries. It was very bustling with people rushing around. It strangely seemed busier than Berlin even though Hamburg is just a bit over half the size. Perhaps it’s because we visited Berlin on a weekend and today was Monday and near lunch hour. Anyway, there were a lot of people about. Not so many bicyclists but just as many dogs as in Berlin.
The dogs here in Germany are so well behaved that leashes seem to be an afterthought. It seems that two times out of five a dog will be off his leash and will be contentedly walking alongside it’s owner without any problems of running around. I don’t think I’ve known any dogs that could be trusted off a leash in a busy urban setting like that so we decided that it was clear that dogs understand German. I mean a whole European country can’t be better dog handlers than I and everyone I know, can they?
After our boat tour we made a beeline for St. Michaelis church to see the inside and check out the view from the top of the bell tower. The church itself dates back to the mid 1600s but has had a few fires and the current building was actually completed in the early 1900s. It is a huge and very bright and airy church. The windows are all clear glass and the walls and ceilings are all painted a simple white or pastel blue. The result is a very cheerful church but still managing to be humbling with its size and beauty. There were a few items that were saved from the previous churches but most of it was from the 1900s.
The view from the top was amazing, you could see that Hamburg is a very low profile city and the skyline is still dominated by church steeples, which was neat to see in a city of nearly two million. We took some great photos and I drooled over the Olympia Looping Bahn roller coaster operating in the distance at the Hamburger Dom. I’ll be hitting that come Wednesday. Hopefully twice! It’s only the holy grail of us American roller coaster nuts.
Kendra, Kirsten, and I took the stairs down and got to see the apparatus that controlled the hands on the clocks and the chime and were amazed that it was just a system of gears, ratchets, and cables. All of which were controlled by a simple pendulum. The whole shebang was stamped 1911 – those Germans and their engineering. . . Completely awesome! We also walked past the swinging bells that play on Sundays and were astounded at how big they were. They were controlled by modern electric motors and rubber belts but I could imagine actually bell ringers jumping up and down on ropes back in the day.
After finally leaving St. Michaelis we hustled back to Roland and Susi’s home for a delicious Wiener Schnitzel dinner. Susi taught Kendra and I how to make it and we’re soooo going to attempt it when we get back. Just delicious!
It was a very relaxing day which is just what we needed after hustling around Berlin for the weekend and a full day at Heide Park tomorrow. Auf Wedersehen for now.
Germany Day 4: Palatial Living
Another restful night spent being rocked to sleep on the Spree River and another beautiful Berlin morning. A coda for last night: it seems that the crowds that we encountered so late were people going to see a famous German techno music artist who was putting on a show in some performance space. It was a good turnout!
We checked out of the hostel and hauled our bags off to the S-Bahn stop but not before getting some German pastries for the road. I picked up a giant jelly donut that was delicious and satisfied three of us for a quick breakfast. We ditched our bags in a locker at the Zoo train stop which is a very major stop on the train system and continued on our way to Charlottenburg Palace.
The palace was built as a summer home for Sophie Charlotte and her husband Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg who became King Friedrich I of Prussia. The two were eventual grandparents of Frederick the Great.
During World War II the palace suffered quite a bit of damage so a great deal of it has been restored rather than being original but most of the restoration was superbly done and at times it’s difficult to determine what is original and what wasn’t. The guidebook that we had said that the palace wasn’t much if you’ve seen others but being that I hadn’t it was plenty impressive to me! There was so much gold leaf and expensive chandeliers and damask wallpaper. Sophie Charlotte also had a very impressive and extensive ceramics collection that was interestingly displayed in some rooms.
After a lunch in the palace café (complete with a very talented violinist), we had a very nice long walk through the palace grounds and toured the outbuildings such as the mausoleum and the belvedere. It was especially nice that the grounds were open to the public as everyone in the surrounding area were out bicycling through or walking or jogging or just enjoying the day. It made the place very warm and pleasant.
We stopped in a little Italian sidewalk café on our way back to the train station for ice cream before our train ride back to Hamburg. We parted ways with Ingrid and made our way back down to the platform of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof and caught the regular train, no ICE this time, back to Hamburg. Roland and Susi’s daughter Carolin (Caro for short) met us at the train station and drove us back to the family home and the rest of the night was spent getting to know everyone including Susi’s older son Christoph (Chrissi for short).
From here on out we’re hanging out in Hamburg. Tune in tomorrow for some Hanseatic adventures!
We checked out of the hostel and hauled our bags off to the S-Bahn stop but not before getting some German pastries for the road. I picked up a giant jelly donut that was delicious and satisfied three of us for a quick breakfast. We ditched our bags in a locker at the Zoo train stop which is a very major stop on the train system and continued on our way to Charlottenburg Palace.
The palace was built as a summer home for Sophie Charlotte and her husband Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg who became King Friedrich I of Prussia. The two were eventual grandparents of Frederick the Great.
During World War II the palace suffered quite a bit of damage so a great deal of it has been restored rather than being original but most of the restoration was superbly done and at times it’s difficult to determine what is original and what wasn’t. The guidebook that we had said that the palace wasn’t much if you’ve seen others but being that I hadn’t it was plenty impressive to me! There was so much gold leaf and expensive chandeliers and damask wallpaper. Sophie Charlotte also had a very impressive and extensive ceramics collection that was interestingly displayed in some rooms.
After a lunch in the palace café (complete with a very talented violinist), we had a very nice long walk through the palace grounds and toured the outbuildings such as the mausoleum and the belvedere. It was especially nice that the grounds were open to the public as everyone in the surrounding area were out bicycling through or walking or jogging or just enjoying the day. It made the place very warm and pleasant.
We stopped in a little Italian sidewalk café on our way back to the train station for ice cream before our train ride back to Hamburg. We parted ways with Ingrid and made our way back down to the platform of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof and caught the regular train, no ICE this time, back to Hamburg. Roland and Susi’s daughter Carolin (Caro for short) met us at the train station and drove us back to the family home and the rest of the night was spent getting to know everyone including Susi’s older son Christoph (Chrissi for short).
From here on out we’re hanging out in Hamburg. Tune in tomorrow for some Hanseatic adventures!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Germany Day 3: Yer Mom's a German Day
We got up early this morning to get up to the Reichstag before the crowds got there – but unfortunately we didn’t beat them and when we walked around the corner we were greeted by the sight of dozens of tour buses parked along the street and a line three times longer than we saw yesterday. So we got burned there but we decided to stick it out and wait. It ended up being about an hour and a half before we were through security but while we were waiting we were entertained by a troupe of puppeteers controlling a giant man who walked through the crowd hamming it up and doing various gymnastics.
Finally we made it into the Reichstag which as I said earlier is Germany’s current capitol building. The actual building has stood on this spot for a very long time but was burned to a shell at the outbreak of World War II. Actually there is quite a bit of political intrigue there but I won’t go into that (see more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire). It sat abandoned throughout the Cold War with the wall running directly behind it. Eventually it was remodeled by architect Norman Foster into the amazing building that it is today. The biggest tourist attraction here is the great glass dome that replaced the old cupola that was lost during the fire. Two ramps spiral up the inside of the all glass dome around a giant cone made of mirrors that direct sunlight into the assembly room below. The dome is also completely open so it also creates a convection current that naturally cools the assembly chambers without any need for air conditioning. Also the view from the ramps and the top of the roof of the surrounding area is spectacular.
Leaving the Reichstag we walked up Ebert Strasse Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe– a brilliantly done public space. The land gently undulates in a bowl shaped depression laid over with cobblestones while a grid of large monoliths is overlaid that with each one having a different height such that the tallest monoliths are approximately at the deepest part of the depression. So as you walk into the forest of monoliths it becomes more and more like a disorienting labyrinth. I say it’s brilliant as a public space because it’s a thoughtful memorial without being too stern and it’s large enough so that kids can play in the space without disturbing people who are there looking for thoughtful introspection.
After that we continued down Ebert Strasse to Potsdamer Platz which has become sort of the Times Square of Berlin. The architecture is very bold and modern however it acted like a black hole and we were sucked in for what seemed like four hours having lunch and dessert in two separate places in what was basically a mall. It’s very heavily commercialized in the American/Western style and the context is quite jarring from the rest of Berlin which is fairly laid back for being such a large city. We finally left the area in various levels of irritability which eventually subsided as we got back into the more realistic parts of the city.
From Potsdamer Platz we walked toward Checkpoint Charlie with a short detour to see the ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof train station which suffered severe bombing during the war. Actually, now it is just the entrance that remains but it was still neat to see and in the middle of a Bauhaus style neighborhood. Checkpoint Charlie was incredibly tacky and we didn’t stay longer than the time it took to take a picture of the McDonalds looming over the little guard shack and grimace at the I Heart CPC t-shirts.
Instead we retraced our steps to the Topography of Terror museum of the holocaust. It was located at the former headquarters of the SS and was left as rubble with a portion of the wall and a small but very nice museum in a modern building. The museum was very moving and difficult to stomach but educational.
We had quite a bit of time until our dinner reservations but didn’t quite feel like going back to the boat so we ended up sitting at a café in the Gendarmen Markt between the French Cathedral and the German Cathedral – yes, those are their real names. Hedda had a Berliner Weiss which was sort of a watermelon or sour apple flavored beer that was a deep emerald green. It was not popular among our group. While we were sitting there a string quartet began playing by the fountain in the plaza and a bachelor party rolled by on a bar where each bar stool had a set of bicycle pedals so the party could pedal around the city and drink at the same time. The bartender was also the driver but everyone had to pedal (and sing drinking songs at the top of their lungs). It looked like a ridiculous amount of fun. We also taught Hedda and Doris the fun of Yer Mom jokes.
Dinner was at a Moroccan place called Kasbah that was in the northern part of the city that used to be more of a Jewish quarter but is now very international. It too was a very good dinner in a very nice atmosphere. The food itself was a bit too salty for our tastes but was still very good.
We ended the evening with a quick trip to the top of Fernsehturm, the Berlin version of the observation deck on top of a television transmitter that are always a lot of fun to go up into. The tower is most famous for it’s “Pope’s Revenge”. The story goes that the East German government made it illegal for churches to have crosses on their steeples and so as construction was completed on the Fernsehturm, which features a spherical observation pod covered with a faceted mirrored surface it became apparent that when the sun shone directly on the tower it would reflect off the mirrors – in the shape of a giant cross - and on the tallest structure in East Germany no less!
We returned to the boat and found our little neighborhood was jumping with revelers even though there really weren’t too many bars in our immediate vicinity. Even the bar on the top deck of our boat was alive with dancing people. Most of our group went directly to bed but Kendra and I decided to venture out for one last German beer before calling it a night. We crossed over the river again to a cluster of nice, sophisticated bars that we had noticed the night before and along the way we discovered the epicenter of all the revelry. We couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on but people were lined up around the block – well after midnight – to get into this nondescript looking group of buildings. But the bar we went to was nice, we sat outside and watched all the bicyclers still whizzing about even though it was so late. Those Berliners sure like their bicycles, they were everywhere! We returned to the boat after one drink feeling more relaxed and ready for sleep. Our final day in Berlin will be up tomorrow!
Germany Day 2: Sunny Day in Berlin
We woke up early from a very restful night courtesy of Roland and Susi and met up with Doris and Hedda to make our way to the main train station in Hamburg for our train to Berlin. Doris got us advance tickets on the ICE – Germany’s high speed rail although the corridor between Hamburg in Berlin is too short for the trains to really get up to top speed. Still, they were a very comfortable ride and they look cool. The northern German countryside looks a lot like the Midwest of the US – lots of agriculture plus big windfarms.
Upon arrival to the Hauptbahnhof of Berlin we caught the subway/elevated train over to the east side where we were staying in a hostel boat docked on the Spree River just on the other side of one of the longest remaining stretches of the wall in the city which is now used as a canvas for graffiti style art. Ingrid was waiting there for us when we arrived and waited for us to throw our bags in our rooms and get checked in.
From there the six of us retraced our steps back to the local station and retraced our tracks back to the center of town. We decided on a nice little pizza place in the Hackeser Markt area which was pretty good and quite affordable. I tried the local specialty drink of mixing the typical north German pilsner beer with sprite or some similar fruit soda. We all agreed that initially it was quite tasty but after awhile it seemed to just take away from the beer flavor. We got caught a couple more times with the beer – sprite mixture before we figured out what to avoid. I’m glad that we tried it though because we had heard about it from others.
Freshly fueled we finally made our way out into Berlin which was an amazing and modern city. Because of bomb damage during the war and then cultural damage during the communist days there has been quite a lot of development since the fall of the wall. The result is quite pleasant with very old buildings sitting next door to restored buildings that had been partially damaged sitting next to brand new buildings that architecturally sympathetic to their surroundings but still have an identity of their own. Our first stop as we crossed the Spree onto what the Berliners call Museum Island was the giant Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral). We had just missed the tour so we didn’t get a chance to go in but the outside was amazing and vastly different than the grand churches we’ve seen in Paris and London. Mainly because of the enormous dome on top and the fact that the German churches seem to be more square shaped than following the cruciform plan of the traditional catholic churches.
Crossing back over the Spree we followed the main street through Berlin which has several names but goes by Unter den Linden for this, its most famous stretch. The roadbed dates back to the mid 1600s and gets its name for the Linden trees that are planted along the road and the promenade down the middle. Walking down this street takes you past several important buildings in Berlin as well as Humboldt University which we found out later was the alma mater of Marx, Lenin, the brothers Grimm, and Einstein.
Unter den Linden ends at the Brandenburg Gate made famous to Americans by JFK and his famous speech, Reagan and his famous speech, and several videos on MTV by the Scorpions and Jesus Jones. I was actually surprised at its size, for such an important landmark in European and even world history the gate is quite diminutive. Size notwithstanding it was awe inspiring to be standing in the shadow of something that had witnessed so much history in so many lifetimes.
So that was pretty cool.
Crossing through the gate we stepped over a cobblestone line in the sidewalk which marked the former site of the wall. For those keeping track for historical purposes, we were now leaving East Berlin and going into the west. In front of us was the Tiegarten, which is Berlin’s central park as well as the Reichstag which is now the center of German government after witnessing quite a bit of history itself. We decided the line to get in was a bit too long for our liking so we decided to return tomorrow morning so more about the Reichstag tomorrow.
Don’t look at me that way, there’s other crazy stuff ahead!
Like fer’instance we decided to walk through the Tiegarten to the other side where there was a lake and a little café that Ingrid either remembered or had heard about and as we were walking through the park a completely naked man walked out of the trees and laid down in the grass. See, that’s pretty crazy right? Continuing further into the park there were many more naked man encounters. It seems that naked sunbathing is something to do in the parks in Berlin. The park itself was very leafy and wild, no sign of formal gardens or paved paths. There were a few footbridges and we did discover a couple playgrounds but for the most part, the park was entirely wooded with a few meadows interspersed for pick up games of soccer or naked sunbathing.
After our little coffee and beer break at the café by the lake we walked out of the park and onto Kurfurstendamm which was the main drag for West Berlin when the city was divided. Now it’s mostly a typical commercial artery with a lot of tourist schlock. We did stop by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial which was the bombed out ruins of a church with another modern church nearby entirely composed of small blue stained glass windows. It would have been a very cool little memorial but the all the vendors crowding around the outside spoiled the mood.
From here we returned to our little hostel boat and freshened up for dinner. Ingrid had made us reservations at a Turkish place called Deneb which was across the river from our hostel in the area called Kreuzberg. It was a fairly lengthy walk but we got to see a lot of different facets of Berlin and the bridge we walked across to get to the other bank of the Spree was very cool and Baroque. The dinner was superb and we got to eat outside right on the sidewalk so we could watch the people going by and the river flowing past.
Later when we returned to the boat, Kirsten, Kendra, Hedda, and I all went up to the top deck bar for a nightcap and a lot of laughs. It was a solid first day in Berlin and we had a great time!
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