Long Weekend in Berlin

So I took Saturday off and had a 3 day weekend in Berlin, Germany. As you know, I left directly from work on Friday and headed to the Airport where I made my last update. My plane arrived on time and I was landing in Berlin by 8pm. Like Paris, Berlin has it's own train system but it's a mostly over ground system which is less interconnected then the Paris Metro. It also uses tickets but no one ever checks them and I probably could have gone the whole weekend without paying once. I stumbled my way through the system to my hostel and got to sleep so I could start my adventure early the next day. I woke up at 9am and went to the Berlin Hard Rock Cafe to pick up my "Berlin Pass" which provided me with 3 all day bus/train passes, a free hop-on hop-off bus ticket, a museum pass, and the Berlin pass which provided me access to over 50 different museums and attractions.

I chose to use my first day to ride the bus around and see the city. The bus had live commentary in both German and English which led to some very different views of the city. Some commentators were funny and witty others were very
informative giving specific dates and numbers and some were formulaic like they were reading from script. It was very interesting to hear all the different takes on the city.

 One of the things I found very interesting was the combination of old and new, like here with the Berlin TV tower standing above the Rotes Rathaus building. A lot of the city was destroyed during WW2 and the East and West sides were built up differently and some buildings were rebuilt from original plans but others were built with new (modern) building in mind. It leads to a very interesting city.

This building is a big carillon in the middle of Diplomat Park where a lot of the foreign embassies are.

 

On day 2 I decided to spend the day in museums.

I woke up at 8am so I could get to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum nice and early. They have a whole set up with a new checkpoint station and tourists blocking traffic so they can pay 2euro just to take a picture with these guys dressed up as US army men (though I'm pretty sure they're Germans). I also ate at the McDonalds you see in the background and I can say that the Germans make much better McDonalds food than the French and they give you nice big .5L drinks with refills.

Then I visited the Jewish History Museum which was designed by the same architect that's now designing "The Freedom Tower" in New York city. I gotta say Jewish history is depressing. They were oppressed in this century, then kicked out in that century, then were second class citizens in the next century and then there was the Holocaust which was really just the depressing tip on the Jewish iceberg.

The last museum I visited was the German Technology Museum which was filled with boats, trains, and planes from all eras of German history.

 I finished up my day by taking a boat tour along the river where you could see a lot of museums on museum island and some other interesting buildings.

My final day in Berlin I visited the Museum Island which has about 5 museums on it but 2 were closed on Mondays.

I managed to visit two of the Museums before my feet finally gave out and I decided to head to the airport. Interesting note, the Museum Pass that you can purchase at any of the museums (I got mine with the Berlin Pass) can get you into any of the museums on the island for three days. It does not, unfortunately, work at any of the museums NEAR the island such as the DDR Museum or the German History Museum which are both about a block away.


I caught my flight back to Paris which landed about 45mins later then scheduled and caught an entirely different train home then I got to the airport (and took three times as long) and got back to my apartment at about 12:40 in the morning. Knowing I had to be up at 6am I promptly fell into bed without eating or showering or unpacking. It was a fun trip and I really wish I had had more time. If/when I come back to Europe Germany is where I'm headed.