Its been awhile since I posted on my travel blog, but then it's been awhile since we've gone anywhere for an extended period of time. Most of the travels in between were weekend trips with the kids or family. In fact, I believe this is our first trip with just my wife and I. We felt it was time and we considered it our delayed 10th anniversary trip.
So the initial plan was to see more of Europe since most of what we've been doing have been Asia and cruises. There was an initial thought of going to see the rest of Spain because our last visit to Barcelona was amazing! Then there was also thought of driving through parts of Europe to take advantage of the EU borderless travel. Now, once I think about driving Europe, the Autobanh immediately comes to mind. I remember our last visit to Western Germany (Munich, Stuttgart, & Frankfurt) left a really good impression specifically because of the friendly people. This was about 13 years ago now so we figured it was time to go back. Also, we wanted to avoid the heat that is probably around in Spain at this time of the summer.
The first stop was Berlin and we were lucky enough to get business class on points so it made the flight much easier. We navigated to our hotel from the airport fairly easily with the U-Banh (Germany's subway system). Hotel Gat Point Charlie was a modern stylus boutique hotel that has a super central location so I do recommend staying here if you planning to come. We got in around the evening time with many things closed so we decided to check out the local Italian restaurant next door and then call it a night.
Day Two - Berlin
We had planned to get up early the next day to join a Bicycle City Tour as a quick intro to the see what Berlin has to offer. Unfortunately, jetlag got the best of us and we didn't get up till three in the afternoon. Seeing what the situation is, I didn't really let it get me down. In my normal mode, I would've felt really bad because of all the time wasted. But I think our initial mindset of having a more relaxed trip then a "cram it in, go go go" trip helped with it. We decided to go check out one of their famous shopping district. Once we got out of the subway, we saw these street guys taking bets on "guess which box is the ball in" game. It looked quite easy and the heat of the moment along with a little bit of greed got me and I placed my bets only to find out that it was a scam. If I slowed it down, I saw many signs that gave it away but I did not take heed. Janey had her spidey sense on and did not get involved and tried to stop me also. But I took the bait and it was my stupid mistake. Being in my holiday relaxed mindset, I took it with stride and saw it for what it was and did not want it to get me down. Janey wasn't happy at all though and I had to calm her down a bit. After things settled a bit, we took in what the street had to offer. For Janey, it was high end shopping. For me, it was beautiful buildings that has tons of old character, very different from our new world home of North America. Needless to say, my camera's full with photos of buildings and architectural detail.
We finished off the evening with a great meal at MAOA in the Potsdamer Platz area. (thanks to Yelp) It was a modern mongolian style restaurant & bar. The interior was quite nice and the food very delicious. It had a great patio and like most restaurants we've seen, people were mainly outside.
Day Three - Berlin
This time, we set our alarm and was up in time for our Bicycle City Tour. Although, having only slept a few hours because of jetlag, I wonder if we'll be 2 zombies around the streets of Berlin. The bike tour was a very fun experience, for me at least. I think Janey was tired and maybe exhausted from the heat near the end of it. But the tour itself was great and a super way to get a preview of all the main sites around the city. Berlin is very flat and have may bike lanes so it makes it very bicycle friendly. In fact, a lot of the locals choose that as their commute. Our tour guide was a tall skinny guy originally from California 7 years ago. He had a bit of a stutter and I can't help but see Porky Pig everytime he talked. " "Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-... That's all, folks!". Our tour went pass the anticipated 4 1/2 hours and I was thinking in my mind that it was probably his st- st- stutter.
It was a 4 1/2 hour tour but it still felt very rush. There were many buildings along the way that I wanted to take detailed photos of but didn't have the time for because I had to follow the pack. The ones that I did take a photo of, was like stop, quickly pull out the camera, shoot, and quickly ride off again. I bit of a shoot and ride. I guess thats a luxury you don't really have with guided tours. It was good though because it allowed us to preview and make a mental note of places to come back to. The Norman Foster Dome at the Parliament Building and the Halocaust Memorial and Museum were two of the those places.
Riding around in 22 degrees heat and sun makes for a sweaty and exhausting day. We decided to go back to the hotel first to rest and shower. On our way back, we stumbled upon the Volkswagen Forum. This was a building that housed all the Volkwagen AG brands (Bugatti, Bentley, Skoda, Seat, etc.) Being a car nut, I had to go in. As we looked around, we were treated to seeing a Bugatti Veyron supercar upclose. This is car has been voted best car of the decade and is the fastest car in the world with 1001 hp and an acceleration of 0-60mph in just 2.5 seconds! And the starting price, if you had the cash floating around, is 1.7 million USD. The icing on the cake is that I got to witness them having to drive one of these cars out of the showroom and into the street. Let me tell you it was a tight showroom so it was a sight to see and not one to miss video of course. There were a handful of staff guiding this car, which had to back up and out a set of double doors. There was literally only inches on each side of the door to the car. If you watch the video, you'll see that the driver was sweating buckets going through the door. With a pricetag like that, I would be too and the crowd of onlookers doesn't help. "Careful Mr. driver, careful!" Did I mention that this car is 1.7 million dollars?
After a good shower at the hotel, we decided to go and see the Holocaust Museum (officially named Memorial to the Murdered Jews). Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the Museum was just closing for the day. I felt a little bit of sadness but rejoiced in the fact that the Memorial was available all the time. So we took our time walking through the maze of concrete blocks. This memorial consists of 2711 blocks of black concrete over an open area of 19000 square meters designed by american architect Peter Eisenman. He notes this was an experiential memorial and encourages people to walk thru the maze and feel what it feels like. It has been controversial over the years for Berlin. Some say its more a public art project than a memorial to the dead. But I really loved it. I loved the architectural design of it. I loved the way it was laid out; how the gaps between the concrete blocks is only 3' to allow only one person to walk through at once. Walking through it and having these black walls of concrete tower over me as the grade drops and rises illicit a sense of loss and hopelessness. There's definitely a heaviness especially as the twilight comes near. There were other people around and many teenage kids were playing hide and go seek. But for the few moments where it was quite and no matter which direction you turned, there was no one, it brought up a common fear in me. And I think that is the intent of the architect; to have you walk through it and experience it to see what comes up for you. I'm sure for everyone it's different. For Janey, it was much brighter than what I felt. She saw a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter which direction she looked. So it was a nice perspective to take on the holocaust.
A little tidbit that our tour guide shared with us was there was a total of 11 million killed during Hitler's rule and 6 million of those were Jews. So when putting together this Museum, they were trying to think of a good way to put this in perspective because really, when you hear 6 million, it's just a number. But how do you really feel and know the magnitude of 6 million? So what they did was read every Jew's name that died in the holocaust including their birthdate and where they were from. This was put on an audio recording and they estimate that it will take 6 1/2 years for this recording to finish one of it's cycles. The museum has been open for 6 years so it has all the names of the dead have not been read through yet. Wow! That gives me so much more perspective.
As the sun start to set, we headed out to find our next restaurant to try. There was a chinese Peking Duck restaurant that was the only with a 5-star rating on Yelp so we figured it's a must try. Sadly, though, the taste was disappointing. I guess coming from Vancouver, the land of chinese cuisine, its hard not to be critical. I guess on a normal Caucasian standard, this would've been very good. But we found the food with too much, too thick of a sauce and the duck was a bit overly deep fried. Definitely more for Caucasian taste buds. But judging from the fact that we've only seen a few asians so far, I can see why. After the meal, it was a relaxing bike ride back to the hotel. Let me tell you, it is much nicer to bike in the cool evening breeze than the hot afternoon sun. Ah, so nice!
