Mom had arranged for a transfer to pick us up and take us to our hotel. This was a fantastic option as we were arriving late and didn't want to brave the public transport. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the hotel and to our surprise it was a Holiday Inn! A huge step up from that damn hostel we had been staying in the past 3 nights. Kudos to mom! The only downfall was that the hotel was quite far from the main center of town, Alexanderplatz. After finally checking in and dropping our luggage off in the room we were quite hungry as we hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast earlier that morning. Downfall? It was midnight! We went down to the front desk and they tell us that the hotel restaurant is already closed and that the nearest thing that would be open was either Burger King or McDonalds, both of which we were trying to avoid. On top of that, both of these were about a 15 to 20 minute walk on foot and we weren't exactly sure where we were going. So the next option was to raid the vending machine with the few coins we had left. I opted for a bag of Lays bbq chips and mom had a granola bar. I had all of 1 of those chips and just gave up. I'm not a big bbq flavor fan and I figured if I just went to sleep the hunger would go away, so I did just that.
Next morning was time for our Fat Tour bike tour. My very last in the series of 4! We got to the meeting point a tad early and since we hadn't had any food for almost 24 hrs. we grabbed a quick snack before hopping on the bikes. Mom got a brautwurst and I got some meatballs in a "mexican" sauce with peppers and corn. It tasted like heaven, or maybe it was because I forgot what food tasted like. The meeting point for the tour was outside of the main entrance to the TV tower and it wasn't hard to miss as there was a giant crowd gathered round. By far the biggest tour group I have seen so far. There were so many of us we had to be split into 4 different groups, and each group had around 20 people in them! Our guide was Tam and he was and English guy who had been giving the tours for about a year. He was also later outed by a couple of the other tour guides as having his masters from Cambridge University, one smart cookie he was! Of course we go to most of the major sites and lots of other lesser known sites that I won't bore you with. Here are a few highlights in pictures!
This first picture is a statue (obviously) of both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles in a memorial that celebrates communism.
The famous TV Tower (East Berlin). When it's sunny outside the sun shines on the metal and forms what looks like a cross. West Berliners laughed at this and called it the Pope's Revenge. The government spent thousands trying to change the surface of the outside and never succeeded.
This next picture looks just like glass with a few shadows of people in it, but if you look closely you can see what appears to be a bookshelves. This is a memorial in the square where one of the famous Nazi book burnings took place. The empty bookshelves is to commemorate this event.
Above is the famous or infamous, should I say, Checkpoint Charlie which was a crossing point through the Berlin was from West Germany and East Germany during the Cold War.
Here we are folks, a piece of the Berlin wall that is still standing, but obviously not in use. Ironically, so many people were taking bits and pieces of the wall for souvenirs that there is now a wall (or fence) that surrounds the Berlin Wall!
This is a watch tower and I believe the only one that still remains in East Berlin. Two soldiers would be on the lookout in the tower for anyone that was trying to escape over the wall into West Berlin.
Brandenburg Gate in the background. Several embassies are in this same vicinity including the US, Sweden, Italy, and France. Finally it was time for our little lunch break and we were stopping off at a traditional German Bier Garten! This place was packed and it may have had something to do with the most amazing weather outside. We were so lucky to finally get a break from all the rain. As you can see in the above picture I had short sleeves on! Even the guides were recommending sunscreen be put on before the tour!
They already had a pre set menu for us to choose from and mom and I both chose the same thing which was Potato Soup with sausage. Which we later found out looked and tasted more like cut up hot dog weenies. But the soup was yum and the beer was even better. We both each had one and then split another. After lunch mom started looking for her car keys, haha. Good thing we were on bikes! We finished up with the tour soon after lunch, only hitting a few more stops. I of course collected my free tee since I had done all 4 of the Fat Tire Bike Tours! We asked one of the guys that was working there where we could get some good ice cream so we went walking around afterwards in search of a sweet treat. We also happened upon a mobile brautwurst girl that we thought was the most hilarious thing!
Did a little souvenir and post card shopping next. I believe mom gorged on a 3000 calorie mocha frappuccino and some sort of pastry. After the long bike ride and walking around town, we took it back to the hotel for a "short" nap, before getting back out that night. Cue 10:30pm and we finally wake from the dead! We straight passed out and since it was so late, clearly we didn't get back out. Thankfully the hotel restaurant was open this time. I got a toasted ham and cheese baguette and mom got and awesome cheese plate, and they weren't stingy with the cheese! We even brought a little of the leftovers back to the room in case we wanted to snack later.
The next day marked our last full day in Berlin, somehow we managed to sleep in although we had that super long nap the night before. We had heard about a Schloss (palace) that was over in West Berlin so we decided to go check that out. First we went into Alexanderplatz to grab a quick bite. Geez, maybe this is more like a food blog, I just realized! Anyway, we both got a braut and beer!
Now onwards to the Schloss! Isn't that a fun word to say? My mom and I kept using it in various sentences just for fun. I didn't get any pics from inside the Schloss because they were being strict and had people watching your every move, and don't think I didn't try, but I was just paranoid and ended up giving up. The outside was quite nice though and there were some beautiful gardens in the back.
Next we rode the subway back into town and got off near the area where a bunch of retail stores were. In mom's travel book it said this was one of the places not to miss. It wasn't anything to spectacular but we did run across somewhat of a religious parade that was going down the streets. People were singing, they were carrying a cross, and this girl was swinging something that had smoke coming out of it.
And of course we couldn't leave Berlin without having gone up the TV tower. I wanted to wait until night to go up, because I always think things look beautiful lit up. Thankfully the line wasn't very crowded and we only had to wait about 10 minutes. There was a bar and a restaurant at the top, neither of which we bought anything at. We circled a couple times and tried to take a few pictures.
By this time it had been awhile since we had our braut's so of course it was feeding time for the little piglets. Mom suggested a Thai restaurant she had heard about so we made our way over there. We both had a curry chicken soup and then we shared a pork dish that was plenty enough. The fun part was still to come as we had to make our way back to our hotel in the boonies via public transportation. This would normally be no big deal, but it was quite late at this point (almost midnight) and trams and subways don't run as often as they do during the day. The term "The Freaks Come Out At Night" described our journey home to the T! The German youth are a whole other breed and I wouldn't be wrong in saying that black is their favorite color...and leather, boy do they like black leather! I really would have liked to have gotten a picture of some of the people we encountered but I was afraid I would get caught and get a clunky Dr. Marten boot up my ass! After a few turnarounds on the subway we finally get to our last tram stop where all we need to do is hop on and ride a few blocks down to be right out in front of our hotel. Welp, the next one wasn't coming for another 28 minutes! And unlike the previous day's gorgeous weather it was super cold. I finally talked my mom into grabbing a cab for the few blocks and she agreed, hallelujah. The next morning was gonna be an early one. Had a train to catch down to Prague for our final leg of the trip!
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