I've pretty much gotten use to the boredom of long train rides and usually the scenery is engaging enough. But the train from Frankfurt to Berlin was FULL of teenagers. Ugh, the only thing worse than small groups of teenagers is large groups, especially when you are trapped in a small space with them. I wanted to change seats when I saw this group come into the car, but all the other cars I surveyed were the same. It seemed like they were different teams of some sort coming from a competition because some groups were wearing identical t-shirts. The strangest part actually was that they were blasting Ray Charles...?
Berlin train station is huge.
Sunday we arrived in Berlin, checked into the hotel and quickly headed to the Pergamon Museum on "Museum Island." It's not like Fantasy Island. The Pergamon was quite impressive, but they have closed half the museum with the Ishtar Gate for restoration was really disappointing. There were some angry comments from previous visitors in the guest book, let me tell you.
My dad has twice so far recomended to service people we've encountered that they go to UCLA. One was a tall front clerk at the Frankfurt hotel who my dad thinks should play basketball at UCLA. The other was our waitress at dinner near the Pergamon Museum who had graduated university and was looking to go back to school ... "UCLA!" In my opinion both people were confused by the suggestion.
The waitress at the restaurant asked us where we were from. Los Angeles. "Oh, L.A. But people from LA are superficial. You don't seem superficial." Hmmm. She also gave us a hard time about not speaking German when we are part German. I don't think she understood how many generations away we are from the Germany immigrant ancestors that to America. "I'm from the Czech Republic and I speak Czech and German, and my children will speak both." Good to know, ma'am.
There are so many Dunkin' Donuts outlets here. What a weird chain to export.
Dad and I tried 3 times to get inside the Reichstag (German parliament building) but each time there was a long time. Monday, we walked all over East German from the Brandenburg Gate/Pariser Platz along the Under den Linden to Alexanderplatz, then saw the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It was a long day but there's nothing that makes history come alive like visiting the place where it happened. The contrast of standing on Pariser Platz looking at where Nazi flags used to hang on the Brandenburg Gate, then looking over and seeing a Starbucks gives you some whiplash.
For dinner we had insanely delicious and cheap Indian food at a place near our pension.
Tuesday, we went to the Alte Museum, and then the Altes Museum (old and older museums), then walked around the Potsdamer Platz, where we found a fantastic little Italian restaurant, with an owner who had worked in San Diego, then married a German. When we saw "ravioli with goat cheese," we were in. After lunch, we walked through it hideously modern Sony Center, then more art at the Gemäldegalerie.
It was time to do some laundry, and on the advice of RS headed five blocks west of our pension. But what was this? The address RS gave housed a grocery store. In fairness, addresses in Berlin do not follow any clear logic, but still. We walked in, found a few bananas to buy and asked the cashier if she spoke English? No. "Okay, laundrette near here? ... place to wash clothes?" As luck had it, there was a woman standing in line behind us who near where we could find a laundromat up the street a few blocks and her directions were great. We arrived, loaded up our clothes in the machines ... and who arrived but that same woman and her friends. My dad asked where she learned to speak English so well and she said cartoons! TV saves us again.
Overheard at the Pension Peters: the morning hotel clerk, Daisy, was talking to a guest about Rick Steves' book (Pension Peters is a RS recommended pension). Daisy said that Rick had come to Pension Peters just last year that he was "very down-to-earth, not at all snobby."
