Excuse the spelling mistakes, typing on the tablet is a pain and this this has no spell check. I've also stopped putting day number in the heading because I've lost track.
I'm going to start by saying this, i've had an amazing time in Berlin. I think i've found my travelers groove. The train from Amsterdam was something like 7 hours long. I arrive in Berlin hauptbahnhof, which is the main intercity train station, i need to catch a metro train to Friedrichstrasse a single stop to the east, which i though was easy enough. The problem is the signage at Berlin hbf is shocking, and to add to it, the train station is massive, with twenty platforms and four or five floors. After searching around for 30 minutes i ask someone and am directed to platforms 14 and 15. I finally get to the hostel at about 6 PM and can settle down. This hostel is a bit funny. it's situated in various parts of a five floor office building. The particular building i'm in has dorms on the first, second and forth floor and unrelated company offices on the third and fifth floors. The outside courtyard area is surrounded on all sides by these office blocks and in residential appartments, they mut have a fun time looking into the hostel windows.
Beer is so cheap here that this is the first time i've been sober in four days, the dynamic of this hostel makes it exceptionally easy to meet people here, with a 24 hour bar and a BBQ every day from 4 PM until 10 PM. As soon as it hits 10 PM everybody hits the town as it's been to hot to hang out inside.
Day one: I walked north, to a Berlin Wall monument and afterwards to Museum Island to checkout what they have there (SPOILER: They have Museums, crazy, I know.). While many of the pre-war buildings left standing have been repaired or patched up, you can still see bullet holes and chunks of rock missing from the pillars at the museums. That night, two Englishmen, a Swede, another aussie and I venture out at night. We find a strange alleyway pub that has an odd mechanical bat looking thing that would spring into life every 10 minutes or so to flap it's wings and carry on. we get rejected from a nightclub because we wern't waering the right clothes and find probably the smallest bar i've ever seen, not much bigger that a typical bedroom. We get back to the hostel at 5 AM.
Day 2: I move south, to Checkpoint Charlie, a still standing military checkpoint from the cold war days. Now take an ordinary busy city intersection and put a tourist attraction in the middle of it, thats what Checkpoint Charlie is, still interesting though. I head down the road from there to a museum called the Topography of Terror, it illistrates the rise to power of the Nazi's and is quite dark and depressing. I was going to head to the Jewish Museum afterwards but was pretty bummed out after the terror thing and was told the day before that Jewish Museum is similar but conciderably worse. I didnt want to come back to the hostel afterwards and have to drink the sadness away. Got back to the hostel and started drinking again anyway. That night, a brother and sister from Boston, a Brazillian and I end up in an odd indie club after getting rejected (again) from a night club for not have enough girls. Its outside drinking area is a carpark during the day.
Day 3: Decided this was going to be a quiet day. checked out the Brandenberg Gate and the Bunestag. there's a cool looking dome at the top of the Bunestag that you can climb to check the view, but it looks like it's a totally bitch to get into, requiring registation and security checks and so on. There's a Russian military memorial nearby that was cool. It's a pretty important thing for the russians, as i was leaving a just married russian couple were getting their photo's in front of it and paid their repects with flowers etc. That night ended with an Englishman, a guy from Holland, a guy from Switzerland and two girls from Ireland and I sitting in a park getting drunk, the park doesnt have a cover change and stupid entry rules.
Today is Berlin's hottest day this year, it's 36 degrees and really humid. There hasn't been a day with temps lower than 30 degrees since i landed in Paris, european buildings are not made for it and typically have no sort of aircon what so ever. Since the day is so long here it's constantly hot and you sweat from the moment you wake up. It's due to rain tomorrow and the temps will take a dive to their usual mid to low twenties. I'm thinking of seeing the Blue Man Group do what they do tonight, it's expensive but they never come to Australia so this would be the only chance i get to see them. I'm heading to Prague tomorrow morning at 10 AM
Edit: Saw the Blue Man Group last night, they were amazing.
