July 6, 2006
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Using My 2GBs of Pictures: Berlin
Next up is Berlin, which was first on our little European tour of January 2006. This was my first time in Europe, and after all the disorder of Turkey, it was such a welcome shock to find this oasis of order and efficiency. After we arrived, we bought our train tickets, got to the train station and found absolutely no one to take our tickets. The train arrived, we got on, still nobody shows. After we'd gotten off the train, we figured it out. It was an honor system. The Berlin train system uses roving ticket inspectors to check your tickets on trains. So theoretically, you can hop on any train without paying anything and have a decent shot at getting a free ride. In the three days we spent there, we must have gotten on about 25 different trains before we met up with one of the roving inspectors. Ok, so you might think, what an inefficient and potentially expensive system. But see, I was coming from the wilds of Turkey. The only thought that went through my mind was "Hmm... honor system... how utterly... civilized." Civilization, dammit!! I loved Berlin. Loved seeing their little cars staying in their lanes and signaling when they turn. Loved their beer, their sausages, and pork schnitzel sandwiches. Mmmm... My idea of the perfect vacation would be to travel throughout Germany and stop at every little village and sample their local beer and sausage. Heaven! But CC would divorce me.
My first meal in Berlin. A hearty country omelette, but what was even better was what came with it:
No less than four different kinds of good German bread. Yummy!
Ooooh, big buildings with cool shapes, and such a nice, wide straight sidewalk. Oh, how I miss infrastructure!
That curvy, pointy building on the right was an opera house. The Pokemon looking thing on the left I have no idea.
I don't know why I took this picture. It must have looked nice in real life.
One of the subway cars. See that little green circle in the middle? If you want the doors in front of you to open, you push it. All the doors don't need to open. What a novel idea! God, I love these Germans...
I was a little surprised at the amount of graffiti around, especially in East Berlin, but y'know I was already in love with the place and it just made me reminisce about the NYC graffiti filled subway cars of the 80's...
Ghostbusters!
Gritty, but I liked it.
The Berlin Wall. Still standing after all these years...
Another shot of it. Naturally, I bought a piece of it to bring home...
Checkpoint Charlie. The last US checkpoint before you'd enter East Berlin.
A wider shot. West in the foreground, East in the background.
That whole period when Germany was divided seems to be tightly woven into the peoples' consciousness. When we visited the Checkpoint Charlie museum, about 90% of the tourists were German.
Some cathedral like thing that looked really cool at night.
The Pergamon Museum, which was completely awesome. The sad thing is, on another of our trips in Turkey, we went right by where Pergamon actually used to be, except it's not there anymore, it's in... Berlin. When the Ottomans were in power, they didn't care about any of that historical stuff and the Germans came and just bought it and carted it away. Oh well, what can you do...
Mmmm... chocolate beer, from a chocolate shop. Weird, but good.
Hot cocoa and churros. What a combination...
Comments (11)
it must be awsome to experience all this! good to have you posting again.
"My idea of the perfect vacation would be to travel throughout Germany and stop at every little village and sample their local beer and sausage. Heaven! But CC would divorce me." is my favorite Hooju quote. Enjoy your travels throughout Europe =)
awesome. I didn't get to see Berlin, opting instead to visit Lutherstadt Wittingen. I got to see Martin Luther's house and what I believe was the door where he posted his 95 Theses. Then I went to a restaurant and ordered the Martin Luther steak. The steak was overcooked, but I showed some grace instead and forgave the chef.
it's awesome that you get to travel and see all these neat places. thanks for the pictures. it makes me want to go there myself.
i take it you were there during the winter, seeing how snow seemed to be everywhere~ awesome hooj, you are turning into the international man of misery, i mean mystery!
nice pics.. 'cept for your profile picture. haha, anyways, that one us army checkpoint reminds me of the military recruiting station in times square. maybe it's b/c the checkpoint is in the middle of the street.
as for the driving, i wish it was more like germany: no speed limits on the autobahn, but much harder for a person to get a driver's license.
your profile pic is quite disturbing.
can u post some pix that include u & ur wife?
did you go to the pergamon museum? the damn germans stole an entire city from the ottomon empire. churros with hot chocolate (too thick to drink but perfect for dunking) is from spain i think.
I think it was the fifth pic that kinda had a surreal, North Korean-ish look to it. In any case, I've visited Munich, Heidelberg and Cologne but haven't been to Berlin.
Interesting how different two countries that are close togethre are.
i love these pics.. keep em coming!
and that is a really great way to put it... i agree with you 100 percent!