Day 5 : Berlin

Today was supposed to start at 8:30 but, in keeping with my signature move, I turned the alarm off in my sleep. We woke up about 9:30 in order to get ready and head out on our first full day in Berlin. I will say, while I really like this hostel and would recommend to anyone looking for a clean, slightly more quiet ,hostel in Berlin, it does not have the greatest breakfast. As it was only a 2€ breakfast, maybe it was worth the cost, but definitely not something that we paid for twice. That's about the only downside I have found to this hostel.

Now that we've done the tour of the area surrounding our place of residence for the next 3 days we're heading to a place called Museum Island (aptly named as there are multiple museums on this little island) to the Neues Museum (New Museum) for some Egyptian life and death education as well as to see the bust of Nefertiti! For those of you that don't know who she is, look her up, she was a pretty interesting lady.

This is not the museum that Nefertiti was in, this was a museum to the right of it, but I thought this one looked really pretty, plus it's supposed to have a partially built temple in it!

Since I'm new to this city I'm still not sure where I am going, I've always prided myself on knowing exactly where I am and how to read a map, but it seems that on this trip I'm failing on all accounts. I keep getting turned around and my hardened Nintendo mapping skills are not serving me as well as I am used to. Maybe I'll have to take an intensive Zelda mapping course when I get back. That'll be a good way to spend the long weekend, forget laundry and seeing my family. HA!

This was all a very long way of saying, "Today we got lost again."

After the museum and wandering around we walked down to the main shopping street (Kurfürstenstraße) which is full of rather expensive stores that this backpacker could not afford. Typically I would be all about some nice upscale designer duds, but when you weigh the price of the items PLUS it's physical weight in your pack and the space you have left, typically that seems to be enough to make me believe I have enough worldly possessions.

During this wandering we came across some pictures of Knut (the polar bear at the Berlin Zoo) does anyone know if he is still doing okay? I remember awhile ago I was watching him on the web, but I haven't heard anything about him in awhile.. is he still okay? Did something horrible befall him? I hope not. So cute, Knut. On the topic of bears, check out this amazing display!

They are called Buddy Bears and they have been travelling around the world spreading love and acceptance for all. Luckily they were stationed in Berlin while I was there and I got to have a little photoshoot with the Buddies.

Appropriately I tried to take pictures of all the countries we were visiting on this tour, however, when I found Canada I must say I wasn't overly impressed. In 1,000,000 years (seriously, 1 million) I would not have EVER picked this bear as being Canada bear. Now before I show you what he looks like, please picture in your head the HUNDREDS of things that this bear could have on him to represent our country.. ready?… okay.

Was that what you were picturing? Yeah, me neither. There is not ONE classic Canadian symbol on him! NOT ONE!!! Okay, have to stop this. To say the least, Trevor Good I'm not impressed with your Canadian representation. If anyone can explain to me how that is Canada, please do. Thanks!!

After a cheese filled meal of Hard Rock Berlin nachos it was time for more shopping. Although we didn't really purchase anything, it was more like browsing. Our day of brewing was finished off with some delectable frozen fruit ice cream from a Chiquita FruitBar. What else could I order? Banana ice cream was the only option in my opinion. No artificial flavours or added sugars. On that scrumptious note, time to head back to the hostel for dinner!

Remember when I said I was staying at a great hostel? Well on Wednesdays there is a community Vegetarian meal that the hostel makes. And what is tonight? You guessed it! Wednesday! We met a nice lady named Sophie who moved from Greece to Berlin about a year ago. She was our head chef for the evening, instructing us to grate, chop, slice and peel various vegetables. In the end we had quite the spread: Greek Salad, Tzatziki, Pasta Salad, Potato Salad, Rolls and vegetable kebabs.

All capped off with a couple maple cookies all the way from Canada for our Australian dinner mates, who I did not take a picture of, but there were 3 of them, of which I can remember two of their names, Liam and Patrick. Hopefully we will meet some more friendly people along the way.

Words learned today:

Mittwoch : Wednesday

Drücken : Push

Altes : Old

Neues : New