Day Two in Berlin

Well its about seven at night on our second day in Berlin and we've already packed so much into the day that I feel the need to write it all down. To start things off for the day we had a really great breakfast that reminded me why I love staying in hotels in Europe. I don't know if I've just been lucky but it seems to me like European hotels have really mastered the art of the continental breakfast. Instead of the choices of day-old danishes, cereal and bananas you would expect at a hotel in the U.S. this hotel boasted a spread of rolls (not just any rolls; seedy, dense, delicious rolls), cheese, cold cuts of meat, sandwich spreads, German yogurt (can't even compare yogurt in the U.S. to this yogurt) and eggs. So in a nutshell I enjoyed the start of the day.

Things got better from there. After breakfast we climbed into a black mercedes bus and started our three hour tour of Berlin. Our tour guide rattled off interesting backstories in great German accent about a seemingly endless amount of historical sights over those three hours. We saw the building that the Berliners have named "The Pregnant Oyster" which is a museum displaying contemporary non-European art. It did, in fact, look like what I think a pregnant oyster would probably look like (look at the picture to the left and try to disagree). He also took us through both west and east Berlin. I had wondered in my post yesterday about the differences in architecture between east and west berlin, and this tour was a perfect opportunity to do some comparing and contrasting between the two sections of the city. From the areas I saw, the eastern part of the city seems to have much more high-rise appartment buildings, which appear to be public housing or former public housing units. The buildings in the east seem to be much more spread out than in the western parts of the city that we drove through. In the western parts everything was extremely compact. I will have to explore the city more to get some more specific observations. Throughout this tour, though, I began to realize how unfathomable it is to imagine what the city must have been like in the years of the Berlin wall. I have learned the history of all the factors that went into the decision to erect that wall as well as the factors that lead to its destruction. However, these history lessons do not approach the level of emotional involvement that people in east and west Berlin had with the wall. Being in the city and seeing places like Checkpoint Charlie (that's me at Checkpoint Charlie on the right) puts it in perspective somewhat, but I know I will never truly understand how it must have felt to Berliners and Germans when the wall fell.

To move on to a lighter subject, I tried a style of beer today that I did not even know existed. The beer is called Aecht Shlenkerla Rauchbier Weizen. For those of you who speak German you'll notice that this is a smoked wheat beer. Not a style you see everyday but one that I suggest for you to seek out. This was a surprisingly good beer. It poured a deep amber color with a big frothy head (check it out right there -->). The aroma was bacon and banana (seriously). The bacon smell comes from the smoked malts and the banana smell comes from the hefeweizen yeast. It took me awhile to get used to the interplay between the smoky flavors and the flavors of banana and cloves you would expect from a wheat beer. But after a few sips I noticed myself wanting to come back for more after each taste. It ended up being a really well-balanced beer, albeit a unusual one. Overall, a great day so far, and we plan on going to Kreuzberg tonight, which is where most of the Turkish Berliners live and is apparently known for its nightlife. Sounds like there is probably a Döner in my future.

Prost