Ich bin ein Berlin

 It has been harder to blog in Europe than we had anticipated but we have been keeping track of all of the photos we want to share, sites we have seen and restaurants we have eaten at so when we had some down time (or when it is just much too hot to go outside) we can blog.  We recently went to Berlin for Drew's first visit to Germany and my first visit to East Germany and we actually got passport stamps at the Berlin Wall which took up an entire page and has six stamps showing the six regions Berlin had been split up into at one point.  Another reason we decided to go to Berlin was that our friend Guillaume that we had met in Indonesia was going to be there for four days.  We have always heard Berlin is one of the best cities in the world and I can totally see why people think that because we had the best time even though it torrentially down poured on us the entire time.  We had umbrellas but with the wind whipping sideways we looked like drowned rats at all times.  Berlin is the probably the most spread out city I have ever been to in all of Europe.  It is massive and the locals told us they have five different downtowns because the area is so big.  So we always had to travel by metro which was super cheap and easy.

Because of the rain the metro was uncontrollably crowded and they have no air flow so I was a sweaty mess.  It was so crowded that at one point a Russian kid about four years old was sitting on my lap.

Our friend Guillaume introduced us to Geocaching.  It is a really cool way to see a city and there are applications on iphones and blogs about it but basically it is a scavenger hunt for adults that walks you through the city and down cool streets to see sites you might not normally see.  During our Geocaching we walked through the old Jewish quarters pictured above.

Pictured above is the Holocaust Memorial which consists of 2711 columns and is near the Bradenburg Gate in Berlin.  Drew stood on one of them and got yelled at in English by an old German man.

Here is the Bradenburg Gate which had a cool fair going on outside of it.  This was recently posted in the news as well because Obama just gave a speech there this week.

Drew ordering his first curry wurst which he loved.  Basically its a hot dog in ketchup with curry powder but for some reason it tastes so much better in Germany.

While walking through the fair we went through this park which housed a Russion World War 2 memorial.

This is the Berlin Victory Column which we couldn't get good photos of because the rain started coming down hard.

This is of the Berlin Cathedral in the Museum District of town.  We also had gone by the Berlin Television Tower which looms over the city on our way here and through Alexander Platz (the main square of Berlin I would say) but those just didn't make the blog.

The church was massive.  We tried to go in but were not able to.

Drew will kill me for this photo but we started a trend in Spain with Emily of imitating sculpture and we found this one and I think Drew captured the art piece perfectly.

We went to Dinner with Guillaume and for anyone that visits Berlin EAT HERE!  The name is Jager und Sammler and translates to Hunter and Gatherer.  I had risotto and drew had "ox cheeks."  They were both so so good and the waitress had lived 20 years in Colorado and spoke perfect English so it was easy to order.  

While walking around most cities in Germany you come across these golden squares on the sidewalks which commemorate a victim of the holocaust.  

We tried an authentic German restaurants near our house in Nollendorfplatz and it did not disappoint.  Drew had the Spatzel (basically German pasta) and I had the Schnitzel which you can never go wrong with.

Not much of the Berlin Wall remains but in Potsdam Platz they have pieces of the wall like this one.  There is a section further outside the city that is preserved which has been painted on but our friend Freddy (in the picture as Jager Und Sammler) said it was far away and nothing exciting to see.

The brick path that you see above goes through the city and follows where the wall used to go before it was torn down.

This is another piece of the wall near Hitler's bunker but that didn't make the blog because it has been destroyed and now a plaque is there in its place.

We both loved Berlin more than expected and not to mention I think they have some of the best beers in the world for very cheap.  I couldn't get over how cheap everything was!  We bought a six pack of beer at the grocery store for a 1.36.  We had also walked by a few other churches and the Red City Hall but like I said, we were in a monsoon so not too many of the pictures came out nor did we want to sit out in the rain to get pictures.  This has inspired us to go back to Germany though so we are hopefully going to make it down to Munich at the end of our trip!  Auf wiedersehen!!!