Breakfast (around 9:45) perked me up after a restless night of sleep. I really liked the hostel we chose, but it is difficult to get good sleep in a room that sleeps 8 people when they come into the room at all different hours of the night and aren’t exactly quiet when they return. Again, I took advantage of the nutella and also had a big glass of milk, something that I miss having access to back in Cambridge.
Meg and I took the train to Alexanderplatz, the location of the Berlin equivalent of the Seattle Space needle. There was a really cool market being set up, but it wasn’t really happening yet because it was kind of early. We walked over to the Museum Island, stopped for a break to appreciate the beauty of the Berliner Dom, (a cathedral pictured below), and then hit up a few of the museums.
The museums were definitely interesting to see, (5 in total), but Meg and my energy levels were quickly deteriorating. We zombie-walked through three of the museums, trying to take in as much as possible, but recognizing that we are kind of museum-ed out from our last 4 trips. I think it's safe to just say that I saw a lot of cool old stuff. While the museums were really interesting, (my favorite things: paintings by Renoir and Monet and the bust of Nefertiti!!!), this correlates with my lowest energy level on the graph.
My energy level spiked up after we walked from the museum back to the Alexanderplatz market around 1 and got a crepe again for lunch. Crepes seem to be the perfect option for operating on a college budget: cheap and delicious. We were also saving room for one of the things we were most looking forward to: hot chocolate at the store that used to make chocolate for the royal families. We passed by the store with giant chocolate replicas of major Berlin sites and decided we had to come back on Sunday. We walked about twenty minutes to the store and indulged in the Rausch-Plantagen-Schokolade hot chocolate from Fassbender & Rausch Chocolatiers. It was amazingly rich and delicious (although it still didn't compare to Angelina's) but it was just a perfect moment to be enjoying the hot chocolate in the company of Meg, overlooking a beautiful square in Berlin. This corresponds to the highest level of energy I had during the day because I was just so happy.
After being rejuvenated by the hot chocolate, we walked to our final destination of the day: the Reichstag building. It is the government building in Berlin and runs free tours to the top of the building for a good view of Berlin. We had to wait in line for about 45 minutes, and during that time, the umbrellas that we had been carrying around all day pointlessly came in handy when we got a 10 minute shower storm. At least it cooled down though. Once we got to the top of the building, we got to walk in the coolest egg shaped building with a mirrored center, (you have to see the picture to get what I'm saying). The view of Berlin was very good from the top and it was nice to walk around and see from a bird's eye view everywhere that we had walked during the weekend.
We got dinner afterward at Kamps and then headed back to the hostel. We decided to take it easy and just sat in the lower lounge area watching Sherlock Holmes. We met a very outgoing Canadian teen who introduced us to some fun German kids and we just hung out with them for a while before calling it a night. It was a fun hostel experience as I realized that people are just so friendly and outgoing. It was cool to hear about everyone's travel experiences and it makes me realize how many teenagers are just traveling for fun and seeing the world. I definitely have to get back to Europe next summer! Great trip to Berlin--definitely a pleasantly surprising city!August 15
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