Berlin...

After Amsterdam it was onwards to the old city of Berlin...

The first day I arrived in Berlin and was determined to get out and see a few things as early as possible so I went for a walk with a nice Canadian fellow I met named Adam. Unfortunately Adam had lost his passport about a week earlier and so was stuck in Berlin until they could resolve it and issue him a new one.

Note-to-self DON'T LOSE PASSPORT, although I must say he probably could have lost his passport in a much worse city with a much shittier hostel. Anyway I diverge... we went for a walk and headed over toward the old book burning square where the nazis destroyed a tonne of books and any other publications that were anti-nazi. Pretty cool to get to a place where major events like that had occured. Along the way we also got to pass the Berliner Dome (which is the biggest protestant church in Europe, I believe) and we walked across what they called museum island passed several galleries and museums, Berlin has something like over 60 museums. After walking past musuem island we made our way past the old Humboldt University where Einstein was a lecturer and Karl Marx was also at one point a student.

The Berliner Dome

Humboldt University (Einstein used to teach here; also Karl Marx was once a student here)

After getting a feel for the city it was time to get back and meet a few more people from the hostel and organise a cheap dinner, which the majority of the time in Berlin was Doner Kebabs because they have the biggest turkish population outside of Turkey. There were seriously kebab stores EVERYWHERE haha.

The following day I went for another walk to get out and see a few more things, walked down the "Under de Linden" (which translates to under the lime trees) main strip up toward the Bradenburg Gate where Napoleon, Hitler and a number of other historically significant figures had had passed through the famous colomns of the gate, naturally I had to have a beer while I was there (in Germany you can walk up and down the streets drinking, it's not illegal because the Nazis used to oppress smoking and drinking, so it's implied that your freedom shouldn't be impeached haha. Pretty cool right? Hence many of my photos I took advantage of this and had a beer while strolling around haha.

Me with a Beer at the Bradenburg Gate

I then made my way over to the Topography of Terror located near a remaining western section of the Berlin Wall. It was pretty informative and had a lot of information in trelation to the Nazis, Hitler, the Gestabo and the other secret nazi police. The building itself is located where the old secret nazi police headquarters was. And just outside was a section of the Berlin wall with a mini history. I got a few snaps of the wall and then made my way over to checkpoint charlie.

The original sign still standing at Checkpoint Charlie

After a pretty good day out and about I made my way back and hit the pubcrawl later that night, plenty of german beer, dancing and partying is a good combination for an excellent night. Unfortunately the following morning I woke up feeling sick and have been feeling pretty crappy since. I had originally planned to stay for five nights but extended my stay another two nights because there is alot to do in Berlin, and being sick sort of slowed up my ability to get out and see things, plus after the first two days of pretty good weather the rain was here again.. honestly I've had enough rain... I'd be happy if I didn't see rain for 6 months.

Over the next few days I made my way to the German History Museum and the Alte Museum to see a few of the sights despite the rain and feeling like crap. I also paid a visit to the chemist so hopefully this medicine does something and gets rid of this crappy cold/flu quickly. The history museum was really interesting because I had no idea about the history of Germany and had little knowledge of the first or second world wars so it was pretty informative, plus they had heaps of history prior to that, it was basically a summary of the last 2000 years of Germany as a nation.

Anti Aircraft Gun used during WWII

The Alte Museum was mainly Italian antiquties that were plundered centuries ago, still quite cool to see however. That night I went out with Janina and Julia two very nice German girls that were in my dorm room, we made our way past the TV (Communist) Tower to a club and then caught and elevator to the 12th floor of this building, it was pretty cool, panoramic views of the city and it was gernerally an excellent atmosphere (despite only playing electro music), after dancing the night away I walked with the girls home and we crashed buggered from a long night.

This item from the Alte Museum has the oldest known latin inscription..

Janina donning the fabled Splendour Hat

The next day I decided to make my way to the east side gallery and what better way to do it than by walking and drinking a few brews as we go. Jack (a nice aussie bloke), Adam and I made our way over to the longest strip of the wall, we stumbled on a Youth African Art Market at the end of the wall and went in and had a look around, they had sand and a volleyball court, it would have been perfect for a nice hot day, however that's not what it was haha, so after a quick beer by the river at this "beach" we made our way along the wall and there are some seriously awesome graffiti art on this stretch. (Photos should be on facebook)

Banksy in Berlin

The following day I caught the trams around a little and got some snaps of the TV Tower and Alexanderplatz and found one of Banksy's art works not too far from the hostel (apparently they are all over the world, usually a depiction of a Rat). That esentially sums up my 7 days in Berlin, hopefully I'll fell better in Prague and the weather will clear up before I get to Croatia!!!

TV Tower (I think they said 368metres tall.. as you can see the top is in the clouds lol)