"Don't even think about trying to steal"

Berlin would have been a fantastic city. If we spoke German. The Germans, it turns out, are not terribly hospitable. Despite this little bump Ronak and I had a great time in Berlin. We took a free walking tour with a company called New Berlin (whatever country this tour is in assumes the country's name...New Prague, New Paris, etc). Our tour guide was fun and energetic and we got a really nice tour of Berlin. Because I do not know what to do with html, I am just going to set up photobucket or webshots for the pictures because I have a lot of photos. More on that later.

Ronak and I saw the Gates of Brandenburg where, totaling over 10 million, the allied and soviet troops finally converged on Berlin and the last shots were fired for WWII. We saw a very neat Jewish memorial park (best way to describe it I guess, I'll post a picture).
(Ignore that girl in the picture, she is not part of the memorial)
We saw the apartment of the man who said the words that effectively brought the Berlin wall down.

One of the cooler stories was of how eventually, the German police protecting the checkpoints in the Berlin wall were surrounded by thousands of Germans shouting "We are the people!" Earlier in the soviet rule of East Germany, the German police would have fired shots into the crowd of their own people. But as time wore on, the police were feeling the same oppression as the people. As the multitude of chanting Germans finally broke through the checkpoint, the German police just stood by and watched, a symbol that they cared more for their people and country than the government who ran it.

The food in Berlin was pretty good. Specifically, a sausage called Curry Wurst. They take this "wurst" and cover in curry ketchup. Then they pile crispy french fries on top, more ketchup, curry and seasoning. MMmmmm. And just so you guys know, the streets of Berlin are flooded with Dunkin' Donuts, KFC, McDonalds, Ben and Jerry's, just to name a few. Breakfast however, is not quite the same. Outside of the U.S., no one can really get breakfast right. As we sat in our hostel dining room, we were presented with a 6 Euro buffet. They had bread, meat, hard boiled egg and butter. All cold. Ronak and I preceded to make out breakfast sandwiches. Mine, cheese, salami (I think?), egg whites from the hard boiled egg. It's not that it tasted bad, it was fine, it's just that no one makes a hot breakfast like the south eastern United States. Really Ronak gave a better example of this. As my Indian friend symmetrically prepares two sandwiches (ingredients laid out like synchronized swimmers) he decides that this will taste best: bread with butter, slather ketchup over the buttered part. On the other piece of bread, put cheese and salt and pepper. Ronak is ready to mangle his hard-boiled egg and take the shell off so he prepares a napkin for the mess. As he strikes the egg on the table a very intimidating German man walks up behind him, leans over and says in the meanest sounding German accent your brain can muster, "Don't even THINK about trying to steal." He then picked up a flyer that was 10 inches from Ronak's face and moved it, dramatically, two inches closer. We are not sure if he was telling us not to take the abomination on Ronak's plate or maybe there was something more valuable around us that we did not see. It must have been the ketchuped abomination, however, because as Ronak took his last bite, the German soup nazi (is that not an appropriate Seinfeld reference because he is German? If not, I apologize) left the dining room. The room was still full of about 50 people besides us.

Breakfast Nazi behind us, we toured a concentration camp, but one that seems to have more history under soviet control (political prisoners, german prisoners) after WWII so it was not exactly what we were expecting but obviously still had an imposing history of suffering and oppression. I cannot spell the name of the camp, spoken it sounds like Sauchsenhauser.

Hearing again and again that Berlin is THE PLACE to party, we joined a pub/bar/club group tour. This consisted mainly of 40 our-age-youth being cattle herded around Berlin's bar area. The bars were pretty cool. The first place we went was, on the outside, a graffiti-covered alleyway. Once we mustered enough courage to walk all the way through the alley we were rewarded with an awesome, outdoor, Bahama style bar. Beach sand, with palm trees and very hip decor. Bathtubs with a side cutout to be a couch, car axels with the tires on them as benches. Creepy but unique metal sculptures that would breathe fire adorned the roofs of their respective bars. We met up with a group of 5 people we had made friends with earlier that day at the tour. Four Americans and one canadian. We traveled to some other bars, avoided free jeagermeister shots (I would expect the first time 20-somethings refused free alcohol at their bars). The final club we ended up at was cool, nothing too impressive though. It was large with several rooms boasting different sytles of music. One part playing American alternative and rock, the middle- and largest section- playing electronic and the other parts I could not discern. What did stick out about this club was the bass. It wasn't even loud, I could speak without full out yelling. But the bass I could feel travel through the back of my neck and forcing my adam's apple into matching its frequency. Incredible bass, like I've never felt.

And that, in a nutshell, was our trip to Berlin. We are now, after a five hour train ride in Prague. So far, outstanding pizza, more to see today after a good nights sleep.

Stay Classy,

Ricky and Ronak