Staying in Berlin, near Checkpoint Charlie

The last stop on our trip was Berlin. I was excited to go, as I'd not
managed to get to Berlin when it was still part of West Germany, and
was amoungst the biggest European capitals that I'd not seen.

We had planned a few days to be here, and stayed really near
Checkpoint Charlie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkpoint_Charlie
We used the bus and metro to get to our hotel (too early again to
check in) and wandered about. We were pretty tired from our crack of
dawn flight, so we fueled up at Starbucks (surprise surprise, they are
all over in Berlin) and then saw Checkpoint Charlie (which is an
intersection now).

More importantly, we went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, which was
fascinating. If you are in town, definitely go. All kinds of great
stuff about the war, the Soviets and a time gone by.

We were staying along one of the main streets (fredrickstrasse) and
were up and down that thing several times. In case you are wondering
the U6 line of the metro has a stop (Kostrasse) that is right at
Checkpoint Charlie.

We walked around, and did our best to not get lost. Berlin is a big
mix of concepts (since the allies bombed the bejeezes out of it in the
war), over 90% of the buildings are 60 years old or less. It seems a
fairly cosmopolitan city, and also, and uniquely perhaps, it has no
city center, and redundant services, busses and trams.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin

Course, the were a city split in half for 40 years, so it makes sense
that they had their own airport(s) and everything else. This means
there is no epicenter of the city, there are like 6 of them. Well, we
found about three of them and liked what we saw.

I got some good German food, although it seems like I think of German
food being Bavarian food, and as any German will tell you, they are
not the same thing. Anywho, I also partook of some of the Berliner
Pilsener, which is quite good, and cheap.

The weather wasn't great for us, but at least it didn't totally rain
on us (oh wait, it did, but only once) and we caught all the main
sites. We did a day trip to Potsdam that I'll also write about, and
that was pretty neat.

Berlin was so big that it's probably worth another visit. Even taking
the tourist bus around and hearing about all the buildings doesn't
give you a true lay of the land. I wonder what it is like being
German, and what sense of national identity you have these days. We
Americans never lose any wars (do we?) and so I'm not sure about that
feeling of if you were the kickee in the last big battle.

The Olympics started when we were in Berlin, so we enjoyed hearing
them in German, and Spanish. Go Team USA.

There is a good Jewish memorial, sculpture, city block right near the
Brandenburg Gate. It is a large number of concrete blocks on an
undulating floor/ground. The blocks are all different heights, and
with the variation of the ground, you can walk amoungst them and have
them tower over you, but they still seem of moderate height from the
street.

I think having that is the least the Germans can do.

We are fairly travel weary, but we still have to/ get to go back to
Madrid. We have a bunch of pictures, and I'm sure I'll write up a
wrapup.

Thanks for reading!

I like beer bubbles

And the rest of the stuff in this glass too.

Bratislava

Well, I wasn't sure what to expect from this town. I just told
myself, it can't be that bad - it's just across this Danube from
Vienna and Vienna has been a world class city for centuries. The main
train station was looking a little piqued, so i was still a little
worried after we arrived. However, once we hopped on our tram and got
to the old town center area, I was happily relieved. Bratislava was
very cool and had it's own little charm. We were even dropped off
right across from a bagel shop. The old town was fairly large and
picturesque, as most European capital cities are. It was once again
not difficult being vegetarian there either.

We were not in Bratislava too long, but we were able to find a local
concert performance in one of the churches. I think its proximity to
Vienna motivates the city to have some music culture of its own. It
was a lovely concert of pipe organ and violin music. This is one
thing I wish was more readily available in the States. Just local
cheap or free classical music concerts in parks or downtowns or
churches.

Our knowledge of the history of Slovakia is fairly limited. We
weren't able to go on any tours there and just wondered through
churches and up to the old fortress castle and read what we could.
They are on their own currency currently, but are moving towards the
Euro fairly soon. I will say, that all of this traveling has
certainly motivated me to read up more on the history of these
countries. I remember very little of the European history I did
actually cover in school. I don't stand a chance for history that I
never even learned about.

Warsaw

We flew into Warsaw fairly late. Our flight was an evening flight,
but was delayed still in Copenhagen. When we finally arrived, we were
tired and everything was dark. We (bravely) took the night bus (as
Andy has already blogged about) from the airport to the main train
station. From there, we had no choice but to finally take a cab. Our
first cab of the trip. It was past midnight and we didn't know what
direction the hotel was in or how far away it was, so mainly for
safety and sanity, we caught our cab. We arrived at our hotel,
checked in and crashed.

When we awoke and were finally able to get out into the city, we
discovered we were in a great location. It was very close to the
completely reconstructed old town area. Most of Warsaw was in ruins
by the end of WWII. The city was painstakingly rebuilt it as it had
been before the war. It was very beautiful. We wondered around most
of the day and just enjoyed being there.

The next day, we went to the Warsaw Uprising museum. It was so
fascinating. I would say, after the Jewish people, the Polish people
are the next in line to have been so totally abused and destroyed. I
learned quite a lot that morning. The most important thing I learned
is that at the beginning of the War, Poland was occupied by both the
Nazi's and the Soviet Union. I didn't realize that they were doubly
occupied. There was so much information and pictures and history that
are hard to summarize in any capacity, so I will not even try here.

Other things we learned while we were in Warsaw was that Chopin is
Polish (well- at least half - his other half is French, but he was
born and raised in Poland). Warsaw has a lot of music, history and
culture there. Perhaps it is not the draw that Vienna is for most
musicians, but they have quite a lot of musicians around and
performing all the time there. We were fortunate to catch a free
concert one of the evenings were were there. It was lovely and it was
outside and the weather was perfect.

Our final full day in Warsaw, we spend at one of the large parks
walking around and sitting and relaxing. In this parks, they have
peacocks, which Andy and I found to be very humorous and beautifully
colored. So, as you go through the pictures, be on the lookout for
the peacocks. Unfortunately, we were not able to see (and therefore
to capture) any peacocks with their tail feathers spread. This left
us to realize that we have both forgotten what makes them spread their
feathers. Our final guess was mating. We also didn't know if they
could fly or what their mode of self-defense is. Any ideas?

Leave a comment if you know why peacocks flair their feathers.