Berlin Day 3

Still exhausted (for starters).

I’m sitting by a radiator, staring out the window.  Half the view is pretty terrible, half of it is sooo cute!

On one side there’s some construction or something being done, so there’s this massive green mesh shit covering up the scaffolding on the side of a building with a huge yellow pipe snaking its way up the wall.  Ick.

But right next to that is a cute little yellow building…nevermind, it’s not “little”, it’s about six stories tall with a nice little rooftop patio.  That IS little.

So yeah, today.  Exhausting.

We were supposed to go on a 6-hour walking tour of the city of Berlin.

We got up at 7:30, had a smorgasbord of shit to eat downstairs at 8:30.  No really, it was amazing.  There were two small tables; one was covered in bowls of oats, sugared nuts, mixtures of cereal, raisins, etc., milk, and fruit cocktail.  The other table had boiled eggs (complete with those fancy little silver egg bowl holder thingies), different kinds of bred, slices of mozzarella and swiss, tomato slices, salami and ham, watermelon, some random DELICIOUS melon thing, oranges…I think that’s everything.

Hell, I ate at least seven slices of thinly sliced watermelon, some of that melon crap, a bowl of fruit cocktail with yogurt and granola, two orange slices and a slice of bread with mozzarella and tomatoes.  And salami.  And mint tea.  And a small almond cookie.  YUM!

So anyhoozles, we left for the tour at 9:30 am with this guy named Preston who was pretty witty.  He was American but seemed to know Berlin like it was the back of his hand.

Anyway, our 6-hour tour turned into a 9-hour tour.  I took lots of pictures, which I upload later.

Among the things we saw:  more graffiti, more hipsters/cute outfits, different shops, a replica of Checkpoint Charlie, an awesome chocolate shop (with a chocolate volcano, a giant chocolate teddy bear, and chocolate replicas of different memorials), a really cool Murdered Jewish memorial, awesome buildings (like “the” synagogue, and some unconventional-looking Lutheran and Catholic churches)…let’s see what else…a memorial for all the homosexuals that were killed in the Holocaust, a memorial done by Kaethe Kollwitz, the Berlin wall, Lego buildings (not what they sound like), a Soviet memorial…some Parliament buildings, awesome courtyards.  I’ll elaborate some once I upload my pictures onto Facebook. (Facebook friends, be on the lookout!)

Did I mention that our tour guide dressed like Indiana Jones?  I swear to God! All he needed was a whip.

Anyway, now we’re getting ready to leave for this awesome artistic community that I’ve been looking forward to since last night.  Apparently some artists squatted there a long time ago and got into this fight with the guys who bought it, so they paid 1 DM a month for 10 years and then the owners went bankrupt, but they’re refusing to sell it because they’re kinda mad at the artists for not wanting to give it up to them (ever).  Screw them, I want the art community to stay…

So yeah, that’s been today thus far.  Sorry if I’ve rambled.  I’m tired.  Ohhh so tired.

Off to the artsy thingymagoog!