The Stitch Up

What I Ate On Vacation

There was no end of great food in Latvia.  We tried several traditional Latvian restaurants which I would describe as a combination of Nordic and German food - but with it's own distinct flair.  Our hotel had great food and put on a good breakfast every morning with tons of smoked fish, potato salad, radish salad as well as traditional breakfast foods like bacon and eggs.  Needless to say we were not hungry until late in the day after stuffing ourselves at breakfast.

Riga is a pretty hip city and had any kind of food you'd like.  We hit as many places as we could.  One of the best was a Belgian restaurant - Cafe Bon Vivant.  We ate sausage and mussels until we could barely move and washed it down with delicious Belgian beer:

This was the SMALL sized sausage.  The waitress told us that the large is three times as big.  Holy smokes!

Bad focus, but these mussels were fragrant with tons of fresh herbs and cooked to perfection.  The fries were pretty great too!

Across from our hotel was another great restaurant - Restorans 1221.  I think I would describe this as Latvian fusion - it was delicious.

I had veal with what I think was a lingonberry sauce with green peppers and it was so good!  Served on the cutest cow pan!

What I ate most of in Riga was pastries.  We found so many good bakeries and everything I tried was perfect!

Most of the bakeries offered pastries that reminded me of German tarts and cakes - lots of fluffy crusts and sweet berries - but we also hit a french bakery:

The solarium eating area was so pretty and quaint and sunny!

and the baked goods were delish!  My raspberry, white chocolate tart melted in my mouth and I grabbed a few bites of the husbands chocolate cherry tart before it was gone.

We also found a great donut spot that provided a nice, mid-morning fuel up for our sight seeing - Ze Donats

These were boston creme, caramel and cappuccino - but choosing a flavor was pretty tough as they had a big selection.

The other great thing about Riga were the many nice places to just stop and take a break and have a beer.

I let my matryoshka doll get in on the act.

Although we'd surely packed on enough calories in Riga, we continued our spree in Germany.  I had planned in advance to eat as much schnitzel and bratwurst as possible while there as there is just no equivalent in the US.  

My brother and his family took us to the oldest bratwurst restaurant in the world in Regensburg - the Wurstkuchl.  They do one thing and they do it well: bratwurst.  You line up, tell them how many and then you get out.  It had a soup nazi kind of vibe to it, but I could feel for the ladies cooking up the brats as it was HOT in there!

The bratwurst were a big hit with the whole family

Since we had a big day of sight seeing in Regensberg we had lots of time for eating and really, we needed the energy.  So, a doner sandwich break happened as well.  Yeah, eat and walk people, there's lots to see:

Man those sandwiches were good.  We did sit and eat, or sit and drink - but we relaxed a bit as well:

Schnitzel got love too.  I ate it everywhere but had a great one at the cafe by the salt mines:

And of course always the German beer

The kids were drinking soda.  Just FYI.

A disturbing discovery while visiting my brother and his family was that they live down the street from a chocolate factory.  I mean - really.  As if the non stop pastries, beer, bratwurst and schnitzel were not enough, a chocolate factory was calling my name.  I responded:

Siedl Confiserie was full of dangerously delicious candy and animatronic jungle animals.  I don't know why, but the candy was so great I didn't ask a lot of questions.

These are rum balls, coconut covered macadamia nuts, kir royal balls, chocolate bars, and chocolate coins.  There were some chocolate covered marzipan balls and some chocolate macadamia nut crunch that did not make it past the flight home.  It is all so good!

So we brought a taste of Germany home with us and as much as I will miss the awesome schnitzel and bratwurst I think it's good we can't get it here or I'd be big as a house.  I love vacation eating but it's good to get back to the occasional salad!

Summer Vacation - Germany

The second leg of our vacation was all about Germany and kicking it with family.  My brother and his family were posted to Germany a few months ago and we'd been looking forward to visiting them there.  They're in the Bavaria region of Germany and were our tour guides to a bunch of cool towns in the area.

The first stop on our whirlwind tour was Amberg

It's a pretty town on the Vils River and it's been around since 1034.  

 
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This square had the cutest fountain:

Pigs.  Too cute!!

On the way back from Amberg we decided to do a quick drive through another town - Kallmünz.

Our quick drive through turned into a full-on exploration however when we saw Kallmünz Castle on the hill and decided to make the trek up the (steep, asthma-inducing, never-ending) stairs that had been cut into the mountain to see it up close:

The Castle itself was beautiful but so was the view from the top of the mountain.

 

Our next outing was to Regensburg.  It's a larger town and had many beautiful churches, Roman ruins and more pretty parks and squares than I could count.

The Stone Bridge was built in 1135 and crosses the Danube.  It was a pretty spot to stop and relax a bit.

The Dom cathedral can be seen from all over Regensburg.  It was built between 1275 - 1634 but has one chapel inside that dates back to the 8th century.  The interior was beautiful:

There was also a lower level where several bishops were buried and that had really early ruins - I'm not sure what period they were from, but they had a Celtic look: 

 

Across from The Dom is a tiny chapel that is dedicated to St. Mary.  It only has about 4 pews:

Also near The Dom was the Cathedral "Zu unserer lieben Frau".  The inside is rococo style and blew me away:

We did a big road trip to Berchtesgaden, Germany to see the Bavarian Alps and tour the Eagles Nest and the Salt Mines.  This area was breath taking - we could have spent a week there hiking and fishing.  But as we were on a tight schedule, we hit the tourist highlights.

The Eagles Nest was interesting.  The location has amazing views of the Alps.  The only downside is that there is not much info about the history of the home and it use by Hitler as it's been completely renovated into a restaurant.

Pretty great background for a pic with My Sister-in-Law and nephews.

The Salt Mines tour on the other hand was very informative and FUN!

They suit you up in miner's coveralls and send you down through the salt mines by train, slide and boat:

 

The area near the salt mine is lovely with an aquamarine river running next to it that I think is a result of salt runoff, but for whatever reason the color is startling.

They sent us on our way with a free sample of salt which I thought was very kind!  They had lots of salt based spa treatments as well as specialty cooking salts for sale in the gift shop but at that point we were nearing packing capacity on the suitcases for gifts.

On our way back to the States we spent half a day in Munich before our flight.  It's a pretty city although I don't think we were really able to appreciate it in such a short amount of time.  

This is the Hofbräuhaus in Germany.  We were there around 3 pm and they were having a "Tea Dance" - which did not appear to involve tea but rather a lot of beer.  I'm assuming "tea" just refers to the time of day.  

Odeonsplatz.

We might have to give Munich more of a chance on the next trip.  Bavaria is a beautiful region and we clearly only saw a small portion, but the whole trip was made that much more fun because of the time we got to spend with family.

Berlin - Day Six

Our last full day in Berlin was cold and icy! We had scheduled a walking tour with the great Insider Tours once again, this time for their 3rd Riech tour. But, as we headed over, we saw people slipping and falling like crazy on the icy sidewalks. When we arrived the guide suggested heading over to the German Resistance Memorial Center to start our tour and if the weather improved we would continue on. We were all game, and as it turned out, snow started to fall on the way over to the museum and it made it much easier (and safer) to walk around.

The Resistance Museum is housed in the building of what used to be the German Army's high command and it pays homage to the various groups that tried to overthrow Hitler and the Nazi regime. One of the groups that made the most successful attempt on Hitler's life was a group of high ranking officers in the army that placed a briefcase bomb in a room with Hitler. Of course the attempt on Hitler's life was unsuccessful and the officers were subsequently taken into the courtyard of this building and shot by a firing squad. There is a statue now in the middle of the courtyard to commemorate these men and the many others who died trying to resist the Nazis

The story of this attempt to assassinate Hitler is pretty amazing (Tom Cruise is starring in the movie they're making about this event - he kind of sucks, but the story itself is compelling) and within the museum you're standing in offices where Hitler addressed the generals of the army upon being made Chancellor of Germany and where some of these generals then planned the assassination of Hitler. The exhibitions in the museum are primarily in German and while I think they have audio guides and/or paper guides with translations into English, I really enjoyed having our personal tour guide explain some of the installations. The stories surrounding WWII are of course tragic and horrifying, but also important in order to understand how someone like Hitler could come to power in the first place and how something like the holocaust could go on for so long.

As the weather had improved we moved on from the museum to a few other sites around town. One is the Jewish memorial, for all those who were murdered by the Nazi's during WWII. It's a powerful sight:

We went to a few other locations including the location of Hitler's bunker. The bunker itself is no longer there and there is no real marker - it's just a parking lot. This was apparently a conscious decision by Germany in order to avoid white supremecists or other groups that idolize Nazis from using the location as a meeting place. The story of Hitler's last few days in the bunker is pretty fascinating and if you've never seen it, I recommend the movie Downfall which seems to track the history of those last days pretty well.

We also visited one of the only buildings designed and built by the Nazis which is still standing in Germany. The architecture is imposing and strong and intended, as our guide said, to last "1,000 years", the amount of time they believed the Nazi government would last. Once again I'd say this tour was pretty intense, you hear a lot about the various attrocities committed against the German people and the Jews by the Nazis and then the horrors the Germans suffered at the hands of the Russians immediately after the war. This tour may not be for everyone, but the guide was fantastic, very knowledgable and you learn so much.

As usual, after an intense day of emotional sight seeing, we consoled ourselves with big German food! We had passed by Tim's Canadian Deli the day before and vowed to return! It is impossible to get a good burger in Spain. In my opinion the quality of the meat here is really poor and they never cook anything very well, much less create the kind of flavorful burgers you get in the US. But as with everything else - Berlin had lots of great burgers to offer and Tim's was the standout. They had every type of burger you could want, but I went with a cheddar/bacon burger made with buffalo meat. It was off the hook!

After our late lunch/early dinner we strolled around some of the shopping districts but we were a little late for browsing in the stores. (This was probably a good thing as I saw so many cute items!) On the way back to the hotel we stopped in at a church around the corner. We had noticed it before but only realized on our last day that part of the church was open for visitors. It is another location that had apparently been destroyed during WWII and undergone significant renovation over the years. It is now beautiful and on the day we visited it was still dressed up for Christmas.

After that it was back to the hotel and (boo!) packing to leave the next day.

My final impressions of Germany? It's fantastic! The Germans in general are very fun and kind people

and they're also very gracious about speaking English to those of us with limited German skills, so it's a good location if you don't have a ton of time to devote to learning a new language.

The food is also fantastic - we didn't have a bad meal our entire time in Berlin. And there are more beautiful buildings and other sights than I have room to post here in my blog:

In addition, Germany has so much history that is signifcant to us all and they are very open generally in discussing it. We really had a great time and look forward to exploring more of Germany.

Berlin - Day Five

This was a day I was really looking forward to - market day!! We'd read about a few different markets held around Berlin, but the one on saturday got the best reviews so we got up early, and hit the market when it opened at 8:30 am.

I've been to many farmer's markets in my day - but this one was tops! There were stands with every kind of cheese you can imagine, any type of bread you could dream of,

the freshest herbs and veggies, all kinds of food and - if you needed a freshly roasted rotisserie chicken - you were in the right place:

We ate bratwurst (of course) some amazing zuccini fritters and feta puffs from a turkish stand, crepes, and some pastry I can't remember the name of but was earth moving nonetheless. My only complaint was that there were not as many vendors there as I think they have during the summer - so I was a little disappointed to not have a lot of options for touristy knick-nacks. But even during winter this is a great market!

After eating our way through the market we went to the Technological Museum. This museum is HUGE and really more like three or four museums in one.

They have an extensive collections of planes, trains and boats and pretty much anything else you could want (I spent quite a lot of time in the textile manufacturing section). In the summer they have a working brewery where - after you learn how beer is made - you can drink yourself silly. I took a few pictures inside the museum but they're not phenomenal photos as 1) I was inside and 2) I'm still a little bad with my light settings, but here's what I've got:

This statue was taken from a train station demolished during the war. I thought she was pretty:

After the Tech museum - which I recommed to everyone but especially to anyone with kids - we were off to yet another museum. The Alliemuseum is on the site of the former US military base in Germany. It has a ton of information on the Allies mission in Germany following WWII and during the Cold War. It's a great museum although it's a lot of interactive computer installations (I learned everything I could ever have wanted to know about the Berlin Air Lift) so I didn't snap a lot of pics. But this is the place to see the actual last "checkpoint charlie" building used by US forces at the border when the wall came down.

After all the sight seeing we were finally ready for a late lunch/early dinner. We'd read a couple recommendations for an Ethiopian restaurant near the market we visited in the morning. The hubby and I hadn't had Ethiopian food since we left DC. It's actually very hard to find any good, ethnic food in Spain at all. This restaurant however, was great. In fact, I thought it gave Zed's in DC a run for it's money. We ate too much food, drank too much fantastic German wine and had a great time doing it!

Stay tuned for the last day of our vacation and my wrap up of everything I love about Germany!

Berlin - Day Four

As Day Three had been pretty busy, we started off Day Four with a little sleeping in, followed by a big breakfast at the hotel (I'll have to talk a little at some point about the breakfast buffet at the hotel - salmon with herbed cream cheese every morning, any breads you could think of, cheese and sausages that were to die for - MMM!) and then a stroll and some SHOPPING! I don't do a ton of shopping when I'm on vacation, but I do like to take home the occasional momento. And I knew exactly what I wanted to take home from Germany. Several friends had picked up really beautiful Christmas pyramids in prior trips to Germany and had them on display over the holiday season. While the Christmas markets in Berlin had ended the DAY BEFORE we arrived (dang it!) there were a couple of stores carrying Christmas decorations all year long. I bought the cutest pyramid, and a couple of decorations for myself and some friends and felt...complete.

Of course after shopping I was hungry again and we had a little time to kill before our next outing so we headed out for coffee and kuchen. This time, the cake was crumbly, with a layer of figs. It. Was. AWESOME! So after getting revitalized we were off to our major tourist trip of the day: the Stasi Prison.

This is a pretty grim destination. You head deep into what was once East Germany, and in the middle of these huge, plain apartment buildings is the prison used by the Stasi to hold and question prisoners who were thought to be distributing anti communist information, trying to leave the country, or doing anything that could be construed as an action against the state. It's a pretty heartrending tour, but important too I think to understand how devastating it is when people are held and tortured and questioned without any justification, without trial, without charges. This was happening in Germany into the late 80s - it's not so far in the past and of course there are many parallels that can be drawn to things going on today.

The tour guide we had was really great. You do have to call in advance to set up a tour in English but that was a very easy process. I also want to say I was impressed by how many young people in general but especially American teenagers I saw on the various tours we took while in Berlin. This prison tour in particular is in a location that's pretty out of the way, it's a very serious subject matter and it doesn't involve beer. And yet, there were quite a few college age kids on the tour who were extremely polite, asked intelligent questions and in general restored my faith in todays youth. (That will probably last until the next time I catch an episode of the Real World).

So the amazing thing about the prison is that the people who were held there never saw anyone other than the guards. They were incredibly isolated as a technique to get them to open up to the only person they ever had a chance to speak to - their interrogator.

The prisoners were blindfolded and driven around in windowless vans anytime they had to be moved from one part of the prison to another so that they would have no idea how the prison was set up or where the prison was located - increasing their feeling of isolation. There is a rose garden in the middle of the prison (not blooming in January of course) that the prisoners never saw as they were never moved from one part of the prison through the courtyard to another part of the prison for fear that they might figure out the layout and a way to escape.

There were terrible stories of water torture, sleep deprivation and of course the general torture of not knowing how long you would be held. People were arrested for simply knowing that a friend would be making an attempt to escape into West Berlin and not informing the authorities. One woman was held for 2 years simply because she didn't rat out her friend. Our guide told us that he often has people who were held in the prison come on the tour and he doesn't know their history until they begin crying or shaking as the feelings of helplessness and desperation come flooding back.

Like I said, it's a pretty heavy tour but so important and worth the time.

Needless to say after the tour, we were hungry again. We'd hadn't really hit up the bratwurst stands around town so we headed down near KaDaWe and basically went stand to stand trying different bratwurst, burgers and other quicky food. It was all great, but the best really is this stand called Witter that has organic products right across from the department store. I never knew that eating a sausage in the freezing cold could be such a wonderful experience.

Berlin - Day Three

I probably should have thought of more exciting titles for each day of our Berlin trip - but it already taxes my brain power to come up with the posts themselves so I can't spread myself too thin!

Day three of our trip to Berlin was fascinating, thought provoking, moving and COLD! We had moved past the kind of cold weather that brings snow and pretty winter pictures, to the kind of weather that requires a full snow suit and the kind of ski mask that makes you look like a bank robber. So what better day for a walking tour, eh? We thought so too!

It's impossible to go to Berlin and not try to learn as much as possible about the incredible amount of history the city contains. So, on Day Three, we took a walking tour with Berlin Insider Tours that covered the Cold War history of Berlin. It was great - the tour guide was a history major, really fascinated by the subject matter himself and gave a fantastic tour. If you go to Berlin - I highly recommend this tour company.

It would be impossible to cover everything we saw on the tour, but here are a few highlights:

We started out at the Stasi museum. The Stasi of course were the secret police in East Berlin.

The building that houses the museum is an old office building used by the Stasi during communism in East Berlin and is right in the middle of a lot of apartment buildings that were built during that time. The buildings are practical and somewhat cold - I felt that you could really tell when you were in what used to be East Berlin. Our guide did point out to us the building where Katarina Witt lived when she was training for the olympics and also told us that many former stasi agents and former employees of the government of East Berlin still live in the buildings. Weird.

The musum itself is great - but most of the information is in German. They have translations of some of the information, but I think it really helped to have a guide. The exhibitions explain the extent of spying that East Germany committed on its own citizens in order to identify anyone who might be working against the state, attempting to leave or just holding ideas and beliefs that were anti communist. I wish I could list all of the statistics that were provided to us but the most shocking I think was that when you added informers to the actual number of Stasi police there was approximately one stasi agent to every 6 East German citizens. They kept files of the most mundane information on anyone they thought was a threat, and the lamest action - such as telling a joke that derided communism or East Germany - could potentially get you thrown in prison. It's no wonder people were afraid to take action against the government - in any meeting you held there were bound to be one or two Stasi agents or their informers. The museum also demonstrated that this type of government, this communism was never something that the German people wanted. It was something forced on them in the most crushing way until the fall of the Wall in 1989.

There are a few different locations in Berlin where segments of the Wall still remain although apparently so many people were chipping pieces of the Wall for mementos following it coming down, that some segments had to be protected as remembrances of a divided Berlin. We went to an area where the wall has been fairly well preserved to see what it would have looked like at the time:

Of course there was not just one wall, but two that ran parallel to each other. If you were trying to escape and got over one wall there was an area between that wall and the second wall which would get you into West Berlin/Germany that was called the death strip. This area varied in size depending on the location but pretty much everywhere in the Death Strip you would find a completely barren area with no where to hide that was covered in sand or fine gravel that made it harder to run and easier to see footprints. The strip was set with trip wires and there were guards in towers in these areas who had orders to shoot to kill anyone trying to get over the second wall.

You can kind of see what this death strip would have looked like in this photo - it's looking from the first wall, through the death strip toward the second wall. The distance is not that far between the two walls, but with all the obstacles it would have seemed impossible:

There was so much we learned on this tour that really shocked me and moved me. I think having lived through this time in history it resonates with me more than some of the history relating to the Nazi era in Germany. But as a political science major in college when the wall came down and the cold war came to an end I remember feeling as if the world was truly changing. I watched these events happen in real time on t.v. and so to some extent it all feels fairly recent. One of the stories that the guide told us that affected me most was that of a woman in an apartment building who tried to escape through the window of her apartment the day that the wall went up in Berlin. Prior to 1961 while East Berlin was a communist sector, people could move freely between the borders - there was no wall. And understandably, while the borders were open, thousands of people left and moved to West Germany. In 1961, the wall went up overnight and part of the border between east and west berlin went right through an apartment building. People woke up to their windows being bricked up and back doors which led into West Germany being blocked. This woman, one of several ran upstairs to attempt to jump out the windows that had not yet been bricked up, into West Germany. As she climbed out the window she was grabbed by East German police who began to drag her back in. People below on the West German side pulled on her legs to try and get her out of the building. Finally she fell and in the melee no one caught her and she broke her leg. On the way to the hospital she had a heart attack and died. She was the first victim of the Berlin Wall. This museum, across from the area of the wall where we were visiting has actual footage of this woman attempting to flee from the apartment building:

So it was a pretty heavy day as far as sight seeing goes, but our guide told us that that night the museums on museum island were free after 6:00 pm, so we decided to go look at some pretty art. We grabbed lunch at a great Indian restaurant near by and then made tracks for Museum Island. I wanted to check out the Impressionist art at the Alte Nationalgalerie so we headed over there. The museum itself is huge and so beautiful and they have a great collection of Cezanne, Rodin, Monet and Manet. But I actually came away really impressed with the paintings in the German Realism section of the museum - I think it was my favorite.

After the museum we started walking back toward the hotel but found this awesome skating rink, outdoor cafe thing going on where you could sit in tents, drink Gluwein (hot mulled wine), eat bratwurst and enjoy a perfect winter evening. And that's just what we did:

I look like I've had a little too much Gluwein in this photo but I swear it was just the flash:

The walk back to the hotel was pretty and festive and the several cups of Gluwein meant we slept pretty soundly and were refreshed for our next day of adventure in Berlin. Germany rocks:

Berlin - Day Two

On our second day in Germany we decided to check out the Bau Haus museum. This is a style of design and architecture that started in Germany in the early 20th century. I'd heard it was an interesting museum and was anxious to learn more. On the way to the museum we walked through the Tiergarten, Berlin's version of Central Park or the Retiro here in Madrid. It was beautiful in the winter, but I imagine it's even better in the spring and summer:

The museum itself was interesting although not quite what I was expecting.

I thought it would mainly discuss architecture but it focused primarily on other sorts of design. This group of artists planned everything from the buildings themselves to the chairs, vases, calendars, silverware and plates used by people within the buildings. The idea of this school of design was to combine all the arts into one "ideal unity" and the focus seems to be on the utility of design - things are streamlined, they use modern materials, and primarily they are useful. I was surprised how many designs for chairs or beds or tables were created by these men and women in 1920 or 1930 that can now be found in just about everyone's home - and that are being churned out in huge quantities by companies like Ikea! Good museum, but I think that unless you're really interested in this school of design there are about 20 museums I would visit first.

After the grueling walk through the park and the exhausting visit to the museum, hubby and I were ready for some eats. We had been told of a mythical department store that had one floor devoted entirely to food - a floor that had a multitude of food stands of every variety you could imagine, so we set out in search of this oasis and found it. Behold:

KaDaWe, short for Kaufhaus Des Westens. I read that it's the second largest department store in Europe after Harrods in London - I'd believe it, it's huge. But the first great thing about this store is that the food floor is not a myth - it's awesome! We worked our way through German food, Japanese food, some champagne, coffee and a pastry or two and we weren't even close to hitting half of the food stands. It was fan-freaking-tastic!

The second great thing about KaDeWe is that it also has a HUGE craft floor - in fact it's an entirely separate store across the street from the main department store. I tried to control myself there, but I did indulge in some soft, soft yarn to use to knit a hat and two beautiful embroidery patterns: one is a tablecloth with German Santas (half off since it was after Christmas - pretty thrifty eh?) and the other an adorable pattern of sheep that I thought would be fun for Easter/Spring. I was in dorky, crafty heaven!

The area around KaDaWe was still decorated for Christmas and was so festive! I seriously think Berlin is a great town any time of year, but seems especially fun during the holidays.

Near KaDaWe is another amazing Berlin stop. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. This church was bombed and destroyed during a raid by British RAF in 1943 during WWII. It was, as you can see from the photo, almost completely destroyed. After the war, in 1951 to 1961 a new church was built next to the ruins but the ruins were left as a reminder of the horrors of war. It's a pretty awe inspiring sight:

After all that walking, eating and shopping we headed back to the hotel but first we stopped and ate a little more - hey, it's custom in Germany to grab coffee and some cake at about 4 o'clock - or at least that's what it said in our travel book - and we didn't want to offend anyone by not following custom. (To be honest, I didn't see a lot of Germans stopping to eat cake at 4. They seem to be a pretty hard working lot - but hey, that meant more for me.) Here's another great thing about Germans/Germany: Yeah, it may be December, it may be snowing, it may be -4 degrees celsius, but is that any reason to run indoors like little babies who are afraid of the cold? NO!

They still have the outdoor cafes, they just toss cute little fleece blankets over the chairs for you to wrap up in while you sip your coffee. Some places have heat lamps, some don't, but I found with a cup of coffee, snuggled in a fleece - I was good to go. I scarfed down a piece of kuchen (I guess this is generically cake in German - and can mean different things - this was a light flaky coffee cake-like delight that floated into my tummy!) to keep my strength up while sitting in the cold and thoroughly enjoyed myself! Did I mention that I love Germany? Because I love Germany!!!

Berlin - Day One

We arrived in Berlin on New Years Day and were rewarded with lots of snow! Madrid has nice weather much like Southern California, but we were craving some weather that was more wintery - and we got it in Berlin. Our first stop after checking into the hotel was a walk down to the Checkpoint Charlie area and a stop in at the local Starbucks to watch the snow fall. We didn't do the Checkpoint Charlie Museum but we did walk around the area where they have information on when the Berlin Wall was constructed and the number of people who tried to escape over the wall until it was torn down. Some of the statistics were heartbreaking - the ages of some of the people who lost their life trying to cross into West Berlin included children as young as 5!

The building there is not the actual US Army "Checkpoint Charlie" used during the cold war - it was built for us tourists to show where the building used to be. The last building used by the allied forces at Checkpoint Charlie is at the Alliemuseum which we visited a few days later.

After meandering around this area a bit we headed toward Museum Island. Berlin has so many great museums! We visited as many as we could pack into our vacation but barely scratched the surface. We'd seen the Pergamon Museum covered on a travel show and thought it looked cool so we made our way there. This is a museum that I think would impress pretty much anyone - it focuses on archaelogical finds and has entire walls and temples housed inside that the museum had to be designed around. It's fantastic.

One of the most amazing parts of the museum is walking onto the Pergamon Altar. This piece is huge as you can see and the walls of the museum surrounding it are covered with a long frieze that depicts the "struggle of the Gods and the giants". It's pretty awesome, but as there was no flash photography - my photo is not so awesome:

Still I think it gives you an idea of the size of the thing. You can also see the Ishtar Gate from Babylon reconstructed in the museum. These pics are much better:

It's just amazing.

I can not for the life of me remember where this piece is from but it was also impressive:

The snow continued to fall while we were in the museum and we tried to get a photo of how pretty everything looked outside but it was difficult to get a good shot:

After the museum we headed back to the hotel to grab a nap (our flight left Madrid at 6 am!) before dinner. Dinner was awesome German food: Brats and saurkraut for the Hubby and schnitzel (that may technically be Austrian - but delicious either way) for me. Delicious food and HUGE portions. I love Germany!!!