We're leaving Warsaw and heading to Berlin. This is the first train using our 10-day Eurail pass - the friendly train conductor says 'All Goodt' so we must have stamped it correctly. Train travel is very relaxing. We're getting comfortable navigating through train stations, we know which ticket the conductor needs to punch and we're learning how to operate all the creative train bathroom fixtures. Here's an action shot of Dawn taking advantage of the smooth train ride to edit a blog entry.
We arrive in Berlin late afternoon and it's cold and rainy. We're really getting tired of this gray, gloomy weather following us around. The one good thing about this cold dampness is that we're hungry for hearty, filling German food. We take a short walk around our neighborhood and duck into a very traditional family run pub to have our first German beers - in Germany! Notice how the glass AND the coaster match the beer. That's how attention to detail is done!
Our first day in Berlin we brave the cold to visit a few typical Berlin tourist sites. Interesting note about the Berlin metro: there are no ticket gates. The metro is run on a 'trust but verify' system where you don't actually need to scan a ticket to get on the train. Plain-clothes officers randomly check people for tickets and if you get caught without one it's a $60 fine. Since we didn't quite understand the system initially, we wander on to our first metro train without a ticket. Woops... I mean wahoo! Free metro ride!
We check off our first gotta-do-as-a-tourist site on the list. I'm old enough to remember (Brian is barely old enough) when the Berlin wall was demolished so it was very cool to see it in person. Surprisingly, the information kiosks didn't have any mention of Ronald Regan being responsible for 'tearing down that wall'. Did you notice Brian showing off his new fashon accessory?
Here's another iconic Berlin landmark. The Brandenburg Gate is the backdrop for historical political rallies and demonstrations.
The Berlin Cathedral. Good seating still available today at the cute river-side cafe tables. Can you guess why?
The cold gray day punctuates the somber mood at the Holocaust Memorial. 3000 short pillars memorialize the atrocities of the Holocaust. A powerful place.
Berlin also pays tribute to the victims of Nazi concentration camps using Stolpersteins. These are small 'stumbling stones' that are placed near the entrance of homes where executed jews used to live. It's sobering to be walking along the sidewalk and see them in front of building after building. They are very effective and subtle memorials of Germany's past.
We found Berlin to be very comfortable and unpretentious. It probably helps when your names are Hagen and Steckelberg but it also helps when the locals are very willing to switch to English to help out us tourists. The city gives us the feeling of Chicago: shopping malls were putting up their Christmas decorations, the elevated trains rumble through the neighborhoods and pubs on every corner sell cheap local beer. And there are sausage stands everywhere selling currywurst instead of Chicago dogs. They call this guy a Wurst Walker: he's a hot dog cart without the cart (and therefore not subject to all those pesky zoning and health regulations).
Berlin's active and modern art scene spills out into the street. Graffiti art is serious business here and artists are followed like rock stars. Unfortunately the flash on the camera washed out some of the colors and diversity in this ally.
After doing some research I made an appointment to have my hair cut while in Germany. I figured it was the first country we'd hit that would speak enough English to get a well needed haircut... a little short but well done. I buy a pair of earrings to replace the one I lost in the Beijing metro crush. So now I'm all sparkly and fashionable again.
We sign up a local guide to walk us through an evening of Berlin beer and street food. Here I pour my own light lager at our first stop. Taps at the table = awesome.
Not only did this bar have taps at the table, but it also had a beer drinking scoreboard. You know how some bar trivia boxes compare your trivia knowledge against other people and other bars? Well this scoreboard tracks how your table is drinking against other tables and how your bar is drinking against other bars. So I guess that makes beer drinking a competitive sport. We didn't stay at this bar long enough to make any substantial impact on Berlin's score.
We love that Germany has a culture of drinking a beer at anytime with anything. And because it's priced cheaper than soda, ordering one with lunch is fiscally responsible too! Here's Brian doing his part to stay on budget.
We wake up to rain the next morning (surprise, surprise) so we spend the day inside the German History Museum. Wow - Fascinating! Why wasn't history this interesting when I was in high school? So much of their tumultuous history seems so recent... or maybe I'm just getting old so it just feel that way. Kudos to the museum for not glossing over the terrors of the Nazi rule.
Because of the weather, there will be no quaint little outdoor cafes for us in Berlin. :( I guess we'll have to settle for quaint little indoor coffee houses instead. :) Germany has a great tradition called Kaffee und Kuchen. It's a time to get together with friends and family (usually on Sunday afternoons) to share some coffee, cake and good conversation. We decide that it doesn't just have to be a Sunday thing - so it's Kaffe und Kuchen every day for us in Berlin.
It really feels like we've started the downhill portion of the journey. The first half of the trip we were pedaling uphill to work our way through China and Russia. Now that the travel logistics are simpler, the food is recognizable and the language is easier to decipher we can coast a bit. It feels more like a vacation now instead of such a world-spanning voyage. Berlin was the first city in three weeks of meandering south through Eastern Europe. Next stop - Prague!
"We must take adventures in order to know where we truly belong." - unknown
Berlin Food (and Beer!) Pics
The food here in Berlin doesn't seem all that unusual to us... it's certainly not as daring to pick from the menu as it was in China. I don't know much German but I don't remember seeing any water snake on the menus. But those German names sure are fun to say.
Schweinshaxe: Roasted pork knuckle with saurkraut, boiled potatoes and mustard. That's a Fred Flintstone looking plate right there. Tender and delicious!
Weinerschnitzle: Breaded veal cutlet with German (imagine that!) potato salad and cranberry sauce.
Kaesespaetzle: cheesy noodles (with bacon!) not too far off from baked macaroni and cheese. We paired it with a carafe of German Reisling to cut through all that cheezy goodness. Let me rant a bit about wine in Eurpoean restaurants. This half-litre of nice-but-average wine was something like $6. So it made it very easy to order wine with every meal - turning a regular dinner into something a bit more special. The markup of wine in US restaurants is crazy high. $20 (retail even) for a 3 liter box of decent house wine would pour about 20 5-oz glasses. That's $1 a glass. When was the last time you saw a glass of restaurant wine for less than $7? I still don't understand why they wouldn't rather sell more wine at a lower price point. I guess that's why I'm not a consultant for the restaurant industry. End of rant.
Currywursts: You can find this street food everywhere. It's basically a high-quality braut or hotdog covered in a curry-spiced ketchup. We ate currywurst from several different vendors on the beer tour. It's definitely one of those foods where the more you drink the better it tastes. But it isn't a real photogenic food - here are a couple of the prettier versions.
Doner Kebab - another very common Berlin street food. Kind of a cross between a panini and a turkish gyro. Very tasty.
Pretzels - translates to pretzels in English. Nothing surprising here, but fresh baked and still warm just like they should be. I'm talking to you cold, stale US ballpark pretzel.
Streuselkuchen - coffee cake crumble to us. Came with lots of different fillings: apple, plum, chocolate, cherry. It was everywhere. We ate it every afternoon with coffee and tea.
Pfannkuchen: jelly-filled donuts. Another fun word to say but really just a cherry-filled (but real cherries - not that canned crap) donut. Notice the classy flower on the table? Every restaurant we went to - even this inexpensive bakery - had either fresh flowers or real candles on the table. Nice touch.
German Beers...
You didn't think we could finish a post in Berlin without a bunch of beer pics? If you're not that in to beer porn, you can stop reading here.
A very clean but standard large-company pilsner. Even though we had a local guide who was suppose to point us to some 'micro breweries' we had to search hard to find interesting beers. It's almost like their very strong beer traditions are stifling the creativeness we're used to in the US (and Colorado).
Same beer - different glass.
A small batch light lager and a dark lager from a local brewery. Not all that different from the other lagers we had but you gotta love supporting a father-son brewery.
A helles and a pale ale. When Brian asked for a glass for the bottle of pale ale they brought him a frozen margarita glass. Hmmm...
I finally got tired of all that beer and switched to wine. Germany has some excellent Reisling so I was able to still drink local. This time Brian pointed to which glass he'd like with his pale ale cause yep, he's a beer snob now.
Two of our favorite German beers (we can get them in the US): a Weihenstaphan hefeweizen and a Franziskaner dunkelweizen. But we're drinking them in Germany! Finally a little interesting flavor to pair with the cold autumn day.
Prost from Berlin!
