Travel Update III

26 March: For the first time on the trip, we slept in. After getting showers and checking email, we finally made it out of the hostel by 11AM and headed to the first museum on our list, The Pergamon. Berlin offers this amazing 3 day Museum pass, so for 9 euros we had access to over 50 museums in the city, but we tackled the ones on Museum Island first. The Pergamon required a bit of a wait, as they only allow a certain number of visitors in at a time - but it was absolutely worth it. Essentially, Germany pillaged the an ancient Greek city (and many other cities in the Middle East, Turkey, and Greece) and created this fabulous museum. It was so well arranged with an amazing audio tour, a nice contrast to the Lourve which was so overwhelming and so poorly arranged. After the Pergamon we grabbed a quick bite (Berliner currywurst for me and chips for Caroline) before checking out the Bote and Altes Museums in the afternoon. We wandered around a bit before heading out to see the Berlin Wall Memorial. We headed back to the hostel where I started to feel feverish so I was in bed not much after 9pm.



27 March: The 27th was beautiful and sunny, so Caroline and I decided to visit Potsdam, a former retreat for Prussian kings. The town itself was so quaint, lots of gardens and cafes - Caroline and I decided it was exactly the kind of place you'd want to retire to. We headed towards the palace, exploring the gardens (where I climbed the wall "protecting" the palace and jumped down on the other side). We got tickets for a guided tour and ate roasted bratwurst by the windmill while we waited. The palace, SansSouci, was absolutely beautiful - but unfortunately you couldn't take pictures. After the tour we explored the town a bit more, ducking into the little shops and pouring through stacks of books, and finally settled at a cafe to have Schokolademilchkaffees (chocolate lattes) and split an apfelstrudel. Once back in Berlin we explored the area around our hostel for a bit, then Caroline threw in a load of laundry and we went out to see the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag before having a late dinner at a little restaurant near the Spree.




28 March: We had an afternoon flight to catch to Athens, so we spent the morning checking off a few more things on our to-do list (although, I almost feel as if a month wouldn't be sufficent enough time to see all of Berlin). We started off with the Alte Museum which was a wonderful collection and then headed up down to Checkpoint Charlie. Seeing Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall memorial, the DDR Museum, etc. was so interesting - but I still found it hard to fathom that the city was divided in my lifetime. We spent nearly all our time in East Berlin, and while the city was under and unbelievable amount of construction, there weren't that many reminders left of the wall that divided a city, and so many lives and families for nearly thirty years. My German professor at AU was born in East Berlin in 1943 and it made me wish that she had told us more stories of growing up there. After Checkpoint Charlie, we ran a few errands before grabbing a last Bratwurst and our bags and heading to the airport. Our flight was originally supposed to leave late afternoon, but it got delayed four hours so we ended up camping out in the Berlin airport for awhile and didn't get into Athens until nearly midnight!