Berlin

We have made it through Berlin.  If I'm being honest, it wasn't our favorite city.  Too big.  Too dirty.  That said, we saw a bunch of stuff and had some good times.

We took the train from Prague which was easy peasy.  And then from the main train station we took the Metro to the Airbnb we were staying at on the very west side of the east side of Berlin.  Our host met us and gave us some good neighborhood tips.  The neighborhood itself was pretty seedy; awfully dirty with a fair amount of drinking that seemed beyond the "quaint neighborhood cafe" type.  Still, the apartment itself was a lovely studio that was very convenient to the train.

hallway to our courtyard

front door in the courtyard

studio apartment.  Please ignore the mess; we had already been there a couple days when I took this picture.

We grabbed some dinner at a Vietnamese place near the East Side Gallery, and then walked the gallery itself.  The art was pretty cool, and it was a nice night for a stroll. 

fact

Jax really liked this one.

We found Luna Lovegood's shoes walking back to the metro

After that, we head back to settle in and get ready for the long day ahead of us.

We didn't want Berlin to be all memorials and history, so we decided to start the day at the Spy Museum, which was actually really cool.  There were some good hands on activities, and it did a nice job mixing the history of espionage with the more recent experience of the widespread spy state that was East Germany with the more "Hollywood" images of the spy, like James Bond. 

A series: children humoring me

learning how to find bugs

Tried James Bond, but we did better with Charlie's Angels

And there was a laser maze.

Jax made it through.  Pete and I both got buzzed out in seconds.

From there, we went over to Tiergarten to walk around a little bit and grab some lunch.  Tiergarten is an enormous park in the center of Berlin.  We stopped at a cafeteria place and Pete and I tried currywurst (it was fine.  I ate it, but wouldn't go out of my way to eat it again).  We then strolled through a small part of the park, and played a little catch.

Currywurst

Beautiful girl taking a break in the park.

From there we walked to the Reichstag building where we met up with a With Locals tour guide.  Berlin is so huge I had thought that a little introduction to the city would be good, so I booked a family friendly tour for the four of us.  Our guide, Claudia, was great.  The problem was that it wasn't really a "family" tour, so by the end of it the kids (and I) were absolutely fried.  We put a lot of miles on looking at things that the kids didn't really care about, nor really have the historical context for.  We saw the Bridge of Tears (the train station that was between East and West Berlin, Museum Island (not that we were planning on going to any of those museums),

A museum we had no intention of going to

Humbolt University, and Babelplatz (which should have been a cool memorial to the Nazi book burnings, but was actually better in theory than reality). 

We did go to Rauch's chocolate shop, and just in the knick of time, because I thought the children were going to revolt. 

chocolate Reichstag

chocolate Brandenburg Gate

We got a bunch of chocolate to power them through, and then we went to the Brandenburg Gate before heading home to rest for just a little bit.

After a little downtime, we head to a local place for dinner and quickly ate before heading back to the Reichstag building, as we had an appointment to get into the Reichstag dome and we really didn't want to miss it. 

The dome itself was super cool, although the kids freaked out about the height a little bit (it didn't bother Pete nor I.  There was something about the ramp that they found unsettling, I think).  We had planned on being there for sunset and it worked out perfectly.

Getting ready to go in and up.

the dome

Sunset over Berlin

Family selfie at the Reichstag.

Brandenberg Gate at night.

That was a looooonnnngg day.  According to Jax and my watches, we did 10 miles of walking.  That's a lot for us.

So the next day was way more low-key.  We went to brunch at a neighborhood place, and then hung around the apartment for a bit before heading over to Treptower park. 

Her first soft boiled egg.

We had mentioned to our tour guide that we thought it would be fun to do some paddleboating in Tiergarten, and she said that Treptower park was better.  So we figured we'd give it a shot and it really worked out. 

Thankfully Pete has been working on German, so he was able to understand the man when he told us where we were and weren't allowed to go.  The kids decided that they wanted to sit in front, which meant that they did all the paddling and Pete and I could just sit back and relax.  It was lovely being paddled around on the Spree river for an hour.

We then grabbed a snack at the beer garden right next to the boat rental place, and then went back for dinner at home. 

I had been looking for fun things to do at night, and there's a place that does outdoor movies in English with German subtitles.  It was set next to a bar in an old industrial complex that is somehow now a rock climbing place and an indoor skate park.  The venue was interesting to say the least.  The movie showing Monday night was called Fisherman's Friends, and it looked funny and appropriate for the children.  So we went and ended up with front row seats, which were perfect  It made for a very late night, but it was a fun thing to do in the city.

Everyone was pretty tired before the movie started, and was VERY tired by the time it was over.

Our last day we took our time in the morning, and then got up to do the last of the "touristy" stuff.  We saw Checkpoint Charlie, which was worth at least walking by.

the only Soviet/American border in the whole of the Cold War.

Then we went to Topography of Terror, which had really interesting information about the SS and the way that the Nazi state persecuted so many people.  There was also an outdoor exhibition about the occupation of Poland by both the Nazis and the Soviets.  I knew the basic history, but not the details.  I thought it was a really powerful exhibition, and was impressed by the matter-of-fact way Germany presents this part of its horrible history.

From there, we went to the Holocaust memorial.  We didn't wait to go into the information center; it was very powerful just being in the memorial itself.  I think that the sheer size of it really helps to drive home the magnitude of the Holocaust.  It wasn't as sad as I thought it would be, but after seeing it I'm not sure it was supposed to be sad, just moving.  And it was that.

That was enough heavy and intense stuff, so we decided to do a little more fun.  We went a few metro stops to the KaDaWe, a huge super famous, super fancy department store.  It has a famed food court that didn't disappoint.  We had burgers that were really amazing.  I'm a little sad that I didn't take pictures of all of the pastries, but also glad I didn't because then I'd be sad that I didn't eat any.

All the shopping you can imagine

The American food section was basically pop tarts, marshmallows, jello, cereal, BBQ sauce and spray cheese. 
I'm ashamed of how well they nailed it.

After lunch we split up, so Jax and Pete could go to the Computer Gaming Museum that Lea had no interest in at all.  Lea and I stayed at KaDaWe to do some window shopping, and Jax and Pete went off and had fun playing classic video games like Pong and Tetris.

Every 14 year old needs Gucci sunglasses

There was a whole toy section.  I couldn't help myself.

She didn't want to try sparkly loafers.  Kids these days.

It was a low key night so we could get up and out early today for our trip to Amsterdam.  That turned into quite an adventure, but that's for another post.

All in all, I think we did a good job seeing a decent slice of Berlin.  I don't think that any of us have a burning desire to go back any time soon, but I think that's an ok part of the travel experience too.