Perhaps the most fascinating and confusing historical landmark in Berlin is the Berlin Wall.  We didn’t know much about the wall before visiting Germany, but the city makes information easily accessible, even providing maps that trace its path.

Memorials and information centers that explain the purpose and construction of the Berlin Wall can be found all over the city so residents and visitors never forget its dark history.

Why Was The Berlin Wall Built?

After WWII, the Allies split Germany into four zones to be occupied by France, the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.  The Allies wanted to rebuild Germany, but the Soviets had plans of their own; Stalin wanted his section of Germany to become part of the Eastern Bloc, a series of Communist countries that provided a protective barrier for the western border of the Soviet Union.  Stalin added East Germany into his Communist arsenal in 1949, renaming the state the German Democratic Republic (even though there was nothing democratic about it).

When East Germans witnessed the rapid resurrection of West Germany, floods of people emigrated to the West for a chance at a better life.  The government had to act fast to stop the exodus to the West — around 3.5 million had already abandoned the East. On August 12th, 1961, the citizens of Berlin awakened to the shocking sight of barbed wire dividing the city.  The East German government spinsters called the division an Anti-Fascist protection barrier to protect East Berlin against the “fascist” Westerns.

Three days later, the first concrete slabs were erected in Berlin. Armed guards patrolled the border with orders to shoot and kill any East Berliners attempting to escape.  Within weeks, Germany was divided by a wall 87 miles in length.  The wall stood for over 28 years until a revolutionary wave sweeping the Eastern Bloc nations triggered civil unrest in East Germany that made the fall of the Berlin Wall nascent on November 9th, 1989.

The wall was slowly chipped away by elated citizens until the East German military officially started to dismantle it in the summer of 1990.  The fall of the Berlin Wall led to German reunification on October 3rd, 1990, and by 1991, almost the entire wall was gone.

Where The Berlin Wall Still Stands Today

There are three extended sections of the wall still standing today.  The longest and most popular is the East Side Gallery, a mile-long stretch on Mühlenstraße that’s been turned into a gallery consisting of over 100 paintings from artists around the world.  (We weren’t able to visit the gallery due to bad weather.)

The second longest stretch of the Berlin Wall is on Niederkirchnerstraße near the Topography of Terror.  Near this area are exhibits that chronicle escape attempts — over 5,000 people attempted escape with 192 murdered by guards — and the uprising that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The third longest intact section of the Berlin Wall is located on Bernauer Straße, which is where the dismantling officially began.  The site is also home to a reconstructed stretch of No Man’s Land, the heavily guarded stretch of dirt, landmines and patrol cars between the two sides of the wall; there’s also a Berlin Wall Documentation and Memorial Center with an observation deck to overlook No Man’s Land.

Following a cobblestone path that marks where the wall once stood will lead you to these intact sections of the Berlin Wall.  However, there are still plenty of memorials featuring chunks and individual slabs of the wall all over the city, including in parks, museums, and even shopping malls.

No Man's Land on Bernauer Strasse

People overlook No Man's Land from an observation deck at the Documentation Center

Much of the Berlin Wall was chipped away on Bernauer Strasse

Stretch of the Berlin Wall near the Topography of Terror

Berlin Wall Memorial at Potsdamer Platz

Piece of the Wall on Wilhelmstrasse near Hitler's Bunker

Segments of the Berlin Wall in front of the Berlin Hi-Flyer (Welt-Balloon)

Slab of the Berlin Wall outside Checkpoint Charlie Museum

]]> http://thejetpacker.com/tracing-the-berlin-wall/feed/ 0 http://thejetpacker.com/funny-photos-and-videos-from-berlin/ http://thejetpacker.com/funny-photos-and-videos-from-berlin/#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:40:31 +0000 Jetpacker http://thejetpacker.com/?p=1808

Under the cloak of darkness, a non-Asian woman highly skilled in martial arts and espionage must assassinate the merciless force that attempts to defeat her: cold weather.  She is… THE PINK NINJA.

If only Jackie could reach that ladder…

I don’t know why we call the toilets a “restroom.”  I don’t often mind myself curling up for a nap in there, especially not after eating Mexican food — that usually requires work, the opposite of rest.  And unless it’s in your house, there’s probably no bath in the “bathroom.”  Let’s just call it what it really is…

Shouldn’t this be called the crapoir?

At the DDR Museum, there was a section dedicated to rebellion through nudism that chronicled the nudist movement that upset the communist East German government in the ’80′s.  If we had to imagine what a nude beach looked like, I think it would be pretty easy.  That’s why we found the scale model of a nude beach (with ladies with completely unrealistic lift for their age) unnecessary.  Awesomely unnecessary…

This German magazine must feature an article on my brother…

What does this sign even mean?  Is this a zone where single mothers can’t walk with their children?  A no hand-holding zone?  What?

Christmas spirit…

I have an affliction called childishness.  And that affliction is exacerbated by conditions that promote childish behavior… such as snow.  So when it started snowing in Berlin, I developed a little snowball throwing problem, as evidenced by this pathetic Nolan Ryan attempt…

…and this shockingly accurate fastball that bypassed Jackie’s defense system and nailed her in the face, eventually leading to a serious (and much deserved) tongue-lashing in public…

But how can this not look tempting from my perspective?

She’s not contemplating Nietzsche, she’s brewing a steaming pot of revenge…

Sometimes Jackie’s observations are way off point…

But you know what they say about assumptions…

When we entered the observation deck of the Berlin TV Tower, we expected to hear Oom-pah music or at least German elevator music, not…

Yeah, that music didn’t really match the atmosphere, much like “I Like Big Butts” at the DMV or “I Want It That Way” in a prison.

There’s an obvious correlation between countries that are known for beer production and countries that are known for bad food.  Take America, for instance… we drink a lot of beer, and our national foods are hamburgers and hotdogs.  Then you have the Czech Republic, renowned for their Pilsner, not-so-renowned for their meat and potatoes diet.

Well, the correlation applies to Germany too.  We’ve all heard about Germany’s superior brewing skills.  Unfortunately, the same skills don’t apply to cooking.

Much like the Czech Republic, meals in Germany are big and hearty plates that aren’t good for your heart.  German dishes are designed to fill you up and keep you warm — that’s about it.

German Dishes

Sauerbraten, which translates to “sour roast,” is considered the national dish of Germany.  It’s a pot roast made of beef marinated in vinegar, water and seasonings.  Sauerbraten is often served with the two most popular side dishes in Germany: sauerkraut and potatoes (either boiled, mashed or fried).

While more popular in the south of Germany, it’s not uncommon to find a spatzle dish on a menu.  Spatzle is an egg noodle that can either be served as a side dish or eaten as a main dish like spaghetti.

Popular spatzle dishes include Käsespätzle (spatzle grated with cheese and fried onion) or Linsen, Spätzle und Saitenwürstle (spatzle with lentils and a whole sausage).

There are also sweet versions: Kirschspätzle (spatzle with cherries, butter, sugar and cinnamon), or Apfelspätzle (spatzle with apples, butter, sugar and cinnamon).

The food you’ll find the most on a German menu is schnitzel, which is simply a deboned meat cutlet that’s breaded and fried.  Usually the meat is veal or pork, contrary to what Wienerschnitzels in America will have us believe (wienerschnitzel is actually fried pork).  Schnitzel is usually served with French fries.

Another hearty food that can be served as a meal or a side dish is Klöße, which is poached or boiled dumplings made from either potato or bread.

If you’re lucky enough to be treated to a traditional Christmas meal in Germany, you’ll savor Rouladen, a thinly sliced piece of beef that is rolled around bacon, onions and pickled gherkin, then cooked low and slow until the meat is tender and juicy.

Currywurst

Wursts (sausages) are insanely popular in Germany, probably because it’s a cheap, hearty, flavorful food that can be found at any bar, fast food joint (called an imbiss) or restaurant.  By far the most popular wurst in and around Berlin is the currywurst.  In fact, it’s so popular that it even has a museum.

Currywurst XXL at Barlin Curry 37 in Berlin

A currywurst is pork sausage smothered in curry-flavored ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder.  It’s what I imagine an Indian hot dog would taste like if they ate hot dogs in India (which they don’t and that’s why Indian food is damn good).

Currywurst became instantly popular after it was invented in 1949 by a food stall owner named Herta Heuwer.  According to Reuters, Germans eat about 800 million currywursts every year.  The oldest and supposedly most popular currywurst stand in Berlin is Konnopke’s Imbiss, a small food stall underneath the train tracks at Eberswalderstrasse station.

German Desserts

The two most popular desserts are:

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, which you may know as Black Forest Cake.  This is dense cake featuring layers of chocolate cake, whipped cream and cherries.  A cherry liquor called Kirschwasser is often mixed into the cake batter to give the cake a little bite.

Even if you can’t read German, you won’t have a difficult time finding apple strudel on a menu; it’s called Apfelstrudel.  Even if you’re not a fan of apples, you can’t resist the taste of warm cinnamon-coated apples wrapped in a sleeping bag of fresh and flaky dough that’s been sprinkled with powdered sugar.  If it’s a little too warm, you can cool it off with ice cream ala mode.

World famous Apfelstrudel at Cafe Einstein in Berlin

The Arcotel Velvet is a popular 4-star hotel in Berlin thanks to its solid location and trendy design.  It had great reviews on sites like TripAdvisor and Google so we had pretty high expectations going in. We feel weird going against the grain on this one, but we don’t get what all the fuss is about.

PROS:

Great location. Arcotel Velvet is right in the middle of everything.  Restaurants of every kind surround the hotel, Tacheles is right next door, and there’s a U-Bahn station right around the corner.  It was so close to many major sights that we could have skipped the public transportation and walked… if it wasn’t so cold.

Stylish design. Staying at the Arcotel Velvet is like temporarily living inside an Andy Warhol painting; pop art is everywhere, from the wall-sized Nefertiti in the hallway to the curtains with faces of famous figures like JFK.  The sheer curtain that divides the bathroom from the bedroom is stylish and fun, and it helps give the room a more spacious feel.

Goodie Bag. After we checked in, we were given a bag filled with numerous maps, a calendar of events, and a comprehensive pub guide.

Apples. There’s a holder on the wall that looks like a cup holder, but in fact it supports two apples supplied fresh daily.

CONS:

Uncomfortable bed. Instead of sharing one blanket like a normal hotel, we were given two individually-sized blankets.  That’s fine, except for the fact that the flimsy blanket was designed for people under six feet tall.  Even worse was the paper bag pillow that had me longing for one of those tiny airline pillows.

Lack of storage cabinets. There was only one small cabinet, and it was so high that only I could reach it.  We had no way to separate our dirty clothing from our clean clothing, so we kept the clean clothing in our bags and piled the dirty laundry into a mountain.  Much like Everest, you don’t want to mess with Dirty Laundry Mountain.

Inefficient television. I can deal with the fact that the TV was small, but it would routinely turn black and white, like some kind of sick test to see if I was color blind (or perhaps to remind me of how sad it is that our parents had to watch TV without glorious color).

Disagreeable shower. I accept the fact that European showers don’t come with a door or a curtain, but I still can’t get used to it.  What bugged me about this shower, though, was that normally I could trap in the heat by shutting the bathroom door.  But because the bathroom had no walls or doors, heat seeped through the transparent curtain.  When I know I’m gonna be freezing cold all day, I just want to enjoy my warm morning shower.

Expensive breakfast. The breakfast buffet is supposedly pretty good, but at €12 per person, it’s just not worth it.

Poor customer service. We’re still really bitter about this.  We checked out of our room very early in the morning New Year’s Day, hoping the lady at the front desk would help get us a taxi since it was snowing and New Year’s Eve partiers were still wandering the streets looking to get home.  There was no doorman or concierge to do this for us, and the woman at the front clearly didn’t want that responsibility.

She called the taxi line once, said it was busy, then never tried again.  Someone who subscribes to good customer service practices would try to call again or arrange another form of transportation like a private car service or a van pool, or at least be apologetic when nothing seemed to be working out.  Instead, she disappeared into the back room every time we’d venture back into the hotel lobby.

No wonder she was put on the graveyard shift.  So we were left to fend for ourselves outside where everyone was descending on cabs like hungry vultures.  It took an hour of running through the snow and stopping taxis in the middle of the street before we were able to find a taxi.  And when I went inside to get our bags, the lady at the front didn’t even say good-bye.  Come on.  You have to go out of your way not to say good-bye.

OVERALL:

Despite the fantastic location, Arcotel Velvet sacrifices comfort for style, and the rude, unhelpful staff member left a bad taste in our mouths.

Berliners have always had an affinity for bears.  The flag of Berlin bears (pun intended) a bear.  A guy named Albert the Bear once controlled the land where Berlin was founded.  The Berlin Zoo’s resident polar bear, Knut, is world famous.  Even the name of the city is pronounced Bear-leen.

And over the last decade, the bear has become the internationally recognized mascot of Berlin… thanks to the Buddy Bear.

A Buddy Bear is a two-meter (6.5 feet) tall fiberglass bear sculpture that first appeared in Berlin in 2001 thanks to German businesspeople Klaus and Eva Herlitz and sculptors Anne and Roman Strobel.

The first exhibit was so successful that companies and artists started purchasing Buddy Bear sculptures to be individually painted and placed around the city.  Today you can’t walk a few blocks in Berlin without being greeted by a cheerful Buddy Bear.

Here are the ones we found…

Two Buddy Bears at Olympiastadion

International Buddy Bear on Niederkirchnestrasse across from Berlin Wall

Buddy Bear near Alexanderplatz

Another Buddy Bear near Alexanderplatz

Buddy Bear inside the lobby of the Berlin Fernsehturm

Buddy Bear in front of HEat restaurant near Berliner Dom

The Buddy Bears evolved into a symbol for world unity at the United Buddy Bears exhibition in 2002.  More than 140 countries were represented by uniquely designed bears holding hands in a circle to promote peace and harmony.

Many of those bears were sold at auctions to raise money for UNICEF and other organizations that assist needy children.  Since then, Buddy Bears have emigrated from Berlin to the far corners of the world to spread the message of unity.  We even saw this guy in Buenos Aires…

Final day in Berlin. Final day of 2009. We had full intentions to go out with a bang. We just didn’t expect the fireworks to start so early in the morning.

Snow continued to fall overnight, and by the time we stepped outside, everything was covered in a layer of snow so fresh and inviting, we reverted back to childish stomping, snowball-throwing, snow-angel making and face-planting all over again.

The locals probably don’t see two 20-somethings exhibit such behavior in front of a high-class establishment like KaDeWe too often. But hey, at least we didn’t act the same inside.

We couldn’t, or else we would’ve been kicked out before breaking something ridiculously expensive. Like a €4,500 bottle of wine.

That’s what KaDeWe is known for. Often called the Harrod’s of Germany, Kaufhaus des Westens is the second largest department store in Europe. Over 40,000 people visit daily, and I bet most of ‘em head right upstairs to the dizzying food hall, which offer everything from the unusual to the uber-expensive.

About the only thing we could afford was a cup of hot chocolate at a snack bar next to a life-size bell sculpted from chocolate.

I was often told not to touch anything when I was kid. Back then I didn’t listen. This time I did. It only took 20 years for the advice to stick.

The fear of accidentally knocking over a €600 can of caviar or a jar of rare chocolates or a 100-year old bottle of wine was too overwhelming to stay in KaDeWe for long.

Think I would make a good Santa?

Just down the street on Ku’Damm, one of Berlin’s most popular shopping avenues, is a poignant sculpture that was created in 1987 to symbolize the division of Germany by the Berlin Wall. Called simply Berlin, the sculpture features two links in a broken chain struggling to hold on to each other like lovers being torn apart.

Beyond the sculpture is another heartbreaking reminder of Germany’s dark history: the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

Originally constructed in the 1890s, the church was severely damaged in an air raid during World War II. Instead of rebuilding, it was decided that the church would remain in its disfigured state as a reminder of the horrors of war.

The ground level has been converted into a memorial hall that charts the history and destruction of the church, and presents artifacts that survived the bombing such as a damaged statue of Christ.

A new church consisting of four buildings was constructed next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church 20 years after the original became unusable. Nicknamed “The Lipstick and Powder Compact,” the 175-foot high tower features over 21,000 stained glass blocks.

We had to lighten things up after that, so we grabbed a seat at a food stall in the Christmas Market… and went a little crazy.

In our defense, this was going to be our last opportunity to indulge in delicious German holiday food, so we had to stock up like a bear about to go into hibernation.

After two sausages, one currywurst and three orders of sliced potatoes pan-fried in bacon fat, it was time to head back to the hotel for a nap.

But it wasn’t easy to sleep. The constant sound of fireworks rumbling down the street and shaking the windows was too distracting.

Instead, we got caught up watching “Ninja Warrior” while packing our bags (our flight was at 7a.m. the next morning). We’ve seen humans put on unimaginable displays of athleticism, but “Ninja Warrior” takes it to a new level.

“Ninja Warrior” is a Japanese game show similar to “Wipeout” and “American Gladiators” where ridiculously strong and agile guys attempt to survive the most difficult and physically demanding obstacle course we’ve ever seen. Perhaps we’re late to the party, but you’ve gotta see this…

Maybe it was the Asian theme, or maybe it was the sad realization that we’ll never be accomplish any of those physical challenges, but we eventually resigned ourselves to eating Chinese food for dinner.

Too bad it was actually the worst meal of the trip. Maybe the phrase “saving the worst for last” will become vogue now.

From there we braved the dangerous walk to Brandenburg Gate for New Year’s celebrations, which you can read about here.

The walk back to the hotel wasn’t as dangerous, but it was just as noisy.

There was a little food shack right around the corner from the hotel that we passed every day but never visited. I couldn’t leave without satiating my curious appetite… with another currywurst.

It made up for the crappy dinner; turns out it was the best currywurst I had on the whole trip (admittedly, my hunger by this point may have clouded my judgment).

The food selection on our one-week trip to Berlin may have been limited in scope, but the city made up for it.

Berlin is an interesting place. The city has been beaten and battered by two World Wars and the Cold War, and yet it has survived. Today, this big, bright, bold, beautiful city is on the cutting edge of art, architecture and technology, moving forward at lightning speed without forgetting or hiding its past. It’s an old city that feels young, a big city that feels small, a complex city that feels accessible.

In the end, we’re leaving with more questions than answers. But when you think about it, most cities don’t even ask its visitors to question. And that makes Berlin a place that cannot be forgotten.

A couple of days ago, we were jolted awake by the frightening sounds of explosions.  Turned out it was just fireworks.  We’ve gotten used to the hourly performances of pyromania by this point.

Then this morning I was pulled out of a refreshing sleep by another alarming sound, this time from Jackie…

“OH MY GOD!”

Jackie stared out the window, eyes popping out of her skull like a cartoon, jaw sinking to the floor in shock.

“What!?  What is it!?” I said, fearing the worst.

“IT’S SNOWING!”

Megan Fox offering me a pepperoni pizza couldn’t even get me out of bed that fast.  I sprung off the mattress and hit the window before ever touching the floor, eager to see this foreign substance.

And there it was.  Soft, white flecks tricking down from the sky, blanketing the street like a really cold down comforter.

I sat fascinated at the window for so long that Jackie literally had to pull me away and force me into the morning shower.

You see, being from L.A., we dont get snow… ever.  So while most people probably view the snow as an inconvenience, we took it as an opportunity to unleash our inner children.

After stepping out of the hotel and taking tons of pictures, we headed over to the Pergamon Museum, which already had hefty line out the door.  I know, heading to the warm confines of a museum on a day it’s pouring snow… we couldn’t believe other people had this idea either.

Most times waiting in line is a boring and tedious precursor to the slow museum shuffle.  Not today.

We laughed when the slow tickled our noses.  We formed snow balls so small and pathetic we had to call them snow pellets.  We wrote messages into the snow.  With our fingers, people, let’s be clear about this.

But my long-time romanticized view of snow ended in the same way that my belief in Santa had ended… badly.  Jackie repeatedly warned me not to put the snow in my mouth, but I couldn’t resist.  The world was a snow cone and I wanted a bite.

It looked so delicate and sweet, like powdered sugar.  Living your life by the principle of “explore with your mouth” probably isn’t safe, but it hasn’t gotten me killed (yet).

Eating snow didn’t get me killed, but the taste of acid rain probably permanently singed a few taste buds.

When the flaky snow touched my tongue, it reminded me of the taste of wet soil in my mouth after getting tackled in a middle school game of flag football where the opponents conveniently forgot the object of the game was to grab a flag, not pile drive a frail and uncoordinated chubby kid with little athletic ability into the ground.

After a solid 30-minute wait in the throes of winter, we finally got into the Pergamon Museum.

The museum is located on Museum Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring five world-famous museums packed on an island in the middle of the Spree River.  The Pergamon Museum is named after the highlight of the museum’s collection, the Pergamon Altar, a monumental gate that existed in the ancient city of Pergamon.

What’s so fascinating about the Pergamon Altar is that it depicts a violent battle between Olympian gods and giant creatures on an absolutely huge scale.

It’s mind-boggling to think that this massive marble structure featuring sculptures of Apollo and Zeus battling giant serpents and lions was whittled into existence with such precision by people using ancient tools.

Sure, the altar that you walk on today is only a reconstruction, but just imagining what the real thing must have looked like over 2,000 years ago can make your head spin.

And to think that this was just the facade; the rest of the altar was over twice as long and just as intricately detailed.

The exhibition hall also features original pieces of the reliefs excavated in Pergamon.  Most of it is incomplete so we had to use our imagination to craft the story of this epic battle. If there’s anything we learned it’s that even gods can get their heads eaten by angry lions.

The Pergamon Museum isn’t a one-hit wonder either.  There are two other awe-inspiring attractions.

The first is the Market Gate of Miletus, a 56-foot high gate that once stood in the ancient Greek city of Miletus.  The gate crumbled after an earthquake 900 years ago, but the pieces remained surprisingly well-preserved by the time they were uncovered in the 19th century.  The pieces were then shipped to Germany and the gate was reassembled inside the museum.

The second major attraction is the Ishtar Gate, a 2,500-year-old blue-tiled gate that once guarded the inner city of Babylon.  This 47-foot high, 100-foot wide reconstruction uses materials discovered during the gate’s excavation.

The Pergamon Museum features so much more, but we spent hours taking in those three attractions.  That led to hunger.  And that led to a quest for a decent restaurant.

A restaurant we found.  Decent it was not.

We should have known immediately that the food was gonna be crappy — from what we could make out, the name of the place was Lunch Bistro.  Never trust eateries without descriptive or creative names.

Every currywurst I had up until that point was delicious.  Lunch Bistro ended that streak.

It took about 40 minutes for our food to arrive after we ordered it despite the restaurant’s small size.  By the time it came out, the food was cold and watery.  And this place wasn’t even that cheap.

Our frustration was compounded when we learned that the day-passes that granted us access to all museums on Museum Island weren’t good at the Neues Museum because it was sold out.

All the museums on the island are undergoing renovation — we read a sign that said the Pergamon Museum was closing for four years — and the collections are being shifted around.

The Egyptian artifacts, like the iconic bust of Nefertiti with the missing eye, were moved to the recently re-opened Neues Museum.  That’s the stuff I really wanted to see, probably because I accept everything that happened in “Stargate” as fact.  I guess everyone else wanted to see it too.

It seemed like everyone, including us, who couldn’t get into the Neues Museum went to the magnificently designed Berlin Cathedral, known for its extravagant organ with 7,000 pipes and stunning views from the Dome Gallery.  That, of course, led to a long wait that we didn’t want to endure in the cold.

So we started on our way to the O2 Arena to see a hockey game.  We followed the people clad in jerseys from the train station to the box office.  Here’s how that worked out:

“You want to buy tickets for tonight’s game?”

“Yeah, we’ve really been looking forward to –”

“There is no chance.  All sold out.  No seat.”

I thought she’d keep going just to rub it in — “Nada, zilch, nothing.”

It was looking like this day was a bust.

But things started to turn around when we visited the surprisingly cool Tacheles, just a few buildings down from our hotel.

This five-story building has an interesting history: first it was a department store, then it became the central office of the SS during WWII, and after it sustained damage in the Allied bombing of Berlin, it was largely forgotten about.

The building was going to be demolished in 1990, but squatters, also known as artists, had taken over the building.  When the city surveyed the decrepit building and found it to be structurally sound, they declared Tacheles a historic monument and let the artists stay.

Walking through the building, especially at night, is slightly uncomfortable.  Our heads were telling us not to ascend the creaky stairs of a dark building covered floor to ceiling in graffiti.  But we did, and it was worth the risk.

A band played what I think was music, but the jumbled sounds made me unsure.  Walls were covered in colorful murals.  Artists crafted jewelry by hand.  Others hawked canvases reeking of fresh paint.

I told Jackie that some of the paintings and drawings were so grotesquely beautiful, they had to have been created when the artist was high.

No less than a minute later, we walked by a room packed with artists sharing a joint.

The building saw a steady flow of curious people that eventually found their way into the packed, smoke-filled bar on the third level.

We walked down the street to an Italian restaurant we had eaten at earlier on this trip only to find every seat taken.  The waiter said it would be five minutes so we decided to wait.  A few minutes later, a couple about our age walked in and joined the wait.

When the first table to open up was a table for four, we agreed to share the table.

We had a great time sharing stories about our experiences in Berlin.  She was a German who moved to Australia for school and he was a native of Australia who was just as fascinated by snow as we were.

The rest of the night was spent comparing cultures, politics and lifestyles over garlic soup and giant thin-crust pizzas.  Yet again, a day that could have been a disaster was saved by a terrific evening.

We love finding quirky things in places you least expect.  This morning we ate breakfast in a pastry chain called Kamps after determining that pastries are the only thing one can eat for breakfast in Germany.  When we sat down to enjoy our croissants, apple strudel and tea, we noticed this interesting memorial to the Berlin Wall.

The display was called “1 Million Stories” even though it was really just one.  The disjointed story was etched on a small-scale model of the wall, and from what I gather it was about a kid whose family was divided by the wall.  Now we’ve just got to find the 999,999 other displays.

Just down the street is Checkpoint Charlie, the infamous crossing point between East and West Germany.  Remember seeing those photos in your history book of the stand-off between Soviet and American tanks at the Berlin Wall?  This is where it happened.

This is also where many people tried to escape the tyranny of the East for the freedom of the West.  Some succeeded, some failed, and some even died trying.

The Checkpoint Charlie museum chronicles all of the known escape attempts, even showing some of the devices used to traverse the wall like balloons and fake uniforms.  But the museum was unanimously panned by guidebooks and reviews on the web, so we saved €15 a piece and read about the wall at the open-air exhibit down the street.

Just past the replica guard house featuring signs with pictures of actors portraying Soviet and American guards, there’s a series of walls with pictures and details about the checkpoint, the events that led to the tank stand-off, escape attempts and eventually the crumbling of the Berlin Wall.

We even walked along a cobblestone trail where the wall once stood.

That led us to the second-longest preserved stretch of the Berlin Wall, near the site where the headquarters of the SS and Gestapo once existed in Nazi Germany.  Look at how thin the wall was…

This area has become known as the Topography of Terror, an exhaustive outdoor museum that details the frightening practices of the Nazis.

I’ve gotta give it to Berlin… they not only reflect on their dark history openly, but they urge visitors to join them.  And they make it free to do so.

The only problem is that it’s hard to appreciate these massive open-air exhibits when it’s freezing.  Had it been warmer and had we brought those handy fold-out chairs, we could have spent a few more hours at the Topography of Terror.

From there, we headed to the Jewish Museum, which has become one of the most popular museums in Germany since it opened in 2001.

The slanted pillars in front of the museum form the Garden of Exile.

It’s easy to see why. The design alone was worth a visit.  The zigzag shaped building resembles a shattered Star of David with its jagged windows and lines piercing the silver shell of the main building.  It can be very disorienting inside the museum, with its crisscrossing, twisting and shrinking corridors.

But, surprisingly, the museum isn’t all avant-garde or doom-and-gloom.  In fact, it’s a really fun place to learn about a religion and a people that are often misunderstood.

The cleverly designed exhibits present information about the history and evolution of the Jews, demystifying traditions and destroying stereotypes with easy to understand information.

Our favorite exhibits were the interactive ones: writing a wish on a paper pomegranate and placing it in a tree, building synagogues out of blocks, and dropping coins into a spiral funnel that represents the Jew’s history of charity.

What I wanted to discover most was the origins of Jewish persecution.  Early into the tour, we found a placard called “The Jew as Scapegoat.”  It talked about how Jewish persecution began in the 13th century when rumors surfaced after a boy’s death that Jews needed blood for religious rituals.

That led to the murder of many Jews throughout Europe.  And it only got worse when they were blamed for poisoning wells that started the Plague in 1347.  The false accusations followed Jews from that point on.

The most poignant exhibit in the museum, for me at least, were glass cases shaped like humans, and inside there were pictures and mementos remembering holocaust victims.  It was a sobering experience to see a shell of a human who is only remembered by the few items they left behind.

We spent hours at the Jewish Museum, and easily could have spent the whole day there.  It’s probably the most engaging museum we’ve ever visited.

On the way to the subway, we walked across stone tablets featuring quotes from some of the world’s great thinkers.  It was called the Path of Visionaries and I’m surprised so many tourists didn’t even notice what they were walking on.

Just before we got to the station, we heard some German people loudly arguing.  Now, I know in America, comedians and TV shows mock the German language as if every word sounds angry.

But we noticed that the stereotype didn’t fit.  The language actually sounded fun and playful… Until I heard those people arguing.

At that point, I realized that an angry German sounds absolutely frightening.  Even a mildly irritated German would freak me out after hearing how harsh the German language can be.

On the other hand, there are some languages that just don’t evoke fear.  Take, for instance, French.  No matter how mad a French person gets, no matter how much they yell and shoot daggers out of their eyes, you can’t take their anger seriously.  It just sounds too funny.

Case in point, mere moments after overhearing angry German people, we came upon a little spat that a French couple was having.  The guy, we can only assume, was being all snarky and he kept saying “oui” with real attitude.

“Oui!?  OUI!?”  He had the most serious look on his face, but I couldn’t for the life of me take him seriously.  French just doesn’t sound threatening.  German can.  And that is why I will never so much as inconvenience a German.

Anyway, it was time for lunch.  We went to the Gendarmenmarkt, one of the most famous squares in Berlin.

We stopped into a tiny bistro to eat, and when I say it was tiny, I mean t…i…n…y.  This place was only big enough to accommodate about 15 people shoulder-to-shoulder.  It was like eating in a walk-in closet.

The menu wasn’t extensive and the smell of hot sausages from the Christmas market outside was hypnotic, so we had a small lunch consisting of three soups. The strangest was the hotpot: a thick pea soup with chunks of bacon and a whole sausage.

The meal worked better as a rest for our feet and a temporary escape from the cold than a satiating dining experience.

And that’s why we immediately made a bee-line to the sausage stand after paying the bill.  There’s no better way to defeat cold than with a hot sausage and a steaming cup of hot wine.

After raising our body temperature like ten degrees and getting mildly tipsy in the process, we went to the German Cathedral.

This impressive church was almost completely destroyed in WWII and only recently rebuilt.  Today it houses a free exhibit on German parliamentary history…

But what we really wanted to do was climb the massive spiral staircase all the way to the top.

It took some serious soul-searching, but eventually we agreed to do it, the only caveats being that we had to take breaks often and we had to finish the journey no matter how long it took.

Well, four minutes into this leg-cramping, lung-burning, eye-sweating exercise, we hit a wall.  Not the figurative wall that marathoners hit –

A real wall. About five stories up.

I was proud that we had even made it that far, but honestly I felt like with another hour of trudging up those stairs, we could’ve made it to the top.  Nonetheless, it was a sad reminder that I need to use the Stairmaster more often.

By this point Jackie had been itching to do something slightly girly, so we went to Galeries Lafayette.  We had been to the original store in Paris and I was hoping to see something similar to that store’s amazing dome.

Instead, the Berlin store has an upside-down dome.  That’s right, at the center of the store was an intimidating glass funnel that led to a hole to nothingness.

It was actually a little scary looking over the railing into the funnel.  What would happen if you fell in?  Would you disappear into a black hole?  The possibilities are mind-boggling.

On our way out of the store, we came across a piece of the Berlin Wall.  For all the affluent girls who frequent Galeries Lafayette, it’s sad to think that this might be the extent of their historical knowledge.

When it came time for dinner, we decided to head to Potsdamer Platz and stroll through the Christmas market with its ice mountain inner tube ride.  This area was once divided by the Berlin Wall, but today it’s a bustling business and entertainment district.

The popular draw is the Sony Center, with its spider-like canopy covering restaurants and shops.  Surprisingly, there wasn’t much selection, and what they did have was really expensive.

So we went to a cool Asian restaurant nearby called Coa.  It reminded me a lot of Wagamama with its interesting little pan-Asian concoctions like corn, crab and coconut soup.

Just outside, there was another Berlin Wall memorial that documented the last vestiges of the wall’s existence.

It started to feel like there were wall memorials everywhere.  But that actually put things in perspective.

Berlin feels so united that it’s hard to imagine a wall ever dividing this amazing city.

How does that happen anyway?  How do you even split a city that’s existed for almost a thousand years?  People going through divorce can’t even agree on who gets what, so how do you divorce a city?  “Here, you take that landmark, I’ll take this one”?

So far Berlin is like a good movie: it’s answered some questions, but raised many others.  Maybe the answers are out there, but it might take another visit to find them.

NyQuil should film their next commercial in Berlin.  Right now the city is a living advertisement for a flu remedy: people are coughing, sneezing, sniffling, moaning.  Somehow I’ve survived, but some diseased germ bag that didn’t cover his or her mouth seems to have infected germophobic Jackie.

She felt achy and congested this morning, and standing on a train platform when it’s cold and raining while I try to figure out which train we need to take didn’t help the situation.

Luckily, a sympathetic expat sitting on a nearby bench recognized my confusion and helped us find the correct train.

As sports fans, it was worth the confusion and the longer-than-normal train ride to the suburbs of Berlin to visit Olympiastadion.

Berlin’s Olympic Stadium is no doubt one of the most famous sports stadiums in the world.  Hitler ordered its construction for the 1936 Olympic Summer Games as a venue to flaunt the “superior” Aryan race to the world.

Instead, African-American Jesse Owens won four gold medals.

There’s not much to do there when the stadium isn’t packed with 74,500 fans for a soccer game, so we took a short ride to Schloss Charlottenburg, the largest palace in Berlin.

Normally, we really enjoy visiting palaces or mansions with beautifully detailed ornamentation, opulent statuary and lavish furnishings, but I wasn’t as impressed this time.

And I think some of that has to do with the fact that much of Schloss Charlottenburg was destroyed in WWII and had to be not only reconstructed, but redesigned.

I found myself skipping through the audio tour at a rapid pace because the narrator kept mentioning how the rooms weren’t an accurate representation of the rooms that Friedrich III and his wife designed for the palace.  Paintings and furnishings were borrowed from museums, walls were painted a different color and decorations were replicas.

Some rooms were even still under construction, or at least they looked that way covered in tarp and devoid of color.

I guess I wasn’t as impressed not because it seemed fake, but because the reconstruction seemed inaccurate.  It felt like the people who redesigned the palace were guessing as to what some of the rooms must have looked like.

Even major attractions like the White Room and the Golden Gallery feature brand new frescoes painted by current artists instead of duplications of the frescoes that once adorned these extravagant banquet halls.

Maybe I’m being unfair.  The palace is, after all, a huge tourist draw.  I can handle reconstructions and replicas, but it didn’t seem genuine to me.  Like a supermodel: looks nice on the outside, underwhelming on the inside.

And just to make the bad taste linger slightly longer, the much talked about gardens were dead.  Admittedly, even dead plants look good when they’re perfectly laid out.  But when you’re sick and cold, the last thing you want to do is wander through 33 hectares of dead garden.

We wanted to go to the zoo and see Knut the polar bear, but bad weather combined with body aches and coughing took over at this point.  So we had lunch at a German restaurant (currywurst again), stopped by the mini-market and a pastry stand to pick up a few things, and went back to the hotel to have a little taste testing party.

We’ve all heard a lot about how great German beer is, so I had to try a few varieties.  Now, I’m not particularly fond of beer. In fact, I’ve only found one beer I ever enjoyed.

But for about a dollar a bottle, why not take the taste buds on an adventure to beer land?

Well, the adventure ended abruptly.  After only one gulp of the Hefeweizen and the Dunkel, I was quickly reminded why I don’t like beer in the first place.

Beer is not refreshing.  I don’t know why commercials insist on convincing us otherwise.

Beer makes my mouth feel like I walked through a desert without a canteen.  It’s like putting a vacuum in my mouth and sucking out every last drip of moisture.  It’s bitter.  It’s dry.  It’s just not rewarding.

The Berliner Kindl Radler was slightly more toothsome.  It sort of tasted like someone spilled a pitcher of lemonade into the beer during the brewing process, but that helped mask the taste of the beer.

The last beer we tried was another Berliner Kindl Weisse. A couple days ago I said I actually enjoyed the variety I had at a restaurant.  Even though it looked like glowing nuclear waste, I dug the sweetness of the woodruff.

This time I went for the raspberry.  I gotta tell ya, it was pretty good.  There’s only a faint beer taste under the sweetness of the berry.  Sure, this is basically a kid’s beer (only 3% alcohol), but if more beer was flavored with fruit syrup, I might be a convert.

I was already on a sweet kick, so it was time to eat my boredom away with a mélange of pastries.

Germans love them some apple… if its swimming in syrup beneath a sugar-coated crust.  I happen to like the same thing, so to get in touch with my (nonexistent) German heritage, I demolished an apple strudel in about five bites.

I also got this strange pasty that resembled a Petri dish growing bacterial clouds.  I think it was fried dough with sweet cheese pieces covered in liquid sugar, but I can’t be certain.  It was just okay… but I ate the entire thing anyway.

The beer, pastries and TV-viewing rounded out my quest to become a couch crusader.

Here’s the thing about travelling to foreign countries: we wind up watching a lot of music videos.

That’s because it’s about the only thing in English.  Sure, there’s CNN and BBC News, but they repeat the same four stories every 15 minutes.

I haven’t watched this many music videos since the days when I pretended to be sick in high school just to stay home and watch MTV.  That, of course, was back when MTV actually played music videos.

In Europe, they still do.  In fact, they play everything in their entire library.  We’ve seen a few blasts from the past like “Hit Me Baby One More Time” and even a few Backstreet Boys and N*Sync videos.

Don’t judge.  You know they made some catchy stuff.

Even better is late night MTV.  That’s when it goes uncensored.  They even call it “MTV What The F*ck”.

And in between videos there are dirty commercials, like the one we saw for an iPhone app that turns girls naked.  (Allegedly, it allows you to take a picture of girl anywhere and then some futuristic technology shows you what’s underneath her clothes.)

The problem is, every now and again, the TV in our room randomly turns black and white for about 15 minutes.

By the time MTV replayed Lady GaGa for the eighth time, it was time for bed.

Around midnight, we were jolted awake by the alarming sounds of EXPLOSIONS.

That’s not comforting when you’re in a country that’s seen its share of explosions in the last century.

When you’re in that half-awake state, you come up with crazy scenarios to justify the explosions.  Maybe it was a car bomb.  Maybe there’s a riot.  Maybe the hotel is on fire.

Nope.  Once I heard another explosion and saw a flash of colored light streak across the windows, I knew it was fireworks from New Year’s celebrations that were starting early.

Three days early.

Like many European cities, Berlin is largely devoid of tall buildings.  Most city streets are lined by four- or five-story structures, creating a very clean and even look.  So it’s easy to see the TV Tower from just about anywhere in the city.

Or should we say, it’s easy for the TV Tower to see you.

Sure, the Fernsehturm resembles a small, silver golf ball on an over-sized tee, but there’s something undeniably creepy about it.  It feels like the tower is a giant eyeball, always watching your every move.

It’s not unusual that a structure in former East Berlin would evoke that feeling.  After all, the DDR was infamous for installing hidden cameras throughout the city and planting Stasi agents to spy on citizens.

As soon as we left the hotel this morning, the tower was there, staring at us like HAL in “2001″.

When we stepped off the train at Alexanderplatz, the Death-Star-On-A-Stick became even more imposing.

While waiting in line inside the lobby of the Fernsehturm, looking at diagrams of other TV Towers from around the world, I couldn’t help think that the most expensive attraction on our trip (€10 with Berlin Welcome Card discount) was also the most unsightly.

But from the observation deck 669-feet above ground, the view of Berlin is spectacular.

I always like doing stuff like this early in a trip.  You get familiar with the lay of the land, and you get to see places you’ll be visiting before you get there.  This is great if you get off public transportation and aren’t sure which way to go; all you do is pinpoint a familiar landmark near your destination and you’re on your way.

One thing I noticed from the observation deck that I hadn’t read about beforehand was the ruins of a 13th century Franciscan Church that was bombed by the Allies.

As soon as we left the tower, I had to check it out.  Part of the fun of travel is going on a detour.  On the short walk to the ruins, I passed a Communist-era relic next to a mall, saw two Berlin Buddy Bears (individually painted life-size fiberglass bears strewn about the city), and escaped death by dodging cars speeding across a 10-lane road.

I wish I had a chance to walk around the ruins, but it was closed (as most stuff was today… more on that later).  The Franciscan Church now serves as an open-air venue for rotating sculpture exhibits.

In Alexanderplatz, we checked the time in L.A. at the World Time Clock, a rotating 24-hour clock that shows time around the world…

…admired the frozen-over Fountain of Friendship…

…wandered in an open-air gallery celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall…

…and sucked down a fresh baked waffle covered with warm, gooey Nutella in the Christmas market.

From there we took the subway one stop to a popular shopping “mall” called Hackeschen Höfe.  This mall is really a web of eight buildings linked by courtyards containing boutiques and cafes.

All of ‘em were closed.  But had they been open, they would have been the type of over-priced places we wouldn’t shop at anyway.

Right down the street from the Höfe — you don’t hassle the Höfe — there was a long alley covered wall to wall in colorful graffiti.  At the end of the alley, there were two mechanical creatures with instructions to donate a euro and watch them come to life.

We got robbed of a euro.  But I later read that this alley housed the original Dead Chickens artist studio and at one point the creatures worked.  The people behind Dead Chickens make fanciful mechanical creatures that move and make noise, and apparently their exhibits are really popular in Europe.  The studio moved to somewhere else in Berlin, but we were never able to find out where.

Our journey continued to tumble downhill when we took a lengthy train ride to the outskirts of Berlin to visit the Plötzensee Prison.  This is where almost 3,000 resistance fighters and political dissidents were executed during Hitler’s reign.

Today, the prison is a site of remembrance, and the actual execution chamber is a memorial to its victims.  Inside, there are pictures and stories about those who died there.

We never got to see any of it . . . it was closed.  This was especially frustrating because the walk from the train station to the front gate took forever.

By this point we didn’t know what was open so we went back to the hotel.  When I asked the lady at the front why everything was closed, she said this particular Sunday was a “weird day.”

See, Monday is the day when most shops and museums are closed in Berlin.  And December 24 – 26 (which this year is Thursday through Saturday) is a national holiday in Germany, so most things are closed.  Well, there’s no point in opening on Sunday the 27th if places are just going to close again on Monday the 28th.

So even though most websites and guidebooks said things would be open today, apparently more places than normal decided to take the day off without notice.

Makes sense, but sucks for us.

I asked the lady if anything on my itinerary was still open, and after a few phone calls, we found something.  Of course, so did all the other tourists.

It was the Berlin Wall Memorial and Documentation Center.

An outdoor gallery documents the sad story of the Church of Reconciliation.  When the wall was built, the church became stuck in the “no man’s land” between East and West Germany and had to be demolished.

The gallery also focuses on some of the successful and unsuccessful escape attempts as well as a brief history of the wall.  The most eye-opening fact was that the city was literally divided overnight by barbed-wire to the shock of both East and West Germans.

The real highlight of the memorial, however, was the reconstructed stretch of no man’s land, guard tower and all.  Visitors peer through thin slats in the concrete to get a sense of how difficult it was for people to escape from East Germany – two walls, barbed wire, land mines, guard dogs, heavily-armed patrol guards, etc.

The Documentation Center was too small to accommodate so many people, so we weren’t able to watch any of the films or sift through pictures and documents about the wall.  We probably could have spent hours there if it wasn’t so busy.

From there we took a short tram ride to the one thing I was looking forward to the most on this trip: a handball match.  This fast-paced, high-scoring game might be the coolest sport you never heard of until now.  Read about what it was like at the game here.

After the game, we went looking for dinner near our hotel and wound up chatting with a friendly American couple on their first trip to Europe.

That’s one of the great things about travel: when you hear someone speaking your language in a foreign country, you feel inclined to talk to them.  Had we crossed paths at a grocery store back home, we never would have said hello.

We recommended they try an Italian restaurant across the street which we had eaten at earlier in the week and really enjoyed, while Jackie and I ended up at an Indo-Chinese place called Minchi.  We had seen the restaurant from our hotel room and it was always packed.

After eating our mediocre dinner, I came up with a theory: since German food is notoriously bland, anything foreign is considered good.  It could be a fried shoe with Asian seasonings, as long as it’s foreign, it’s good.

Another theory: Germans had to become master brewers to drown out the taste of their food.

At the end of the day, the handball game and the view from the TV Tower made up for what could have been a disappointing day.