Berlin Continued

On Wednesday we started off on the metro into the main part of town where there are lots of tourist sites. We saw the Brandenburg Tor, which is the old city gates. They look at lot like all the big gates in Paris with the horses on top. We also popped our heads inside the DB bank which was designed by Gehry (sp?) and has lots of glass in crazy patterns. Then we went to wander around the Gedenkstatter Deutecher Widestand: a memorial to the German jews killed during WW2. It was a really cool memorial made up of hundreds of slabs of stones. From the perimeter it looked like none of the stones were more than 2 ft high, but when you entered the complex they loom to around 10 ft. It seems more like the ground is sinking into the stones than they are getting taller. Very interesting effect and kind of creepy to walk around in. Especially when Steve likes to jump out from behind corners...

From there it started to rain so we made a quick trip over to the Reichstag, the government seat of Berlin, but the line to get in was pretty long (Angela and Adam spent about 45 minutes in it), so Mark, Steve and I decided to skip it and head to the Museum für Naturkunde (Museum of Natural History). That was intresting, although MUCH smaller than the one in DC. But they have the Archaeopteryx, which is the first found and best preserved fossil of a dinosaur with wings and feathers. They also have the largest piece of amber, which was kind of a let down because it is only about 2ish ft long and 1 ft high and is not shiny like amber jewelry is.

We left the building a little after they closed, and it was lucky we didn't get locked in! We had fininshed seeing the museum, but did't yet want to venture out into the rain so we shared ipod music in the cafe room for a while. At one point a guard came in about to lock the doors and found us and told us in surprised German that the museum was closed. He had to take us out a side entrance because the front gates had already been locked. From there we met Angela and Adam for dinner. They got falafel and we went to a German resturant next door. It was kind of pricy, but soooo good. I got a lamb and mashed potato dish.

After a stop back at the hostel to rest up Mark, Steve and I went out to a dance club in downtown Berlin. We got there at about midnight, waited in line for 20 mins and then got in. The bouncer took a while to find my birthdate on my VA drivers license. Inside was amazing! They have about 6 different dance rooms all with different DJs playing different types of music. We ended up in the electronic/sorta techno room and danced for a few hours. A little after 2 I was tired and we decided to leave; also our day pass was only good on the bus and subway until 3am. But we were not smart enough to think ahead on getting back and the S-bahn and U-bahn were closed until 4:30am. So we checked the bus and tram schedules near the club, none of them took us anywhere near our hostel. We ended up getting a cab, which was expensive, but it was that or not get back until 5am.

This morning Mark left to get his plane back to the States and the rest of us are going to the Pergamon art museum. Tomorrow we leave for Prague.

HI MRS. JIANG!!!