Last 2 days of Berlin

I'm going to try and remember everything we did yesterday...it was quite a lot. We got a late start and first made our way to AlexanderPlatz, which is a nice park surrounded by churches. In the middle of the platz is Nuptunebrunnen: a giant statue of Neptune in the middle of a fountain. Very impressive except that it obviously hasnt been cleaned in a while and has tarnished quite a bit. we briefly went into Marienkirche (one of the churches there). Almost all the walls were bare, I am guessing it got hit hard in WW2 and no one has since repaired it. A brief walk from there was the BerlinerDom, another church, but HUGE. And obviously as the name implies it has a big dome on the top. The dome and walls are covered in pretty mosaics and the organ alone would fill up many other churches. We wandered around the crypt where I think at least 90% of the men were named Fredreich. Then from the crypt we walked all the way to the top of the dome where there is a lookout area. The steps never end! The climb was quite decieving because there were multiple doors you would have to go through, so you would think "oh! a door, I'm there!"...and beyond the door there would be more stairs. That being said the climb was worth it and the view of Berlin was nice. I have to saw though of all the cities I've been to so far Berlin has been my least favorite. I'm having fun here, but the city itself is not as inherently beautiful as so many of the other European cities I've been to. It is very urban, overrun, in some places very dirty. Most places are not great for just strolling around.

From BerlinerDom Mark, Steve and I split from Angela and Adam so we could go see the bears in Koll. Park. The city has 3 bears as their mascot. Only 2 of them were out, but we could see them MUCH closer than in Bern. While in Bern the bear was far below in a pit, here the bear is separated from you by a trench, but you are eye level to the bear. They were European brown bears. We watched them for a while before returning to Alexanderplatz and getting some pizza. We took the tram to one of the Stasi prisons, or "special camps" where people were held by the Soviet Union for various 'crimes'. Usually the crime was attempting to escape east Berlin. The so-called "U boat" cells were pretty disturbing; tiny stone cells with no windows and a large wooden surface as a bed. People were kept in them under varying conditions to get confessions: shortened rations, no sleep, partially filled with water, etc. Unfortunately we were not able to arrange a tour in English, although that would have been even creepier because usually the tour guides are former prisoners of the camp.

Last touristy thing of the day was the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery. It is the longest remaining stretch of the wall and is covered in paintings and graffiti. There are even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle graffitied on! We walked along the whole stretch of remaining wall and then took the S-bahn to an Indian resturant I had looked up the previous day. A craving for butter chicken had taken me over. The resturant was really good, as was the butter chicken. We spent a little more than we usually do, but it is nice to treat ourselves every once in a while. We didnt leave the resturant until about 10:30.

This morning we got another late start and went straight to the Berlin Zoo. We spent over 6 hours there, and luckily it didn't rain! (It has rained everyday in Germany the entire time we have been here). It was a cool zoo since they don't use cages per se, but rather the trench/moat system. So you get to be eye level with the animals and it appears as if nothing but a short distance is separating you. The elephants and hippos were my favorite. We were able to make it to the hippo feeding time and went into the big cat house immedietly after feeding time. I watched a puma play with some rabbit guts for a while. We also saw where they prepare the big cats food. You can see some dead rabbits on the floor, a huge hunk of meat hanging from the ceiling by a hook, and a small chainsaw. Another cool part of the zoo was its nocturnal animal section: it was all underground and mostly dark, so it was kind of like a haunted house. The aardvark scurrying across freaked me out. By the end of the zoo we were all pretty beat so we grabbed another helping of currywurst and are now back at the hostel for an early night in. It's hard to get enough sleep when the truck deliveries happen loudly outside our window at 6:30am!