Today was a chill day in Berlin.

We managed to get to breakfast at 9:30 a.m. only to find it was $17 euros a person, but we were both hungry so we decided to do it. It was a breakfast full of sausages, bacon, eggs and cake. Perfect!

After breakfast we planned out our day. We decided to try and keep it a bit laid back after the adventures we had yesterday. Jacob was telling me that Berlin is unlike other capital cities because the city is actually quite poor. Berlin is still putting itself back together after being torn in half for 30 years.

We are in the Gesundbrunnen neighborhood which reminds me a lot of Seattle with a mix of young people, families, some interesting characters and your friendly homeless person singing Madonna’s Material Girl.

A benefit to our hotel is the location near the train station but that’s also a negative. The train is so close and quite loud. Also, there is a bar right next to the hotel and people enjoy standing outside smoking. Because this hotel is older we don’t have any temperature control in the room and are keeping the windows open during the day to get in fresh air, but with the amount of evening smoke we have to close them. Even six floors up the smoke gets in here. That is one thing that stuns me about Europe, so many people smoking!

Jacob noted today in the line at the grocery store they sell hard liquor and cigarettes, whereas in the US you’d see gum and candy. I also had my first negative experience with a German today. It was the cashier at the grocery store, she was asking me something over and over. I didn’t understand and she got frustrated with me. We were able to check out and everything was fine but that was a little stressful.

Getting back on track… after breakfast we walked over to the train station that is connected with a shopping center. We walked about there for a bit and then hopped on a train to check out some of the Berlin Wall sights.

We went to Bernauer Strasse and walked along the road checking out all the historical information about the wall. It was a very moving and beautiful memorial.

After viewing the wall we took the train from the Nordbahnhof to the Hauptbahnhof. Nordbahnhof was a ghost station while East and West Berlin were split. The station was reopened in 1990. It was kind of eerie being there.

Hauptbahnhof is the central station in Germany. This station has been featured in movies and TV shows. Jacob said if you see an American agent running around to get out of there (you’ll only get the joke if you’ve seen Homeland.) The station is amazing. Its multiple levels with shops and trains on every level.

From there we headed to Alexanderplatz. Alexanderplatz was the center of East Berlin. We checked out the Berlin TV Tower and walked to the Deutsches Historisches Museum. By this point I was starving so I made Jacob stop at the Museum Cafe first where he reminded me that he had wanted to get food at the Hauptbahnhof Station and I didn’t want to.
The museum was amazing. It had the history of Germany from year 500 to 1994. There was so much to see we barely got through by the time it closed at 6 p.m.

After that we stopped at the grocery store to get more snacks and are now back at the hotel relaxing.

I’d like to note that Jacob’s pretzel count may be higher than the number of days we have spent here and he’s working on his second bag of Hairbo gummy bears. He said when they only cost 0.79 cents, how can you not?

Tomorrow more sights of Berlin!