Berlin, Germany

 We arrived this morning in the coastal town of Warnemünde, Germany (”Var neh MOON duh”). It’s the landing point for ferries and cruise ships from all over Scandinavia for folks who want to visit Berlin.

It’s also the HQ of Liebherr, who make those giant earth-moving machines

FYI: Liebherr translates roughly to ‘dear sir’ - and yes, I got to practice my German today!

We woke up early and got put on a train for a 2.5 hour ride to Berlin.

The main train station (Hauptbahnhof) is nice and there’s a really nifty cube building next to it.

We hopped on a bus that took us around to see a few sights, such as the Reichstag

And the Brandenburg Gate

And some cathedrals (I think this one is called the French Cathedral - and Französichestraße (“fron-zoo-zish-a-stross-a” :French Street) is just a block away, so…)

Once the bus let us off, we had a few hours to spend on our own. Rob wanted to head over to museum island to see his girlfriend Nefertiti in the Neues Museum, so off we went. Along the way, we passed some nice buildings. No idea what they are or what they’re for.

Berlin Cathedral is ginormous. Seriously, it’s HUGE.

Next to it is the Altes Museum (Old Museum)

We want the Neues Museum (New Museum) though, so we keep going until we see it

Good news, bad news: the good news is that tickets are FREE today. The bad news is they’re booked up for the next two hours. No worries, we’ll go have lunch.

We found a cafe that was nice enough and out of the crowds and sat down to some live music by a couple of buskers with violins.

OMG, they were terrible. Out of tune and cringeworthy.

But good for them, they were out there, giving it their best. We tossed them $5.
They only knew four songs: Despacito, Hallelujah, My Heart Will Go On, and one other one. They also clearly had favourites, as we heard Despacito SEVEN TIMES.

Lunch was a Berlin staple, a dish invented here: Currywurst.

Take a bratwurst, boil it until done, then fry it until crispy. Slice and serve with curry ketchup and a sprinkling of yellow curry. Delicious. Rob had a schnitzel.

Dessert was Apple Strudel for Rob and Mohnkuchen (poppy seed cake) for me.

I ordered for us, beginning with “Es tut mir leid, meinen Deutsch ist schlecht.” (Sorry, my German is crappy)

The waiter nodded that it was fine and later he asked where we were from.
I said, “Kanada. Nicht Amerikanisch!” (Canada. Not American!)
I detected a look of relief on his face. He was very friendly after that.

After lunch, we hit the museum and saw a lot of Egyptian artifacts.

And yes, we did see Nefertiti, but that room was strictly ‘no photos allowed’.

Then we headed back toward the spot where the bus would pick us up. We passed an artist’s market outisde the Cathedral.

Waiting for the bus, I had a diesel next to the French Cathedral

FYI: Diesel = half wheat beer, half Coke. Yes, I know it sounds absolutely awful, but it’s tasty - and this from a guy who doesn’t like beer OR Coke.

On the way back to the train station, we stopped to look at a section of the Berlin Wall that’s still standing.

It was interesting to see, but then I turned around and got sucker-punched by this:

I was in tears by the time I got back on the bus. Very simple, but profoundly moving.

The train ride back seemed twice as long and we were both tired. The dinner tonight was all about Germany.
I had a bunch of wurst, some red cabbage, sauerkraut, and käsespetzle (KAY-za-shpetz-la) - flour noodles with cheese.

Delicious.

The view we had while we ate was pretty good, too:

Later, after the sun went down, I went back on deck to get some trick shots with long exposures. My fave was this one:

On to the next day!

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