Europe Trip, Part IV: Berlin

We've made it to the recap of the 4th stop of the European Extravaganza!

Berlin, Germany

Side note: in multiple of the cities that Micah and I visited, we used airbnb to find places to stay and it worked fabulously! In Berlin, we stayed with two sisters and they gave great recommendations. In particular, the night we arrived, it was late and we were hungry and they suggested a Vietnamese place that was near their place. It was called Si An. And, it was the BEST Vietnamese food I've had!

Now to the pictures....

We did a second walking tour in Berlin and while I enjoyed parts of it, I'm not sure I would enthusiastically recommend it to someone else (especially it that someone else had limited time in such an incredible city!)

Holocaust Memorial

Our tourguide was quite educational and gave not only information about the sites we were seeing, but the more general historical and present day context of the city. In fact, it was kind of like a 3 hour outdoor lecture, and had it not been freezing temperatures out I probably would have enjoyed it more.

Oh, Berlin, we parted too soon.

Berlin is a little rough around the edges, in a gritty, real kind of way, in a way that remembers its past but doesn't quite know its future. For being a capital city, I expected, perhaps, a bit more sophistication, pretentious sophistication. Pretentious it was not. Sophisticated it was in the international and intellectual sense, but not in the "look at all my fine china" Vienna sense.

In fact, there were a lot of things that reminded me of San Francisco in our visit to Berlin. And you may not know, dear reader, but San Francisco will always hold the trophy for my first city love.

Berliner Dom

East Side Gallery: an outdoor art exhibit that has been created over part of the Berlin Wall.

Walking around Berlin, I saw a lot of growth. It was in the roped off areas and construction sites. It was in the prevalence of babies and small children (especially in the neighborhood we stayed in). It was in the large crowds of tourists.

Berlin seemed to be blossoming,

and the energy I felt from being there was invigorating and unexpected.

There was so much more of Berlin that I did not get to see and I'm hopeful that one day I will be back to visit again.

Next up: Edinburgh