The sleeperette was OK, actually. The train was due in Berlin about 6:40am. The attendant gave us a wake-up call about 5:45. The beds were kind of hard though. I slept OK, which surprised me. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep on a moving train. The other guys didn't sleep well at all. Sucks to be them.
When the train arrived at our stop, Neil was still in bed, so we missed it! We got off at the next stop, and took a local train back a couple of stops. They have storage lockers at the train stations here, so we unloaded our stuff, bought an all-day bus/tram/subway ticket, and hopped on a bus that goes around in a big circle.
The bus ended up not finishing the route because of a marathon in the city. So we walked to the Victory Tower, which was OK, but I'm getting sick of towers. Then we walked through Brandenburg Gate )well, a picture of it anyway).
Then checked Checkpoint Charlie, and went through the museum there. Then went to theck out another museum, but the lineup to get in was massive, so we decided to leave it until tomorrow. Started walking to another museum, and had to go through the Brandenburg Gate again. As we were walking past, Neil hears his name being called, but ignores it. After all, who would he know in a city the size of Berlin. Again he hears his name, and I recall him muttering something like "What the...someone's calling my name...". So we turn around (Ryan is 50 miles ahead of us, as usual) to see Michelle, Colleen and Scott, the Canadians we originally met in Brugge. They were on an 8 hour walking tour of Berlin, and their tour just happened to be at Brandenburg Gate when we were there. What a coincidence!! Anyway, we decided to get together for supper.
After that encounter, we continued to Pergamon Museum, a massive building that has collections of ancient Greek, Roman, and Islamic "antiquities". Admission is free on the first Sunday of every month, which happened to be today, so it didn' cost us anything. This would probably be why there was a line-up at the other musem too. This museum was amazing!!! They have massive recreations of Roman and Greek pillars and buildings. Even some of the original stoneworks that the Germans stole, apparently, many, many years ago.
Trained and cabbed it back to the hostel.
Got an e-mail from Colleen, Michelle and Scott telling us to meet them at a restaurant (Allo Ro) near their hostel. Stayed there until after 10:00, then took the subway back to our hostel.
There is TONS of construction happening in Berlin. A lot of their old buildings are still showing the scars of WWII, they're all black and pitted with machine gun fire and what have you.
Oh ya, we also tried to find the bunker where Hitler committed suicide, but couldn't find it. Ryan REALLY wanted to see this, as it's essentially where WWII ended!
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