Berlin

      We only stayed two whole days in Berlin but it was time well spent. We got in around 5:00am from our overnight train ride with little sleep and no chance of checking into our hostel until at least three that afternoon. We lounged around for a bit and then headed off to take a walking tour of the city. In each place we went we encountered a group called Sandeman's New Europe which is an organization that offers free tours of European cities. The tours are always in English and usually given by people who speak English as a first language but have some sort of connection to the city. To get to the meeting point for the tour we had to take the metro. Unlike London, Berliner's aren't sticklers about the public transportation and since its  such a huge city taking some sort of underground or bus is a must. I only paid for a ticket once during the entire trip and we had to take the metro at least 5 or 6 times.

Brandenburg Gate statue of Victory

      So we met up with Samantha, a spritely British blonde who had moved to Berlin with her boyfriend a few years ago. The tour was excellent, we got to see all the cool places Berlin has to offer while Samantha chirped stories and facts about each place. It was interesting to see how prevalent the old communist split still is. Its in the architecture and the stories behind a lot of the places. It should seem obvious, but it never really hit me until I was there, and in places like Prague or Amsterdam they had histories much older than still affected the makeup of the city, not really true in Berlin. The oldest monument is the Brandenburg Gate, which is from the 1700's. The gate has a funny story behind it. When Napoleon took the city he brought the statue on top of the gate back to Paris. Back then it was a statue of a goddess of peace. After Napoleon was deposed the German's got their statue back, and changed it from a statue of peace to a statue of victory. They then named the square the statue looks over "Paris Square" so from now on the victory is always looking over Paris. Otherwise the entire city was blown up during the second World War so there isn't much left in terms of older buildings.

According to our tour guide this is the "Michael Jackson Baby Dangling Over Balcony Hotel"

Holocaust Memorial

     On our way back from the tour we walked through the Tiergarten, or the Central Park of Berlin and it took us quite a while to get back, Berlin, as I said, is really big. That night we decided to find the Berlin Oktoberfest. The only reason we came to Berlin in the first place was because Munich was too packed for us to get to the Oktoberfest there, and online it said that Berlin itself does indeed have an Oktoberfest. 2 hours of walking through the sketchiest parts of Berlin later we realized that there probably was not an Oktoberfest in Berlin. We ended up on the outskirts of the city near the airport. We stopped by a Burger King to ask for directions or the nearest bus stop and the woman behind the counter told us we had to go to Munich for Oktoberfest. Luckily for us the guy next to us in line heard our problem and offered to give us a lift back to the city. Now, hitch hiking from one of the worst parts of Berlin back to the city center might not sound like a good idea but we were tired so we accepted. He ended being a very nice guy who gave us another semi-tour of the city as he dropped us off at a restaurant packed with locals that served Bavarian beer by the litre. The food was delicious, sausages over cabbage, potato soup, apple turnovers, it was really good and we were so tired we were willing to shell out a little extra dough for comfort food.

Reichstag

      The next day we went to the Reichstag and waited in line for an hour and a half to get inside. It was worth it though, as a free tour its pretty cool on top and offers some nice views of the city. Then we relaxed and enjoyed our vacation for the rest of the day and took our train to Prague at 4:00 in the afternoon.