"You may have noticed a few more trees than usual"
Trip Start
May 25, 2007
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57
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Trip End
Oct 29, 2007
Berlin,
Germany
Saturday, August 18, 2007
It turned out to be a great idea. The cruiser bikes are goofy, but we got to see way more of the city than you could cover on foot, plus a great guide giving us the info. Highlights include:
1) The group of Brits, all wearing fake mustaches. They later took a swim in the river, no doubt influenced my the liters of beer at lunch.
2) The huge park, the Tiergarten, where we had lunch. It looks like a great place to spend a day, either walking around or with the family
berlin001
. We had the pleasure of riding past an area full of nude sunbathers...a bit of a shock when you're not expecting it. It turns out that was the gay nude sunbathers area. Mark in on your itinerary, folks.3) After riding past Checkpoint Charlie and the large part of the Berlin wall that's still standing, we came across another temporary barricade. We stopped, and with an odd look on his face our guide quickly gathered us all together. Down the block there were several Nazi flags flying in front of a large building! Running around in the street in front were several men in uniform and several military vehicles. No, it wasn't the crazies out again, but a movie being filmed ('Valkyrie', starring Tom Cruise, in case anyone cares). Even though it was a set, the sight of the swastika flying was a major shock, since it is illegal under normal circumstances. In 12 years in Berlin our guide had never seen one flying before.
After the tour I was feeling much better so I decided that night would be a good one for a pub crawl. The bike tour company also runs a pub crawl, so it seemed a logical choice. Needless to say, it was good times. Since we didn't have a too much time to chat along the bike route earlier, those of us on the tour together got to hang out and party that evening. Also, as has happened a few times before, we ran into a stag and hen party. They were German, not English (for a change) and instead of just being stupid they were going around selling fridge magnets and little bottles of liquor to raise money for the honeymoon. Interesting idea.
My night ended by managing to stumble into the Burger King for some eats, get on the correct U-bahn, and then sending drunk emails to people.
