Berlin and Dresden

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  Berlin, Germany
Saturday, September 6, 2008

After arriving back in Munich from Croatia, I stayed the night in Munich before heading off for Berlin. Verena and I drove all the way up (580km) in 7 hours with an hour stop for lunch and a 20 minute rest break and we got lost arriving in Berlin. Google directions are not good when you get to cities. Mind you getting lost took us past all the sights we were going to see the next day anyway. We were staying in the flat of a friend of Verena's, Sunje, who she met in NZ. Sünje doesn't live there anymore, her brother lives in her room now. Sünje lives with her boyfriend. But the room we stayed in, the guy lives out of town durning the week as he works in another city. Confused? Yea I was too.

Berlin is cheap for accommodation and food. It was real good. There is still the division of East and West, but not terribly obvious. It was only 19 years ago that the wall came down so you'd expect there to still be some difference.

I spent two full days in Berlin checking out all the sights like the Reichstag, the East Side Gallery) the largest remaing section of the wall, checkpoint charlie, the hollocust memorial, the Brandenburg gate where the French, American and British emabssies all compete to be the closest to the gate. We also went to Potsdamer Platz which was detroyed and a wasteland during the wall, now it is fully rebuilt into a bustling center. They say this is the symbol of the 'New Belin.' All the important sights I saw in two days. We were exhausted after that. Sünje also took us around and showed us the Berlin you don't see as a tourist. We went out for drinks on the first night as it was a friend of Sünje's birthday. Another night we went to a Vietnamese restaurant. This is one of two restaurants in the chain. The first is very popular and you have to queue for. The one we went to people don't know about yet so it was easy to get in. I also had a curry-wurst which is unique to Berlin. It is a sausage with curry powder and a lot of sauce.  One night we had Arabic food for dinner and we sat outside. I had the pleasure of having an albino rat hanging around my feet. We reckon he came from the subway rather than the kitchen. Still an interesting dinner experience.

After a German breakfast on Friday we headed off to Potsdam where we saw two palaces. They are both on the same grounds and were buit by the same guy. He preferred the smaller of the two. These I believe survived the war. They are doing some restorations on it at the moment. We went inside the bigger of the two and had to wear these huge slippers so as to not damage the floors. It was funny, you couldn't walk in them so you had to slide around instead.

After Potsdam we headed to Dresden and got lost again with Google's directions. The streets are not clearly marked as they are tiny signs across the other side of the road and google takes you along some strange routes. It's true I promise, you try it!

So today we have spent the day wondering around Dresden and now we are exhausted. I'm writing this and Verena is probably fallen asleep in our room. She was exhausted. Dresden was pretty much destroyed. All the old buildings have been rebuilt to look like they used to on the outside. The inside is more modern and houses museums.

Tomorrow we head off to Weinmar and Bamberg on our way back to Munich. I think Monday will be a rest day.

And that is probably enough information to bore you with today. Having a great time, the tan is looking better everyday. My feet are starting to not enjoy this holiday with all the walking. Will update you later on the haps. Hope all is well back in the real world.

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