Fiendish Friday: Berlin

So after Amsterdam we went to Berlin. I liked it a lot. Then again no one was smoking marajuana on every street. Things always look rosier when you aren’t going to vomit any second. That said, Berlin is a total foody town. Gluten free was everywhere, which makes it so easy to feed the kiddo and myself. Their public transit system was awesome as well. Even at peak travel times you could still find standing room on every train we needed.

Highlights:
Berlin Zoo, totally fab! I like zoos. Visit them everywhere I go. This is top 5 easily, maybe top 3. They put some serious time and effort into designing the enclosures for the animals both from the perspective of what the animal needs and viewing for people. Example: The Mountain Goat enclosure had a 50 foot high mountain in it for them to climb. I have never seen anything like that for goats. Plus their kids’ playground was way cool. Tons of things that never happen in the US for safety reasons. Snort.

Allied Museum: Museum dedicated to the Berlin Airlift. They have a plane from the airlift on the grounds which you can go into, if you’re there at the right time of year. We weren’t but it was still way cool. No barriers. So I got to walk under that huge beautiful plane. sigh. Lovely.

DDR Museum: hands on, interactive museum about life in East Berlin when the wall was up. You can ever “drive” the one car that was available in East Berlin in a 3D virtual street reconstruction.
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

Yes, I went to a church. The thing is, this one got bombed in the war and rather than demolish and rebuild it, they restored it just enough to keep it from falling down as a memorial to those who died in the war. It looks amazing as it is.

 

 

Jute Backeri: Gluten free bakery. So good. Seriously. It might have been better than Kyra’s. Maybe. LOL.

Things that made me sad:

“The Wall.” There is a mile long stretch of the wall called the East Side Gallery. Artists have been invited to paint murals regarding their experiences in the DDR. Half the strip is protected by a fence. The other half is tagged to hell with graffiti. It made me very sad that they have to protect “The Wall” with a wall.

 

Checkpoint Charlie: Oh dear god. It’s all reproduction. And it’s like Time’s Square meets bad Hollywood repro. Picture the scene, KFC on the left, McDonalds on the right. CC in the middle, complete with Germans pretending to be American soldiers in uniform, manning the checkpoint. Shoot me now. The real stuff is in the Allied Museum.

The kiddo had a brief desire to move to Berlin. I think he liked all the gluten free food availability. The fact that we never got stuck in traffic. And the amazing museums. He was particularly taken with the Pergamon and it’s amazing set up of the Ishtar Gate. He and his dad are currently building one in MineCraft. LOL