Berlin, Germany (2007)

Berlin was the 3^rd stop on our road trip after Munich and Prague (with a stop in Dresden). After drinking and slacking quite a bit in Prague, we got serious and did some high energy city walking. I got a map from one of those hop-on-hop-off tourist buses, and we basically followed the map on foot with our eyes on high-alert for “icons,” though there were no descriptions so we didn’t really know what we were looking at most of the time. Berlin was also “memorable” for a wild night out we had on the Berlin music scene. We knew to tip the bartender well in the beginning, which is especially unusual for Europe, and we were treated to about 6 free shots of jagermeister each. We bought 6 shots each though in addition to a couple regular redbull/vodka drinks and gin and tonics. The memories are hazy, but I kind of recall we also involved some Spanish girl in our drinking and she was completely wasted by the time her friend showed up to meet her. Her friend was not happy with us. We couldn’t pronounce the Spanish girl’s name so we called her Espana. The remarkable thing is that we remember the actual number of shots, mainly because we were so thrilled that we got to 10—double-digits baby, woohoo!!! Then Espana felt guilty and wanted to buy us a shot. And finally when we were leaving, our best friend bartender wanted to give us a going-away shot. Also, he kept giving us free shots because he drank a shot with us each time we did, and apparently he wanted to get very very drunk. We also played Memory Dance, but Aaron kept going crazy.

Before I went out every morning, I took advantage of the shoe-shining machine. My shoes were blindingly shiny. Actually, I shined them every time we passed the machine, so maybe up to five times a day.

Aaron passes something on the way to somewhere.

We definitely had to get some mobile-sausage unit food.

More sausages! Currywurst was pretty good.

I managed to avoid the ginormous donuts, but I was definitely hooked on the pretzels.

Icons!

Checking out the train station.

A little posing. The girls didn’t pose in front of the lady statues in the back-left.

Viney building.

A Berlin wall.

Another cool icon.

The Holocaust memorial was full of different sized rectangular blocks.

One could easily play an extended game of hide-and-seek.

The water beaded nicely on the material.

Continuing on our route, we passed this impressive tower. But, it wasn’t an icon on the tourist map so I thereby exclaimed it to be nothing.

This parking lot was in the middle of nowhere with no one parked in it and no other fences preventing people from driving into it other than the sophisticated system seen here.

Sunset behind another icon.

The Kaiser is spotted eating outside of Kaiser’s.

We found a recommended dinner place and downed a waitress-recommended beer before our meal.

We asked to take a picture of the waitress’s apron, since that was the beer we were drinking. She said yes, but then when we took the picture, she got extremely pissed off and yelled at us. This did not earn her a good tip.

2 thumbs up for the Rathaus Café.

Berlin at night.

The Berlinboys.

Looking for the Panorama Bar on our wild night out.

I’m not sure if this is before or after the bar, but either way Aaron looks wrecked.

Given that gas isn’t subsidized in Europe, plus the dollar-to-Euro bad conversion, plus Aaron was filling up with premium gas to be nice to his new car, meant that each time he filled up it cost, well, a lot. We’re on our way to Brussels now!