To the blog.
Our second full day of Berlin was really the first FULL day for us, because we finally got our sleeping schedules more or less on track. Steve, who has a bit of a head cold and a manic obsession with pho, demanded that we go to a Vietnamese restaurant for breakfast so we could eat the Vietnamese soup, pho. So we did.
It was not tasty.
Well, that's a bit harsh. It tasted okay. But it wasn't REAL pho. It wasn't even really a pho restaurant--everyone there was eating something else, and we didn't get the plate of extra goodies like thai basil and bean sprouts to add. In southern California, the pho places we go to are packed full of Asians, all of whom are eating pho. This place didn't even have hoisin sauce! Plus pho (and all the other Asian food we've seen) costs almost twice as much as it does in the States (or at least in California). Sad day.
We then made our way over to the Tiergarten, which is across the street from both the Holocaust Memorial/Wondermaze and the Brandenburg Gate, thus, as I have said many a time, very close to our apartment. It was a nice day (the sun was out, finally) and we figured we'd go for a walk.
Somehow that walk lasted over four hours.
The Tiergarten was formerly the royal hunting grounds and covers a vast expanse of land (2+ square miles). It completely dwarfs any other park I've ever been to. There are forests in every shade of green you can imagine, big lawns, lots of statues and fountains, asphalt paths and dirt horse trails, and little ponds all over the place. It was beautiful. The first thing we came across were stones from The Global Stone Project, which I will talk more about in a separate blog post because the magnitude of feelings deserves its own entry. Billy had lots of fun frolicking about (which you can see in the pictures below) and a very long time later, we were still barely halfway across the grounds. Click here to see a little video of our exasperation!
**NOTE: Unfortunately, we can't embed videos in our blog with iPad 1, so there will be many a link the click in the coming blogs....
Pictures from the Tiergarten:
So after about four hours of non-stop walking (and four hours of naptime), Steve and I walked (because we hadn't gotten enough walking in, apparently) to a place called Topography of Terror, which is a free outdoor and indoor exhibit that details the events that passed during Nazi regime. There was so much information available, it would've taken us a whole day to really soak it all in. We read (well, I read, and Steve looked at pictures) about life in that era: the rounding up of Jews, Scinti and Roma, homosexuals, and how they were banished to ghettoes outside the cities before they were taken to concentration camps; the duties and fates of Nazi officers; the rise and fall of Nazi power; and all kinds of other things, both incredible and horrifying. It was astonishing, also, to think that with all the people who come to visit... It is almost completely silent inside the indoor section of the exhibit. No one speaks; they are all willed into silence by the power of knowing about such events in history. There were probably a hundred people milling about, and only sounds were soft, steady footfalls on tile and the occasional gasp. Impressive.
From there we went to the downstairs exhibit (also free) at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe(aka Wondermaze). This exhibit has the standard section of general Holocaust details, but there is also a big room full of displays that follow the histories of about twenty families, from all parts of Europe, who were tragically involved in the Holocaust. These displays tell the viewers about what life was like for these people before they were rounded up, what life was like after, and where, when, and how they died (or, in a small number of cases, survived). The most moving section of thi exhibit for me, though, was the room that had huge, blown-up excerpts of journal entries, letters, memories from people living in the ghettoes or concentration camps. There was a letter from a little girl to her parents, telling them that she loved them; a scrap of paper from a mother wishing she could have given her children one last hug; journal entries from men describing the horrors they had seen (and in some cases, had to facilitate, such as a man who, through forced labor, buried the bodies in mass graves)... It was heartbreaking to read. Every time I looked up at Steve, I was overwhelmed with love, gratitude, and a sad sort of happiness, that he is here with me - and I couldn't even imagine what it would have been like to lose him, or anyone else I loved in such an event.
We left the exhibits with heavy hearts and made our way back to the Brandenburg Gate, because at the end of our excursion in the Tiergarten, we had seen people setting up tents for what looked like a farmers market or some kind of expo. When we arrived there, we saw that most of the street was barricaded off and there were thousands of runners, bicyclists, and roller-bladers milling about. It was some kind of race! We were just in time to see the beginning of the rollerblade race, which was a bunch of silliness. See a video of the race start here. We wandered around for a little bit and had dinner (or just a snack, maybe?) of nackensteak and bratwurst, before heading back to the apartment.
We then faced the dilemma of what to do in Berlin on a Friday night.
This was the first night we were actually awake enough to do something. However, with a good six hours of walking under our belts for the day, we were (sadly) not particularly interested in hitting up any of Berlin's famous nightclubs (which don't get busy until 2am anyway), so we opted to go to an absinth bar on the other side of the city. Steve is a big fan of anything with the black licorice taste, but absinthe is highly regulated in the States and therefore limited in variety.
Absinth Depot was exactly that: a depot full of absinth.
I have never seen so much absinth in my life. There were easily 200+ different kinds of absinth available for purchase, and about a dozen available to try. It is traditionally diluted with a little bit of ice water and sugar because it is a bit harsh due to the high alcohol content (we saw some up to 150 proof, or 75% alcohol). Both Steve and I had a glass of different kinds of this herb liquor, and they even looked different. Absinth is an herb liquor, but there aren't many specifications on what kinds of herbs to use, and so absinth can vary in color due to what kind of herbs are used. Typically, it is neon green in color and tastes like black licorice or anise; Steve's drink looked like this. Mine, however, was red and tasted more like cinnamon and roses. Strange combination, I know. The coolest thing was that my sugar cube was set on fire!
Absinth preparation 101: A special absinth spoon (look them up) is set across a glass and a sugar cube is placed on top. Absinth is then poured over the sugar cube into the glass to help dissolve the sugar, then a slow drip of ice water goes in to dilute the strong taste. In Bohemian times, the absinth-soaked sugar cube was set on fire, for two reasons: one, to burn off some of the alcohol, and two, to caramelize the sugar, giving it more depth of flavor.
After sipping our absinth for a long time, ogling at all the bottles, and purchasing a small bottle of yellow absinth as well as a fancy spoon (to add to our collection of absinth spoons), Steve and I wandered out of the store and figured we would walk back to the apartment rather than taking the subway.
The problem? We had only a faint idea of where we were, as we had taken the subway to get there.
The nice thing we realized about Berlin on our walk back (other than the fact that it is legal to drink on the streets :P) is that it feels like a very safe city. It was probably 10:30pm and there were girls walking around alone. You can't do that in LA. It's terrifying. But everyone we passed was in a jolly good mood and the only panhandler-type of person we saw was a girl playing an accordion by the river. There was little trash on the sidewalks and not a single homeless person to be found. I have never felt this safe walking in a big city at night. It was disconcerting, but in a good way.
The absinth took the edge of the ache in my feet and we made it back to the apartment before the pizza place (advertised as an Italian-Mexican restaurant...?!) downstairs closed. AWESOME. We had a delicious thin crust pizza for a late night snack (although for Berliners, midnight is not that late) before going upstairs and knocking out like a sack of potatoes. (Does that simile make sense? Do sacks of potatoes "knock out"? I don't know But you get the idea.)
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