Jeff got up early and went to work. I slept in again.
Eventually, I emerged from the hotel and explored the area around Kurfürstendamm while playing Ingress.
I carefully gathered additional photographic evidence of high-efficiency German parking, as usual. I think this could catch on back in the US.
After seeking (and finding) warmth and a sandwich, I strolled back up Ku'Damm (as I've heard absolutely nobody call it), past the hotel, and found Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.
Most of the church is actually a ruin, but the central part of the bottom level is accessible, and it has a beautiful mosaic ceiling.
After the church, I headed north towards the edge of Tiergarten, but had to detour around an entire closed block.
Jeff figured out why the the Polizei have road closures near us. Apparently Netanyahu is staying in this hotel.
As the news story mentions, this is apparently problematic for the Berlinale Film Festival, which is all week long. Other than a few posters, I haven't noticed much about this festival. Then again, I've never been here before, so it's possible that there's a crazy amount of festival traffic and I would have no idea.
On the other side of the detour, I meandered past the Berlin Zoological Garden (AKA "zoo"?) and followed a pedestrian/bicycle path up to Tiergarten.
I wandered through some local neighborhoods for about an hour after that, playing Ingress. As the sun went down, I think the temperature dipped below freezing, so I found my way to the nearest subway station and commenced the return trip to the hotel.
Along the way, I found some road work that must be extremely tedious.
I also found Valhalla.
Upon leaving the subway, I exited the wrong end of the train station, as usual (it's a given that I'll pick the wrong way, at random), and ended up in front of the Wilhelm Church again.
I forgot to mention this earlier, but apparently there's some interesting history regarding the East/West divide of the crosswalk lights, locally known as Ampelmann. There's a gift shop dedicated to this concept between the church and our hotel.
Jeff finally dragged himself away from his vendor-sponsored happy hour, and found his way back to the hotel, so we headed out for dinner. I had gotten a good tip on "the best burgers in Berlin" from some Ingress players, so we boarded the U-Bahn and zipped across town to meet up with some of them.
Our destination: Lily Burger
Techno music with thumping bass, communal tables and benches, and burgers so large you need a knife and fork to eat them.... it was a far cry from our previous night's dinner, which was spent in leather chairs in a quiet-and-fancy hotel bar that was playing (what must have been) Best Of The US Oldies.
Tomorrow's forecast: more conference, more urban exploration, and more Ingress. Also, possibly snow.
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