Berlin 2016 - Day 3

[PSA: Posted two updates tonight. Be sure not to miss yesterday's content, if you're the thorough sort of person.]

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.

I bought a refrigerator magnet to commemorate this amazing phenomenon.

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.

Berlin 2016 - Day 2

We both slept in on Monday morning. For Jeff, I think that meant somewhere around 8:30, at which time he headed over to the convention center to register for the conference. For me, sleeping in meant more like "noon", or whenever Jeff got back.

Some time around 1 PM, we departed the hotel and took the train up to Nordbahnhof, by the Berlin Wall Memorial.

We wandered around the memorial, reading the placards, and ended up at the Documentation Center. It was closed (lots of museum-type locations apparently close Mondays), but the observation tower was open.

By the time we left the memorial, it was after 2 PM, so we hopped on a train and headed downtown towards the TV Tower again. But first, we stopped at Hofbräu for lunch.

Lunch went a little long, so we started heading back to the hotel just before dark. We got to see the TV Tower from the other side, and it was a bit clearer today than it was yesterday. We didn't go up (there's apparently a mediocre, but revolving, restaurant in the ball).

As we approached the hotel from the train station, we noticed an... uh, unusual level of police presence. We had no idea what was going on at the time, but nobody seemed concerned or excited at all. More on this tomorrow.

We spent a few hours relaxing back at the hotel, and slogging through email (not all of us are on vacation, apparently), then headed down to the hotel bar for a late/light dinner.

Tuesday, Jeff will be at a conference all day.

Berlin 2016 - Day 1

Berlin? In February? Yup.

I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to be the +1 with a friend-and-coworker (let's call him Jeff) who is going to a conference.

We departed Newark around 6 PM Saturday, and arrived in Berlin at 8 AM Sunday. Jeff decided to sleep most of the way, but I had better things to do.

We took the bus from the airport to a location vaguely near the hotel, somewhere near the zoo. It was still before 9 AM, so we ditched our luggage with the staff and went to find some breakfast. The woman at the front desk recommended a cafe around the corner, which turned out to be an excellent suggestion. The waitress wished us a happy Valentine's Day.

I've always found that the best way to keep yourself awake is to keep moving, so we immediately embarked on the Best Of Berlin self-guided walking tour from the guidebook.

The first stop was the Reichstag and surrounding area.

#selfiestick

We skipped around a bit (abbreviated tour), and headed for the Brandenburg Gate.

Brandenburg Gate leads to Pariser Platz, which is home to the US and French embassies. Back through the gate and just around the corner, we visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

The tour took us east along the expansive boulevard Unter den Linden, past the British embassy and the massive Russian embassy, and past Bebelplatz (which was a bit chaotic due to to massive construction project on the State Opera).

Attracted by a crowd of people, we took a brief detour through Humboldt University and around the back of the State Opera building.

We made it to the Spree River, zipped past Museum Island, stopping briefly in the Lustgarten to admire the Berlin Cathedral (technically not a cathedral?), before heading towards the... I want to say "Space Needle"?

This guy didn't want his picture taken, I guess. But I appreciate the level of German Engineering that goes into providing fresh sausage products, weather be damned.

It was a bit cold and raw down by the river, and we still had to go check into the hotel, so we ended the tour before making it to the base of the TV Tower and made our way back to the train station.

Along the way, we admired some truly impressive parking jobs, like this one.

We finally made it back to the hotel, settled in, and had a nap. Eventually, we ventured out for an early romantic dinner and a few beers before turning in for the night.

Photos are all shared. Pics from Monday are already up, so don't get ahead of me. Blog will be updated tomorrow.