We got off to a slow start on Saturday. We stayed up fairly late and after Charlie got 3 crummy nights of sleep in Prague; he really needed a good night of sleep. So we woke up at 11am, rested and ready to tackle Berlin. Our first task was to find the local subway station; not easy, as the most direct route there is through pedestrian thoroughfare (that we missed the first time). Our stop was Spittelmarkt, on the U-2 line. We negotiated getting Charlie an all-day ticket, and then travelled to another station (Alexanderplatz) to get me the “Berlin Welcome” 48 hour ticket.
Alexanderplatz is a major landmark, with a couple of large department stores and quite a few different subway and bus lines. It’s next door to the large TV tower/observation platform. Once again, we relied on Rick’s advice and started walking from here toward the Brandenburg Gate. Within a couple of minutes, we came upon a large crowd at the park. It turns out there was a major peace protest being held. It’s difficult to accurately estimate how many police vehicles and personnel we saw in the next 30 minutes, but 100-200 vehicles (including many that appeared to be “paddy wagons?” and 500 officers is probably a good guess. We decided it might be good to get away from this throng, so we moved on (even though we were about ready for lunch). We walked by a good number of sights on “Unter den Linden” Street, including the Berlin Cathedral, the Palace of the Republic (currently under reconstruction), and the Opera House.
The Brandenburg Gate is a very impressive structure. It was especially well-guarded today (seemingly related to the protests). After Charlie and I each took virtually every possible photo of the gate (and probably some photos that just aren’t possible), we walked over to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial. It consists of something like 2700 graffiti-resistant markers. About this time, the police shut down the local streets to car traffic to allow the protesters (who were marching, probably to the Reichstag building) to pass. Again, I’m not sure how many protesters there were, but I would guess at least 10,000. By this time, we were starving and didn’t want to be too close to the protesters. So we headed towards Potzdamer Platz (referred to as the Times Square of Berlin). We thought about trying one of the many eateries in the enormous Sony Center, but opted instead for a “diner” a block away. Not exactly the epitomy of diner greatness; Charlie said his burger was the worst he had in quite awhile.
After surviving lunch, we headed on the subway to the west to the Zoological Gardens stop. This is where we picked up a double-decker public bus that makes a scenic run from the west to east side of town. We rode the bus for about 40 minutes, seeing the sights (including the main park, the Reichstag building and the other “Unter den Linden” sights we had previously strolled by. Back at Alexanderplatz, I enjoyed a moment of international friendship, as the fruit stand vendor gave me the single banana I selected for free. I also enjoyed a wurst from a totally self-contained vendor; he had his grill in front of him and strapped to him. We went back to the hotel for a few minutes of rest before heading back out.
This time, we headed to the TV tower, hoping to see a great sunset from 200 meters above the city. The line for the elevator moved slowly (perhaps we weren’t the only people with this brilliant idea). We made it to the top in time to see the tail end of the sunset; not spectacular, but enjoyable. This view really underscores how large Berlin is, as the city seems to stretch as far as the eye can see in every direction. It really was a nice view, but probably doesn’t rival the Eiffel Tower.
We then set off towards “Checkpoint Charlie”. By the time we arrived, the area was virtually deserted. We didn’t go through the museum, but got plenty of photos of the area. As it was now time for a late dinner, we found a place that looked good a block south of Checkpoint Charlie. They had a diverse menu, which was quite reasonably priced. We ordered our food from our waiter, only to have a woman bring us a pair of pizzas (that actually belonged to the table next to us). Our waiter brought out our soup, then left for the evening, leaving what appeared to be the owner and his wife. After we finished our soups, the women brought us our food. Mine didn’t look quite right, but I was hungry. After a couple of bites, I determined this wasn’t what I ordered (and the same for Charlie). The owner came by & we mentioned this. He apologized and said the mistake was because the other waiter didn’t speak English. He pressured us into eating what we had. As it tasted good, I figured it would be okay. About 3 minutes later, he came out with what appeared to be the food we ordered and promptly took it to another table. I watched the interaction and saw the other people would have no part of our food. The owner came back to our table with the food and exchanged these dishes for what we had been eating. Then he loudly cursed out his wife (who when not working, was sitting transfixed by the local shopping channel).
The food was very good. So much so, that Charlie even ordered dessert. We had some trouble getting the check, as when we asked the wife for the bill, she just shrugged (looking very annoyed) and kept watching her shopping channel. As you might imagine, the bill wasn’t quite right, but was close enough to not merit further discussion.
We returned to the hotel and crowned the wife from this evening’s restaurant the coveted title of “Employee of the Month” for her customer service efforts far above the level of incompetence and nonchalance expected from such employees. (I never said we were “nice”…with any luck, the woman from Friday night’s taxi experience will enjoy this level of service at her earliest convenience)
No comments:
Post a Comment