Berlin: Day 3

To start this off, I would like to say, my feet hurt.

It's alright though, because there's good cause for it. Today was my day to see the city, and see the city I did.

My way of seeing cities is usually me wandering around with no plan and getting lost. So far it's worked out amazingly.

I saw some buildings towering over the city, hopped off at the closest train station and wandered in that general direction. I ended up wandering around for the better part of five hours (see why my feet hurt? and on cobblestone too!).

I started my wandering at the Brandenburg Gate. Just so happened to be my lucky day, as Green Peace was having a demonstration. Their message today was "Jeder Tag ATOMKRAFT ist einer zu viel", or "Germany says NO to Nuclear Power". They had a huge sign with protestors hanging off of it (well harnessed to it anyway), they had protestors on top of the gate, and on the ground with more signs.

After taking many pictures of that I continued on my stroll and took pictures of any architecturally cool thing I could see. Mainly old buildings. :) A lot of churches and whatnot. All in all, I love all the figurines and everything they have on them. I also saw a building that is 200 years old. It wasn't even a special building, just an everyday building. Made me smile to think that Alberta itself isn't even that old.

Brings me to one of the great reasons I keep coming back here. The history. Europe is old. America is not. It's that simple. We have no great old buildings that have seen wars, famines, victories, and everything in between. Sure Canada does have some history, the settlers, and the battles between them. But nothing compared to what has happened here.

Anyway, on with my day. So basically, I wandered around, got fairly lost, as in I had no idea the direction I was even headed anymore, and just kept on walking. Eventually though the heat got to me, (yes it's that hot, I'm sure if I look in a mirror my face will be tomato red, but I don't think I'm going to), so I turned home. Well after I figured out where I was and stumbled across a train station I went back, because that took some time.

So I had a great day. Yesterday also was a pretty wonderful time, as I got to do some shopping. The weather wasn't quite as nice so after buying myself a new shoulder bag (the strap was falling off mine) at a farmers market (Hackescher Markt) I went and did some real shopping in a big, huge mall. It had four floors, it was pretty exciting.

That was pretty much my yesterday except going back to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) to reserve seats on some Italian trains. Apparently Italy, France, and Spain require you to reserve your seats. And because of changing timetables I had to wait until I arrived here to reserve most of them. And I still only have just over half reserved. I'm not completely sure why, but the lady working at the ticket office spoke less English than I did German. But I got three of them done so not all bad. I'll do the others in Munich I think.

Also while entering the Hauptbahnhof I may not have been paying attention and almost fallen down the stairs. Quite noticeably might have almost fallen down the stairs. But for those of you who've witnessed me walking a few times, you will realize I have A LOT of practice in stumbling, and oh so gracefully saved myself and continued on my way as if nothing happened.

Well that's about all I can tell you up until now. Tomorrow I move on to Soest bright and early. I'm not sure what my internet situation will be like there as it is a much smaller city (I do love it so), for those of you wondering where it is, it's about an hour from Dusseldorf.

(Just as a side note, since I haven't heard anyone speaking English as a first language in awhile my English is not so great anymore. I keep wanting to through in a lot of random German words, and my grammar is getting fuzzy. The good news is though, I ordered my entire lunch in German today! I'm learning. I may be screwed though when travelling elsewhere. Just saying.)

Until next time!

Peace&Love
Chow