Have it Your Way... Right Away...
Yeah, Burger King... Pathetic right? But this is where Kate and I decided to have lunch. It was delicious too, so I think we have no regrets. Anyway I think eating at an American Chain restaurant in a foreign country is really a necessary experience. Of all of the places we went, this was the first that actually let us attempt to communicate with them in German. Of course it is easy when the menu is numbered. I of course had a Whopper, and Kate one of those fried chicken sandwiches.
Yeah, Burger King... Pathetic right? But this is where Kate and I decided to have lunch. It was delicious too, so I think we have no regrets. Anyway I think eating at an American Chain restaurant in a foreign country is really a necessary experience. Of all of the places we went, this was the first that actually let us attempt to communicate with them in German. Of course it is easy when the menu is numbered. I of course had a Whopper, and Kate one of those fried chicken sandwiches.It was pretty nice outside so we sat on sidewalk cafe tables. The birds were 
very feisty and were constantly looking for handouts. I decided to feed one a french fry so I could attempt to take a picture of it. Unfortunately all of my snapshots came out a bit blurry, this being the best of the lot. We had one french fry left which neither Kate or I would eat. It looked like it was from the "eye" of the potato, and it was a little burnt and shriveled too. I put it out, convinced the bird would eat it. The bird came over, looked at the piece of french fry, and apparently like us, decided against eating it. Go figure.
very feisty and were constantly looking for handouts. I decided to feed one a french fry so I could attempt to take a picture of it. Unfortunately all of my snapshots came out a bit blurry, this being the best of the lot. We had one french fry left which neither Kate or I would eat. It looked like it was from the "eye" of the potato, and it was a little burnt and shriveled too. I put it out, convinced the bird would eat it. The bird came over, looked at the piece of french fry, and apparently like us, decided against eating it. Go figure.After lunch we got on the U-bahn and 
went to go see Schloss Charlottenburg, located in the Charlottenburg (of course) section of Berlin. The inside of this palace was unbelievably beautiful. The ceilings adorned with various cherub carvings and frescoes that had an attention to detail in the craftsmanship that is unmatched compared to anything I've seen here in the United States. We were given translating headsets just like the Pergamon Museum. The tour went into a lot of detail about the Queen "Charlotte" that really helped humanize the experience. Her interests (the arts, music, science) helped us understand what she 
desired her living space (the palace) to be like.
went to go see Schloss Charlottenburg, located in the Charlottenburg (of course) section of Berlin. The inside of this palace was unbelievably beautiful. The ceilings adorned with various cherub carvings and frescoes that had an attention to detail in the craftsmanship that is unmatched compared to anything I've seen here in the United States. We were given translating headsets just like the Pergamon Museum. The tour went into a lot of detail about the Queen "Charlotte" that really helped humanize the experience. Her interests (the arts, music, science) helped us understand what she 
desired her living space (the palace) to be like.The wikipedia link above actually was quite good, providing some information that we did not learn in the palace's main hall tour.
If people aren't amazed by the interior, surely the elaborate grounds will take their breath away. The lush, beautifully manicured yard is an expansive park that locals as well as tourists use.
Next we headed back to the center of Berlin to explore the Tiergarten, a large public park which also contains an extensive zoo. We just walked around the perimeter of the zoo. The Buffalo statue inspired me to strike a pose. I have a past experience where I almost walked into a real Buffalo. We decided to walk to the Victory column or Seigessaule and climb up to get a view of the city. Because we were in a rush (it was around 5:00 PM) to climb it before it closed I
didn't manage to snap a picture of the tower from its base. Check out the wikipedia link for a photo.
The tower is situated in the center of a busy rotary in the middle of the Tiergarten. After searching we found tunnels leading under the traffic. The insides of these tunnels were covered with graffiti. The woman operating the desk at the tower told us we had to get up and down the tower in twenty minutes. We nodded our heads at her, paid 2.50 euros and she gave us the evil eye as we set off on our way. The hike to the top traverses an extensive circular staircase that makes Bunker Hill in Charlestown seem tiny. Kate and I pretty much ran up the thing, even avoiding to stop long at the first overlook which is midway up. The stairs at the top are too narrow for more than one person to pass through. We needed to frequently stop at landings to let people down. Once at the top we enjoyed several minutes of rest and photo snapping.
At the top of the tower we decided to head back
towards the city center. We looked for the Reichstag dome and chose a park path that traveled in that direction. On the ground the path seemed much longer than it appeared high up on the tower. As we walked, there were many people having family picnics and barbecuing in various picnic grounds scattered through the park.
When we made it back to civilization we walked by the Soviet War Memorial which is apparently constructed from the remnants of a former Nazi building. A tank was on display as part of the memorial. I snapped a couple photos as this,
however we didn't dedicate any time to really exploring it.
We decided to walk down Unter der Linden towards East Berlin. Kate suggested that we look at Nikolaiviertel, an area of East Berlin that was said to contain a lot of restored buildings. The copper plated statue seen in a picture below was in a small garden located next to The Nikolaikirche or "St. Nicholas Church". This was a nice area, but since it was Sunday night the streets and squares were pretty vacant. Kate and I located the German equivalent of an Applebees or Chili's which was
called "Maredo". I think it was supposed to have a Tex-Mex flare. I had some pork tenderloins, and Kate (If I recall correctly) had a chicken dish. I washed my meal down with 0.5 L of Beck's Pilsner, which was the only brand of beer that this particular classy establishment carried.
Next we headed back to the center of Berlin to explore the Tiergarten, a large public park which also contains an extensive zoo. We just walked around the perimeter of the zoo. The Buffalo statue inspired me to strike a pose. I have a past experience where I almost walked into a real Buffalo. We decided to walk to the Victory column or Seigessaule and climb up to get a view of the city. Because we were in a rush (it was around 5:00 PM) to climb it before it closed I
didn't manage to snap a picture of the tower from its base. Check out the wikipedia link for a photo.The tower is situated in the center of a busy rotary in the middle of the Tiergarten. After searching we found tunnels leading under the traffic. The insides of these tunnels were covered with graffiti. The woman operating the desk at the tower told us we had to get up and down the tower in twenty minutes. We nodded our heads at her, paid 2.50 euros and she gave us the evil eye as we set off on our way. The hike to the top traverses an extensive circular staircase that makes Bunker Hill in Charlestown seem tiny. Kate and I pretty much ran up the thing, even avoiding to stop long at the first overlook which is midway up. The stairs at the top are too narrow for more than one person to pass through. We needed to frequently stop at landings to let people down. Once at the top we enjoyed several minutes of rest and photo snapping.
At the top of the tower we decided to head back
towards the city center. We looked for the Reichstag dome and chose a park path that traveled in that direction. On the ground the path seemed much longer than it appeared high up on the tower. As we walked, there were many people having family picnics and barbecuing in various picnic grounds scattered through the park.When we made it back to civilization we walked by the Soviet War Memorial which is apparently constructed from the remnants of a former Nazi building. A tank was on display as part of the memorial. I snapped a couple photos as this,
however we didn't dedicate any time to really exploring it.We decided to walk down Unter der Linden towards East Berlin. Kate suggested that we look at Nikolaiviertel, an area of East Berlin that was said to contain a lot of restored buildings. The copper plated statue seen in a picture below was in a small garden located next to The Nikolaikirche or "St. Nicholas Church". This was a nice area, but since it was Sunday night the streets and squares were pretty vacant. Kate and I located the German equivalent of an Applebees or Chili's which was
called "Maredo". I think it was supposed to have a Tex-Mex flare. I had some pork tenderloins, and Kate (If I recall correctly) had a chicken dish. I washed my meal down with 0.5 L of Beck's Pilsner, which was the only brand of beer that this particular classy establishment carried.After our meal we headed back through Alexanderplatz and stopped at "Janny's Eis" for some ice cream. I had some tiramisu ice cream on a sugar cone. Small cones were only 0.70 euros, which was nice.
And so then we headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep, for the next day we would be getting up to board the Inter City Express trains to Nurnberg. Although at this point we were seasoned Deutch Bahn travelers, so it would be old-hat ;).
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