Berlin Day Two

Today I decided to visit another area of Berlin near my hotel. I started off with heading towards Museumsinsel, which has several museums and the Berlin Cathedral. I walked around outside for a while, seeing all five museums from the outside. Then I headed to the Berlin Cathedral, Berliner Dom in German, to go inside it. For a small fee I could go to almost the top of the dome, which you could view the city of Berlin all around, and all the way down to the lowest level, which had the crypt, café, and gift shop.

Afterwards I decided to head to the Fernsehturm, which is the huge tower that has a football (soccer ball) sphere almost at the top. I arrived at a fountain in front of the Fernsehturm and sat by it for a while to cool off in the breeze that caught water from it. I noticed a church nearby, which happens to be one of the oldest churches in Berlin, built in the end of the 13^th century and decided to go over to it. The name of the church is Marienkirche, or St. Mary’s church. After visiting the church I headed over to Fernsehturm to see the hours and cost of going up in it. I found out that it would cost me 4 Euros, which would probably be worth the view at 666 ft, and I asked the ticket lady what time sunset was, but she didn’t understand me. Luckily a guy behind me in line told me in his American accent (he had a Pennsylvania shirt on, probably a student in Berlin) that sunset was at 930pm, but I probably want to show up around 900pm to go up in it. So I made a plan to come back later. Luckily the walk to the tower is on a large wide big street so don’t worry about me being out after dark mom and dad, I promise I’ll be careful!

I decided that I was starting to get hungry and I thought that a bratwurst sounded like a good lunch with some pomme frites (French fries). So I walked over to the Metro station that was right behind the tower and wandered around until I found a little pub that had decent prices for what I wanted. I had my lunch (which was really good!) and headed towards Alexanderplatz.

Alexanderplatz was born in the 1960s after the war (it was completely bomed during the war), and became East Berlin’s counterpart to West Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz. In the square there is Erich John’s World Time Clock, that has different big cities around the world on it and it moves, so you could see what time it is in Seoul, South Korea, or Denver, Colorado, United States. Another attraction to this square is the Fountain of the Friendships of Peoples, I thought it was an interesting fountain and thought the breeze that caught the fountain water made the heat more bearable.

After deciding it was just way to hot, I decided to head into the huge department store (that reminded me more of a mall, but not having separate stores) that was on Alexanderplatz called Galeria Kaufhof. I asked the front desk this morning where would be a good place to buy German candy, since my grandmother who is German requested a certain type of candy. Well I thought it would be fairly easy to find this candy that my grandma told me was a pig in shape, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any. I guess I should try to find the note that I wrote of what it is called so I can ask for it by name (since the lady that was by the candy portion didn’t speak English. After buying a mix variety of gummy candy for myself, I headed up to the very top floor (I think I was 6 or 7 stories up) to get a good look at the atrium space glazing. It was amazing, and took a few pictures hoping that I wouldn’t get in trouble for doing so (I remember in the Czech Republic they didn’t like me taking pictures inside stores.

I decided since I was going to go back out later that night I would probably head back to the hotel to rest some and to get out of the heat. On the way I noticed a lot of interesting things. The first was a cinema; I thought I might want to catch a flick one evening or even afternoon when it is really hot. Next I noticed my first Dunkin Donuts! I was told they have these in Berlin; I might have to buy some for my breakfast in the morning. On the way I stopped at this little store and bought an orange Popsicle (yummy). When I stepped out of the store I saw this adorable mini that was the same color yellow as the yellow in the German flag that was on it, so I had to take a picture of it. I arrived at the hotel and decided to relax for a while and watch the only English station other then CNN and BBC, MTV. Now some of the cartoon shows are dubbed in German, but others just have subtitles. I don’t really miss TV, but it’s nice to hear English spoken in a length of time. Well I’m going to probably do my hour on the net earlier today then I have, since I’ll be heading back out later to go up the tower at sunset. I might even go back to the department store if I can find the name of the candy I told my grandma I would get for her. I don’t know if I’d do anything else until then, but we’ll see if I feel like going out sooner or just hang around until it gets closer to sunset. Bis morgen!

Well my plans ended up changing, since the weather decided to let rain clouds roll in I'm afraid there won't be much of a sunset to see. So tomorrow night I will take pictures of the sunset from the tower, but I do have great news! I found out that I am not limited to internet for just one hour, I just keep clicking the sixty minutes and I have another hour to work. So do you know what that means?!? PICTURES!!!