Berlin rocks

Yesterday was a whirlwind. And by whirlwind I mean snowstorm.

We started the day with breakfast that we had put out on our patio to keep cold. You know, it being freezing weather and all. The "fridge" was where we put our water bottles between the two doors to the patio. The "freezer" was actually outside on the patio. That's where zou keep the yogurt. Yum.

Then we were off for our day tour. Except that my boots reallz aren't made for walking on the snow and ice and that's what we were dealing with. "Walking tour" being the key words here, zou can see our predicament. So our mission quickly became finding some boots for me to walk in since the day was actually going another direction weather-wise. I ended up with some very European boots. I'll post a pic soon. Awesome.

So, our walking tour started out really strong. We saw Brandenburg gate, Reichstag, the spot where Hitler's bunker was (and where he died), the Holocause Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, Bebelplatz, and Museum Island. Our tour guide was reallz cool and the tour was free!

Around Bebelplatz though, it all started going awry. The weather here is unpredictable, you see. And it was right around this spot that it started snowing and polar bears started following us around. The whole group of tourists just kind of start getting quiet and bundling up. Plus, our feet were hurting. My new boots are awesome, but they are not miracle boots. So we're all listening and bundling up. At this point we start lagging behind the group. It's apparent that we've hit our breaking point. This guy is going on about Nazi book burnings and I am concentrating on which way to face so the snow doesn't hit me in the face. We thought about giving up and calling it a day, but the history is so fascinating that we decided to tough it out. Plus, Max our tour guide has promised to tell us how the wall fell (which is actually an amazing story!) at the end of the tour. So we go on.

We walk through the snow/sleet/rain and hear some more history. Finally our tour finds us at the Berlin cathedral. We walk through the garten and post ourselves up on the steps. At this point my feet feel like I have frostbite. It feels like I don't have any shoes on walking on the snow. I'm serious. That's how cold they were. My jeans feel like they're soaked because of the snow/sleet/rain. The tourists have found anything nearby to lean on or try to get out of the weather. Some people in the group are shaking uncontrollably. Miserable. The whole time I'm thinking, "How in the hell does anyone survive this, much less WANT to live here with weather like this? I can't even handle this!!" At this point I'm glad I've chosen Honduras as my new home.

So we get to the end of the story, and it was everything we hoped for. We were hanging on every word our tour guide said. The atmosphere was perfect. A great end to a great story. Berlin really does have an amazing history and I'm so glad we did the tour (despite the words that may have been coming out of my mouth at certain points of the tour). At one point Max does advise us to visit during the summer. So we tip Max and realize that we are completely across the city from our hostel. Awesome!!

After the "blizzard tour" and a few stops in shops to warm up, we went to Potsdamer Platz to have a nice sit down dinner. One beer led to many, as beers often do. We decided to head out to start at a bar on the pub crawl. We only made it to one bar, but that's all we needed. We had so much fun dancing to techno, of all things. There were some random American songs, which the locals loved too. A request was even made for some Michael Jackson. Okay, we requested it, but it rocked anyway! We showed off our Beat It moves.

Today we slept off our beers and ate breakfast at the hostel. Around early afternoon we went to a museum on the story of Berlin. Thanks to Max we had some schema for the story. We also went to Reichstag to check in on the local government and went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It was very interesting to see how East Berliners were able to escape to the West.

Tomorrow we are off to Munich.

Tschus!