The rest of the days in Berlin

The rest of the days in Berlin
Originally uploaded by crunchcandy.

Tuesday in Berlin was such a full day that I almost forgot that we actually did a whole lot of other stuff while we were there.

On Wednesday we took it easy with a bus ride and then a walk in the Tiergarten, where we were excited to see a red squirrel (and less excitingly an exploding pot of salad dressing in my bag). After walking through the park and admiring the leafless trees we ended up at the Neue Nationalgalerie, which we at first thought might be shut, but was actually just re-hanging the upstairs show. Downstairs in the main gallery was work from 20th Century Artists, my favourite being the series of paintings by Munch, and of course the cafe.

Kate decided to take a trip to the Film Museum, but as I had been there last year and was pretty exhausted I just sat on a bench in the park, reading a paper while she was in there. The Film Museum is well worth a visit if you are in Berlin, it really makes no difference at all if German isn't your first language as so much of it is self explanatory.

After meeting up again we took a walk to the Holocaust Memorial and wandered through the sculpture contemplating life and death (we actually did both become pretty affected by the work, and wondered if it was appropriate to take photos or not (in the end we both did)). It was refreshing to see how little graffiti there was, something that could perhaps be put down the the heavy security presence as much as reverence for the dead.

The following day we were back on turbo powered art viewing form and spent the time walking around the area near Checkpoint Charlie, eating lunch at 'Snackpoint Charlie' and looking at some of the smaller galleries in the area. Later we took a train out to the Hamburger Bahnhof gallery, which is an excellent gallery, and the first place I was able to actually appreciate Warhol's work as there is a room full of large scale pieces of work by him that totally overpower you. That evening we returned to the Yellow Sunshine cafe for more veggie burgers, before ending the night in the tiki bar next door. Strangely it only took two large pina colada's before we were both feeling a little sick!

Friday was returning home day, so we mooched about a bit in the biggest second hand clothes store in Europe, ate falafel and drank cups of tea. I met up with some people from college and popped into the zoo after Kate left, hoping to see Knut the polar bear, but instead had to be happy with seeing a rather sad looking panda instead.

I don't think either of us wanted to return home, but be both wanted to be back in our beds again. I've decided i'm going to try and learn some more German so that next time (oh and there will be a next time) I can communicate better, and not rely on pointing so much!