Berlin!

Upon my return home, Kai picked me up and we were almost immediately off to Berlin. He spent some time with his friend from school, Marc Hines, and I visited my dear old friend Patty Chuang. The most remarkable thing about Berlin is how BLOODY HUGE it is! It's as long as Manhattan, including the Bronx and Brooklyn, only from east to west as well!

The first day, we arrived around 4pm and Patty and I went to grab a few beers before watching the Holland v. Uruguay match. We found a lovely biergarten and had our fill of Hefeweizen with Kai, Mark, and two other friends of theirs, Gloria and Lavinia. Lovely time indeed. It did end up taking us over an hour to get home!

The next day was spent sleeping in and then sightseeing! We toured the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial (extraordinarily moving and rather creepy....it was an entire city block of cement rectangular blocks at different heights, creating this really eerie cement forest. Got the point across.) and then we made a new friend named Isabelle! She asked us to take a picture of her, and we got to chatting, turns out her husband was working and kids were with their grandparents, so then she took us out for a beer. She was so lovely....we had the best time chatting it up with her and practicing her German! From there, we hit up Potsdamer Platz to see Patty's new fancy office....she is spending the next 6 months working for Deutsche Bahn. I passed by the magnificent Philharmonic building, waved to Sir Simon, which was lovely. Next, we hit up Checkpoint Charlie...which was also pretty cool. It is the entrance to what used to be the American sector of Berlin. It's really very cool to see how the four nations have left their mark on Berlin even today.

That evening, we met the boys downtown to find a place to watch the Germany v. Spain match....and ended up at, believe it or not, HOOTERS. Of all places. But the city was PACKED! every bar and restaurant we tried to go into was completely full...even 2 1/2 hours before the game! These Germans are really dedicated. Well we ended up there drinking shitty beer but had a great view to a TV...so all was well. Sadly, Germany lost, and we sauntered on home.

I loved just walking around Berlin taking in all of the street art that is available. The next day, we went to this really cool exhibit at the Museum of Ethno...something something....to see an exhibit on Haitian voodoo art! It was UNbelievably creepy...there are several different Gods that are made representations of through various mediums, but most of the "voodoo" dolls are life-sized rag dolls that are made of cloth, sequins, and real human SKULLS. it was also really cool to check out the altars....made of huge mirrors and human bones. Rockin.

All in all a fantastic few days!