Begin in Berlin

Hours within touching down in Berlin we walked across town to see our friend Jerry Joseph play at Dachkammer. After sleeping most of the day away to combat jet lag, it was a good good way to start

our adventure and a good way to chase away the question: what will we do here in Berlin for three weeks?! That, of course is more of a Jennifer question than a Brandon question and as of yet we have not had time to think much on that. The second day here, our friend Matt came to swoop us up and give us a driving tour of the sights of Berlin. First though we ate the Southern German breakfast  Rachel had given to us upon our arrival. The breakfast care package included pretzels, two bottles of beer, sweet mustard and weisswurst. The pretzels were meant to be baked, so without an oven in our tiny apartment, Brandon made them in a pan. Just like a pioneer! With a harty German breakfast in our bellies we were able to brave the cold. It is freezing cold here.

Below are some pictures from the Holocaust Memorial, which was amazing, somber, thought provoking and beautiful. It was also a little too much fun. The memorial is made up of around 200 hollow concrete pillars that range in height and depth. It seemed as though most people there were trying not to get caught up in having a good time getting lost from their pals. We walked around the downtown part of Berlin for a while and here are a few things of interest we saw: Lots of English speaking tourists,  parts of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, a few drunken Pedal Pubs and folks dressed as statues bronzed statues.   

The next day we were whisked off to see some proper German Palaces in Potsdam. I was more interested in the terraced fig windows than the palace....We harvested a few to take home. Many were un-ripe so I set them up on our bedside table to ripen. I tried to fry them later, but it seems unripe fried figs are no so good.

 

Many German cities have large community gardens that look more like little neighborhoods. You can buy a plot, build a little house and spend your summers drinking beer in your garden. They are very strict though and overnighting is not allowed. These gardens are near the Mariendorf harness race track.

I'm not much of a better so Brandon did all of the betting. Betting on the long shots didn't prove to be so successful, however and we lost all of our money. It's a good thing the minimum bet was 1 Euro. So not such a big loss.  We somehow always chose the old, big jockeys who ended up way last. Most of the spectators were older folks bundled up, smoking, drinking and looking sad. Brandon got yelled at by an old man to CLOSE the DOOR! It is freezing here.