I was in Berlin for four days and four nights near the end of February.  Most cities would not be able to provide four days’ worth of entertainment for your typical 21-year-old American male.  Well, in fact I didn’t cover even close to everything I wanted to.  And this was four days of my ridiculously fast, subway-cruising tourist pace.

My Mom and Dad graciously came to visit me for a week in February, and we made our way from Amsterdam to Osnabrück, Hannover and finally Berlin.  Amsterdam was nice but brief.  The Van Gogh museum was fantastic; I would call it my favorite art museum (and artist) of all that I have seen.  After a single night there we took a train to Osnabrück in the late afternoon.  I was a bit curious as to how we would keep busy in Osnabrück but it actually wasn’t bad; luckily, we claim a few very fine restaurants.  Unfortunately I had a million clerical things to do those last couple of days, so finally leaving Osnabrück was bittersweet yet relieving.  So on Wednesday we drove to Hannover as kind of a pit stop on the way to Berlin.  We didn’t have much time to do anything and just kind of walked around the city for awhile before dinner.

Finally on Thursday we made it to Berlin.  First stop was Checkpoint Charlie and it’s adjacent museum, which was fascinating.  It provided a good, quick history of the city that would end up being supplemented and reinforced several times at the other myriad tourist attractions.  Afterwards we walked to Unter den Linden, the main street of former East Berlin.  This street contains several of Berlin’s many museums and is terminated at one end by Berlin’s icon, the Brandenburg Gate.

At this point it sounds like I’m just going to be retelling each of the touristy things we did in chronological order.  Well, that’s boring so I’ll just hit the high points: 

  • That first night we ate at a fantastic authentic Greek restaurant down the street from our hotel.  I forget the name of it, but I do recall everything down to the little detail was great: the gorgeous waitresses, modern decor, delicious fruity wine, fresh baked bread, even the bottled Greek mineral water was very much above average.  My taste buds relished the finest calamari they had ever experienced, and to top it off they provided a complimetary Ouzo shot at the end.  All for under 25 euro apiece.
  • Giant, life-size foosball.  Somehow we wandered this huge foosball field complete with about 20 people playing it.  I can’t really describe it; check out the photos.  Needless to say it was awesome.
  • The VW dealership had a Bugatti on display.  Not just any Bugatti but a 1001-horsepower V16 exotic supercar.  Needless to say it was awesome.
  • "Siegesäule" (victory tower) in the middle of the Tiergarten.  It provides a very nice view of Berlin and it’s surrounded by a massive park making it all the more impressive.  Best of all, entrance was €1.50.  Eat that Eiffel Tower.
  • Jewish Memorial.  My pictures don’t really do it justice, you’ll just have to see for yourself.

Several things stood out for me in this city:

  • Incredibly varied architecture.  The reunified Berlin is only about 16 years old, yet the city itself is thousands of years old.  The development going on there at the moment is unreal.
  • Price.  Food in general was super cheap, arguably half the standard prices of Amsterdam.  Beer was like 2€ a bottle (this is unheard of in a western European city of 1.7 million people)
  • Ridiculous nightlife.  Keep reading.

After two nights my parents needed to get back so they could make it to work on Sunday.  I wanted to get on the same flight but it was prohibitively expensive, so I hung around for an extra couple of days to catch a cheap mid-week flight back to the USA.  Naturally, I stayed at a youth hostel for dirt cheap and hung out with a bunch of like-minded traveling international kids.  The first night I met a few kids at the hostel bar and we ended up going out at around midnight.  After wandering around for a while we stumbled upon one of the hundreds of techno clubs of Berlin.  It was big and very open, but at the same time had a bit of a cold atmosphere.  I chalked up the lack of dance floor inhabitants to the fact that it was a sunday.  Eventually we ended up at this reggae club down the street, and it was pretty much the exact opposite of the first club: warm, small, chill, and absolutely packed with people.  Mind you, this was at 4 AM on a sunday night, and there were at least 150 people.  I didn’t make it back to the hostel til after 5 (which, apparently, is early for Berlin).  The next night I kinda took it easy since I had to get up early for my flight, and ended up downstairs at the bar singing karaoke with and to a rather large crowd of Dutch kids.  This reaffirmed my opinion that Dutch people are cool.

The flight home was long and boring, and the initial jet lag really took it out of me.  I was quite depressed near the end, especially when we finally touched down in New Jersey and it was completely clear that my European journey had at last come to a conclusion.  All good things, alas, must eventually come to an end.