Wednesday, May 20, 2009

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Erica here. Now I feel bad about the water incident at dinner. Chris is really holding onto that experience. I suspected that the water was NOT going to be free, but I didn't say anything. Apparently, Chris thought it would be free. Oops. I, on the other hand, have been taking advantage of the fact that just about every restaurant serves Sweppe's bitter lemon. I have looked for it everywhere in the States and the only place I know that serves it is D'Pizza Joint on SPI. It's been great!


The Berlin Zoo is HANDS DOWN the best zoo I have ever been to. Something that seems different is that a lot of the enclosure spaces are...almost accessible but don't really pose a threat to the public from the animals. In a few places, you only had to barely reach out to touch the animals. (The enclosures pose more of a threat to the animals from the public.) We got really, really close to a camel and probably could have gotten really, really close to a lot of other things. But something else that both Chris and I have noticed is that people here seem to be much more conscious of what is acceptable and mature behavior. For example, every time I visit a zoo in the states, there's an issue with people banging on the glass and throwing food and other items at the animals. In six hours at the zoo today and all day at the aquarium yesterday, I didn't witness that once. I thought that was really interesting. Something that was also interesting (but terribly inconvenient) was that there was no print zoo map to pick up anywhere. At all. We didn't even see one to buy. And no one was carrying them around. A map in one of the largest zoos in the world would have been nice.


I sent a few postcards yesterday. If you know me, you know that actually sending postcards that I buy, address, and write on is a REAL accomplishment. Go me! So if I am likely to have your address memorized...I may have sent you a card. Of course, it probably won't get there until I'm already back.


Here is something interesting about one of our roommates: he has been running around the world since August. He just met up with another guy who has been doing the same thing since around this time last year. How the heck do they do it? Not work for THAT long AND pay to travel the world? Our roommate said that he had originally intended to be here for two days but this is his tenth night. ??? Chris and I think that some rich daddies must be involved. They're young guys so we assume that they still live at home with the parents...you know, when they're not on vacation for the better part of a year!


Tomorrow is our last full day in Berlin. I'm sad to leave so soon but also really excited about heading to Paris. It's funny - we sort of planned an interesting two weeks. Berlin is having a huge celebration on the 23rd, but we will be in Paris. And the Cannes film festival was happening in Paris while we've been in Berlin. I swear I tried to look up events for each city and for some reason, I never came across these two BIG DEALS on the calendar!!! Oh well, c'est la vie. Ha!

You want how much for water?

This morning started as every other morning this week has: with the paltry breakfast buffet at the New Zealand Café. We're starting to get a little tired of eating the same thing every morning, but it's (sort of) cheap and it's close.


After eating we took off to the Zoologischer Garten, Berlin's main zoo. It was HUGE. The zoo has tons of animals, including a lot that aren't found in many zoos (pandas, bonobos, Bactrian camels, Indian rhinoceroses, a vicuña, and soooo many kinds of birds). The coolest part was that there were a bunch of enclosures that you could enter and actually be in the same area as the animals. Most of this time it was with birds, but there was also a really cool petting zoo. We spent six hours walking around the zoo, but it was a beautiful day and the time just flew by.


A cool part of the zoo was that we got to see the place where a woman was attacked not too long ago. It was all over the news and there were videos of it on YouTube. Somehow she climbed into the cage and couldn't get out again, and a polar bear came over and started swiping at her with his paws and biting her. It was very dramatic. You should look up the video. And we saw that bear!


The most impressive part of the zoo (besides the sheer number of animals) was the size of the animal's enclosures. I thought the zoo was incredibly well-designed so that the animals could have huge enclosures, but you are still able to get a good view of them most of the time. It was nice to see a zoo where the animals really look like they have room to move around. Also, a lot of the animals were in open-air enclosures with a moat surrounding the perimeter so they couldn't get out. This way you don't have to look through a cage to see them, and (hopefully) they don't feel imprisoned. All in all, it was definitely the best zoo I've ever been to, and Erica says it's the best she's ever been to as well (and she's been to a lot!).



After the zoo we walked to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, which was close by. This old church was almost completely destroyed by British bombing raids during World War II (1943). Only a small section of the building survived, and this has been left standing without too much repair as a reminder of the destruction the War caused to Berlin. It really helped us to imagine what Berlin must have looked like immediately after the War.



Right next to the Gedächtniskirche is the Europa Center, which was the first American-style shopping center built in West Berlin, when this area (Kurfürstendamm) was the center of the western half of the city. It was meant to prove that West Berlin was a thriving capitalist city, unlike East Berlin, which was of course communist. The center is still a galleria-like shopping center, but it is no where near as impressive today as it would have been when it was first built. We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant in the center; Erica had penne arrabiatta and I tried gnocchi for the first time. Both of us thought the food was quite tasty. I did take exception to one thing, which I proceeded to complain about throughout the entire meal:


I noticed on the menu that a soda cost €2.55 (roughly $4.00). Mind you, this is not an American-style soda that comes in a gallon jug with unlimited refills, but a European-style soda which comes in a 10 ounce glass (2 ounces less than a can, never mind the ice!). Apparently, all my sodas have been costing me this, I just never thought to look at the price of my drinks. So I decided that I'd just order water instead. Boy, was that a mistake. They don't serve just tap water, you have to order some fancy bottled water that comes in a glass bottle. This 8 ounce glass bottle cost me €2.30, basically the same price as the soda. From now on I'm sticking with soda, no matter what it costs me!


After I recovered from my $0.50-per-ounce bottle of water, we headed off to the Fernsehturm (TV Tower), Berlin's highest building. The tower was constructed by the government of Communist East Germany during the days of the Berlin Wall. It was meant to be a symbol of East German (and Communist) technical abilities to the west, since it could be seen for miles, even over the Wall. Today it is mainly a tourist attraction, offering rides up to an observation deck near the top. It was very cool to see Berlin from this height, especially since we've been here for a while. We were able to locate all the buildings and streets that we've been navigating for the past few days, and it was cool to see it all from that perspective. Like yesterday, we timed it perfectly so that we would be up there to watch the sunset, and it was awesome.



Erica and I were just noticing that we've been here for 5 days now and neither one of us has had that moment where we suddenly realize that we've forgotten something. I know just saying this has probably jinxed us, but I'm rather proud of our planning abilities so far.


Tomorrow is going to be a more sombre day, as we are heading out to Oranienburg (a small town in the northern suburbs of Berlin) to visit the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. We know it will be a little depressing, but we just feel that it is a part of history that is too important to miss.