"Berlin is poor but sexy"

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we landed in berlin and had to navigate the subway system to get to our hostel which we found quite easy (probably cos we´re used to the subway in new york!)

after checkin in we went walking around with our map and stumbled upon alexanderplatz, the centre of the old east berlin. it was buzzin with loads of construction going on and loads of people walking around, coming and going from the shopping centres. in the middle was a massive spire known by the locals as 'the alex', which was built by the east berlin government to show the westerners that they could match or rival anything that they built. the only problem was that they had to get a swedish architecture and engineering firm to design and construct it!!

the old palace of the princess...
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we walked through alexanderplatz to hackescher markt where we found an open square with a vide variety of bars and restaurants. we sat down at a place called 'am-pm' which looked very nice. the waiter took our order and said that the food would be a while as they were busy. we didn't care as long s he kept the beers comin.... which unfortunately didn't happen. so after being there over an hour and waitin nearly half an hour to get another beer and with our food still nowhere to be seen, we left. the waiter tried to give us some sort of bull as an excuse but being 'new york wise' we paid for our one drink and left........ to our benefit cos what we had to eat that evening was absolutely delicious!!!

mother and son statue....
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walking back towards alexanderplatz we saw a little take away called "zur currywurst". on entering we found a delightful little man behind the counter. he had just served 2 local girls 2 different types of sausage so we asked what the difference was, which led us to decide that we were both in favor of the 'currywurst'! it was a pork sausage battered and deep-fried with a ton of a special curry sauce topped with another ton of ketchup with a side of fries lashed with mayo! washed down with a beer it just was fantastic!!

'fall in love with berlin' bus...
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the next day we took a 4 hour long walking tour of the city. our guide was an american student from pennsylvania who was getting her phd in german history. she was very knowledgable and told us the complete history of berlin while showing us places like the brandenburg gate, berlin wall, hitler's bunker, the site of the ss and gestapo headquarters and many more..... check out www.berlinwalks.de for the tour options if you're headed there. well worth it!!

book burning plaque.... 'burning books leads to burning people'
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we spent the rest of our time walking around visiting the various shopping areas and the up and coming potsdamer platz area. the entrance to museums on museum island is free on thursdays from 6pm to 10pm also which we took advantage of!

nearly the enitire city was destoryed after WWII so berlin has a ton of construction and rebuilding going on at the moment. the feel we have is that it is still trying to find its real identity, but is well worth checking out. the contrast of classical historic buildings and advanced modern architecture gives the city its character.

view of the brandenburg gate...
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will definitely be returning sometime to see the results........