This morning, Matt and I had breakfast upstairs at the Thiermeiers pretty early (at least, early for me...) at around 8am. After that, we headed up to Nollendorfplatz to take the U-Bahn to Potsdamer Platz. I showed him around there, including the massive mall, Sony Center, and the building of the Berlin Philharmonic. Unfortunately the Phil is on break right now, and there's absolutely nothing going on in the building for the remainder of my trip.
After that we walked up the road to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, Brandenburger Tor, and then kept walking along Unter den Linden. I also showed him where Hitler's Bunker was located (where he finally kicked the bucket - ironically is now a parking lot for the Jewish Memorial and Museum). We walked along the road and gawked at some of the tourist traps (one of which a half-kilo hamburger for only 30 euros!).
We walked then to the German History Museum. This museum is enormous on the outside, and even bigger on the inside! They have an entire inner court that should be open-air, but is glassed in. It's the oddest feeling walking through because it feels like outside (with all the heat and sun), but with absolutely no wind, and an echo. The museum itself however had some really spectacular collections, including medieval german weapons and castle designs, a hall dedicated to advertisements from the Weimar Republic (1920's), lots of historical art (royal families, etc), among a ton of other things. The museum seemed to go on and on and on...we left after about 2 and a half hours.
It didn't help that it was incredibly hot. We went to find a grocery store after the museum to get some cheap drinks (why pay 3 euros for .2 L of something when you can get 1.5 for less than 1 euro at a grocery store). I knew of one off of Friedrichstrasse. We headed that way, passing Gendarmenmarkt (where the German and French Cathedrals are, as well as the Concert House), and the Ritter Sport store (see previous post). Now the last time I found the store, I came across it completely by chance (I just remember the general area where it was, not the address), and we ended up not finding it. So instead (completely parched by that point), we finished the last of the Apfelschorle that Matt brought, and got half-liter sodas at a cafe.
After that, we went to check out Ku'damm. Now normally I would have taken the u-bahn to get there (6 stations from potsdamer platz), but I also knew it was possible to get there walking. Since we were already next to Tiergarten (a massive park in the middle of the city), we just walked along the perimeter until we got there. It didn't take that long, all in all 40 minutes, but it was all in the shade, with a pleasant breeze. Plus we got to see everyone coming to go to the Fanmeile (Fan Mile), which is about a mile of street closed off in the middle of the city, with massive screens to watch the World Cup.
Funnily enough (tangent), I've only been talking about the world cup the entire time it's been going in german (with friends/family I'm staying with), so I wasn't sure of what it was even called in english. Most of the day I just called it "Worrrrld...meisterschaft" (Weltmeisterschaft in German) - I had to ask someone what it was actually called...
I wanted to check out something on the north side of Tiergarten, but every time we tried to head that direction, it was either closed off for the Fanmeile, or led to a tunnel (part of the autobahn). We tried walking a ways on the sidewalk into the tunnel, but I remembered that it was a very long ways to the other side, and that we probably needed to turn around.
So we FINALLY made it to Ku'damm. We checked out the Gedächtniskirche, and found out that there is actually going to be a concert there tomorrow night. The concert itself is going to feature 17th and 18th century composers with an orchestra all dressed up in baroque court costumes (white curly wigs and all). The tickets were expensive though, 27 euros a person! However, with a stroke of luck, I talked to a man about the concert, who turned out to be one of the people in charge. I explained in german that we'd be interested in going, but that it was just out of our price range. He said there was a student deal for 19euros, but that he'd give it to us at 15 a piece. I was pretty happy with the deal. He said to come back tomorrow and to either buy the tickets from him, or if he's not there to ask one of the people selling tickets to give us the discount, saying the "Hennig" said it was ok.
So looking forward to a good concert tomorrow, we headed to grab something to eat. By now it was already about 7:30, so we needed to eat and head back to the apartment.
We stopped at an Imbiss and both got Currywurst with french fries. It was rather tastey (as always), and really hit the spot. After that, we headed back to the apartment and relaxed a bit (we'd walked quite a few miles already today). At around 8:45 we went with Mrs. Thiermeier in the car to pick up Valerie from the airport. The carride was fun...Matt doesn't speak much german, and Mrs. Thiermeier's english only a little better, so I ended up interpreting everything for the first half of the car ride...which I was fine doing, but it was just a bit redundant saying everything twice. Mrs. Thiermeier then told me it was alright, that she could usually understand enough of what Matt and I were saying in english that I didn't need to interpret everything (she'd tell me if she didn't understand something).
So we got to the airport after the 25 minute car ride and went in to wait for Valerie. She was to come in at 9:30. Her plane touched down on time, and we picked her up and took her back to the apartment.
That night we watched Good Morning Vietnam (a dvd I picked up (legally) for about 3 euros last week) on my TV. Oddly enough, the dvd player in my room only sends a black and white signal to the TV (the cable is in color, so I know it's not a problem with the TV), so we watched it in black and white. It actually gave it a cool old-timey feel (suitable to the time period).
We stayed up pretty late watching the movie, but got to bed soon enough.
