Since we stayed up pretty late last night, we ended up sleeping in "late" till about 9:30. I got a shower and got breakfast ready. Since it was both matt and valerie staying, it would have been a bit crowded upstairs - instead we ate out on the table in the garden. Breakfast was the usual: a bunch of different types of really good, fresh bread rolls, butter, 5 types of jam, juice, milk, etc.
The three of us headed up to the Potsdamer Platz area - abbreviated this time though, as we wanted to try and catch a tour of the central city (same tour I did several weeks ago with Sam's friends). We were running a tiny bit late (hard to get out of bed...), and ended up catching the tour at Brandenburger Tor (only 10 minutes after when it was supposed to start). After about 15 minutes though, Matt (the one wanting to do the tour) decided he had already heard everything the guide was saying (having already read up on berlin before getting here), and we decided to ditch the tour and do our own thing. So we showed Valerie the Jewish Memorial (you have to see that while in berlin), and covered a few of the same things that Matt and I hit yesterday (minus the gargantuan history museum).
We walked over to Gendarmenmarkt and went up the French Dom, which has a tower that offers an amazing view of the city (again, no camera...). We stayed up there for about a half hour, as it was the first shade we had found that actually had a nice breeze (being up a couple hundred feet will do that). After finally cooling off, we headed back down the long stairwell and out onto the Markt. We then headed down Friedrichstrasse over to Checkpoint Charlie. Now I had already been here before, but I hadn't been inside the museum there. We went in (and paid the really expensive ticket price, 9 euros a piece) and spent about an hour and a half looking around. The museum itself was set up in this old apartment building, with really bad air-circulation. It was hot outside to start with, but it was probably a good 20 degrees hotter. After a while, we realized that there was no way we were going to be able to stand there and read every piece of information (every wall was completely covered from floor to ceiling in stories), and called it quits at around 4:30.
At the same time we were in the museum, the World Cup game between Germany and Argentina was playing. Typical Germany - there was a tv in every restaurant and bar (i.e. everywhere), and judging by the way people were cheering (which I could here from inside the museum), I accurately predicted that Germany scored 4 times (every time there's a score, the cheers get deafenig). After getting out of the museum and enjoying the "cool" outside air, we caught the closest U-bahn station and headed back to the Nollendorfplatz area to grab some dinner.
While we were on the u-bahn, Matt's friend Nick called and said he was in the area, and wanted to know if we wanted to meet up for dinner or something. We said ok, and he met us about half an hour later. We picked him up from the Nollendorfplatz station and grabbed dinner at a good Döner stand near there. Dinner for 4 euros is just my style.
Nick, Valerie, and Matt
We then headed over to the Gedächtniskirche for the concert. They were still selling tickets when we got there, so we asked for 4 tickets at the price Hennig mentioned (15 euros each), and we got our tickets! The concert was really good. The only bad thing was that Germany had just clobbered Argentina 4 to 0, and everyone was outside the church celebrating, really loudly (vuvuzelas galore). The walls of the building the concert was in were pretty thick, so they caught almost all the noize, but the vuvuzela noise always cut through. At times we'd be listening to the piece played, and wonder why one of the french horns was out of tune...wait a minute, that's not a french horn! The funniest times where when the vuvuzelas were actually in tune and playing in the right key for the piece (this actually happened in 3 of the pieces!). The concert lasted about an hour and 15 minutes, after which we headed outside and up to try and get the last tour of the Reichstag before they close at 10 (it was 9:15 at the end of the concert).
The platz at the church was completely swarmed with people. There was a lot of food vendors, live music, and a swinging chair ride for people to ride on. It was pretty insane.
After cutting through the mobs, we got to the S-bahn station, and headed up in the direction of the Hauptbahnhof, in order to get a direct connection to the Reichstag. Everything went well catching the necessary trains, however we got to the Reichstag right as they put up the rope, cutting the line off for the last people to go in. We were pretty disappointed that we couldn't go in and see the Glass Cupola on top. But we ended up going out on the massive open lawn in front of the Reichstag, and just chilled there for a few hours. It had finally cooled off a little, so sitting on the grass felt incredibly refreshing. While out there we just talked for a while. Valerie and I tried taking long exposures of stuff with no tripod...needless to say we got some pretty bad pics (some kinda cool though). A couple came out well.
After that we headed back to the apartment and watched Ghostbusters! We watched it on my laptop this time though - bigger screen (my tv is tiny) and in color...
