To Berlin

23 June - Day 99

Caught the train to Berlin. Yeah.

 

24 June - Day 100

We started off the day by catching the U-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, one of Berlin's main squares. We were too late to catch the 11 o clock Fat Tire bike tour so we went for a walk around the city.

We didn't have any sort of map and therefore had no idea which direction to walk in. Using the vague recollections of my trip from last year, we went round in a few circles and then headed down Rathaus Strasse (Town Hall Street). Eventually we ended up at one of the main tourist centres of the city, Museum Island, which is an island in the middle of Berlin's river full of museums. We didn't visit any of them but checked out the market stalls along the riverside which were pretty cool and arty.

 

For lunch, we went to Hackescher Markt (that's German, not a typo) where I had a sausage and dad had a soup.

Afterwards, we walked down Under die Linden, Berlin's equivalent of the Champs Elysees, which took us down to the Brandenburg Gate. The Gate is not looking as good as it usually does, as it is being used as the party zone for fans to watch the Euro 2012 Cup.

We then visited the Reichstag.

The war memorial for Soviet troops.

And the Memorial to the Jews of Europe.

After this, we decided to go home and make enough pork gulasch to feed us for three days.

 

25 June - Day 101

Today we went to the Berlin Zoo, which is probably the coolest zoo I've been to, even though I haven't been to that many zoos.

We bought a combo ticket so we could visit the aquarium too, which is also very cool. There, they have such as animals as:

Jellyfish (which you rarely find outside of the ocean, as their living conditions are difficult to replicate, and unlike most other fish, have to be seperated by species otherwise they start eating each other).

Various fish

Tortoises

Lizards

Turtles sitting on alligators

Frogs

And also some sharks and an insect house. The aquarium was fascinating and also somewhat terrifying, due to animals such as the giant isopod and a few tarantulas.

The Berlin Zoo is also home to Bao Bao the panda who is on loan form the Chinese government for baby-making. He was awesome.

Then there were a whole bunch of your usual zoological garden fare, like elephants, aplacas, mountain goats, gorillas, lots of cute monkeys, lots of birds, a rhino, an armoured rhino, polar bear, lions, tigers, wolves, a nocturnal house, sea lions, penguins, hippos, pygmy hippos and a petting zoo. Cue pictures.

One of the more interesting finds was a big metal kiwi hidden in the back corner of the zoo, which was a gift from Helen Clark to the zoo back in 2005.

Afterwards, we went looking for a flak tower which the Nazis used to shoot down bombers raiding the city. We couldn't find it and it was also pouring with rain so went home.