Ich bin ein Berliner redux
Berlin, Germany Day 2
Well given our plush a-one swank accommodations Lisa decided to sleep in while I went out for a stroll and some shopping. My one and only stop was the Hugo Boss store. I finally got to buy my suit!!! I walked in just as they were opening and was pointed in the direction of the suits. This was a lovely experience after Munich were I was more or less pointed to the Big and Tall section with nose in the air. Wanks. Although mental note ... dust off elliptical machine at home. After some wandering around the store for a bit someone finally came out and was suitably apathetic about helping but after a while he got into it and i ended up leaving with a suit two shirts and two ties. Excellent.
After that it was time to get Lisa and sample the Berlin public transit system. Crazy. The system map was so hard to read! after a while we had it sorted and were on our way. First stop the Berlin Natural History Museum. The higlight here is the full reconstruction of a brachiosaur. It should be noted that this place is alot like a zoo ... that doesn't move. They have hundreds of stuffed animals native to Germany and elsewhere including a Tasmanian Tiger that lived at the Berlin Zoo in 1938. They also have a huge geological collection. Who knew rocks could be so neat! (simmer down Dev). Some of them were so colourful that if you saw one you'd think some jack ass painted that rock.
http://www.berlinerfernsehturm.de
This is the giant TV tower built in East Germany. now we almost didn't make it up this thing. Not because of claustrophobia. Or fear of heights. No ... the line was an hour long. Understandable as it was a clear day as most of our trip has been ... touch wood. So we queued and waited ..... and waited .... and waited. After spending a good 30 minutes I had decided that having waited this long it would be a waste to NOT see the damn thing now. SO I went in search of water to wait it out. When I asked the "treasurer" for some money a fellow in front detected our most un-teutonic accent and was desperate for english conversation. And so we spent the rest of the wait chatting with forgotten name American guy. He was from Seattle. He had spent a week in Prague and made us jealous. The view from the top was indeed quite a sight to see. It was interesting to see the expanse of East Berlin compared with that of West Berlin. What awful awful architecture. Awful.
We have definately noticed that we are getting tired quicker now, During our first week we would be up and out, doing something at 8 am and then all day. Now we are getting more tired and will sleep in until 9 and start the day at 10am and only hit 3 things a day as opposed to 9.
Hameln
On our drive out of Berlin before we reached amsterdam, we thought we would spend the night in the town of Hameln, just south west of Hannover, it is the village where the story of the pied piper took place. We arrived at around 3:00pm and took forever to find the altstadt, once we did we walked in to the main square, saw the piper, saw the painted trail of rats and then decided we had seen enough of Hameln.
We pressed on until we reached the small Dutch town of Deventer, just a place to stop really. But now we are in Holland, isn't that veird?!?! Well not really. Lot's of people live work and visit Holland each year. What is noticably weird is Dutch drivers as opposed to their German counterparts. I have been spoiled. Germany is the greates place to drive. Being in Holland makes me feel too much at home. Speed limits? Bah!!! They also have photo radar!! They need some BC liberal political action here. Well that's it from Amsterdam. Will report more later.
Well given our plush a-one swank accommodations Lisa decided to sleep in while I went out for a stroll and some shopping. My one and only stop was the Hugo Boss store. I finally got to buy my suit!!! I walked in just as they were opening and was pointed in the direction of the suits. This was a lovely experience after Munich were I was more or less pointed to the Big and Tall section with nose in the air. Wanks. Although mental note ... dust off elliptical machine at home. After some wandering around the store for a bit someone finally came out and was suitably apathetic about helping but after a while he got into it and i ended up leaving with a suit two shirts and two ties. Excellent.
After that it was time to get Lisa and sample the Berlin public transit system. Crazy. The system map was so hard to read! after a while we had it sorted and were on our way. First stop the Berlin Natural History Museum. The higlight here is the full reconstruction of a brachiosaur. It should be noted that this place is alot like a zoo ... that doesn't move. They have hundreds of stuffed animals native to Germany and elsewhere including a Tasmanian Tiger that lived at the Berlin Zoo in 1938. They also have a huge geological collection. Who knew rocks could be so neat! (simmer down Dev). Some of them were so colourful that if you saw one you'd think some jack ass painted that rock.
http://www.berlinerfernsehturm.de
This is the giant TV tower built in East Germany. now we almost didn't make it up this thing. Not because of claustrophobia. Or fear of heights. No ... the line was an hour long. Understandable as it was a clear day as most of our trip has been ... touch wood. So we queued and waited ..... and waited .... and waited. After spending a good 30 minutes I had decided that having waited this long it would be a waste to NOT see the damn thing now. SO I went in search of water to wait it out. When I asked the "treasurer" for some money a fellow in front detected our most un-teutonic accent and was desperate for english conversation. And so we spent the rest of the wait chatting with forgotten name American guy. He was from Seattle. He had spent a week in Prague and made us jealous. The view from the top was indeed quite a sight to see. It was interesting to see the expanse of East Berlin compared with that of West Berlin. What awful awful architecture. Awful.
We have definately noticed that we are getting tired quicker now, During our first week we would be up and out, doing something at 8 am and then all day. Now we are getting more tired and will sleep in until 9 and start the day at 10am and only hit 3 things a day as opposed to 9.
Hameln
On our drive out of Berlin before we reached amsterdam, we thought we would spend the night in the town of Hameln, just south west of Hannover, it is the village where the story of the pied piper took place. We arrived at around 3:00pm and took forever to find the altstadt, once we did we walked in to the main square, saw the piper, saw the painted trail of rats and then decided we had seen enough of Hameln.
We pressed on until we reached the small Dutch town of Deventer, just a place to stop really. But now we are in Holland, isn't that veird?!?! Well not really. Lot's of people live work and visit Holland each year. What is noticably weird is Dutch drivers as opposed to their German counterparts. I have been spoiled. Germany is the greates place to drive. Being in Holland makes me feel too much at home. Speed limits? Bah!!! They also have photo radar!! They need some BC liberal political action here. Well that's it from Amsterdam. Will report more later.
posted by Glen Scotia at 7:38 AM
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