Berlin: Day 2 (9/10/19)
I woke up today early but relaxed in bed for a while since all my roommates left early in the morning. I took a shower and learned that if the water button is not constantly pressed it turns off and the lights automatically turn off after five minutes. Considering that it doesn’t seem to get cleaned every day in a room that holds eight people I have to say I am not exactly content with my bathroom situation, but considering what the room costs for a spot in downtown Berlin I guess I shouldn’t have expected much better.Oh well, its a place to sleep.
I did my second “for sure” item on my Berlin list which was visit the East Side Gallery, a kilometer-long stretch of preserved wall famous for its elaborate graffiti art. I took the subway to the west(?) end of the gallery and found it pretty underwhelming at first but once I got to the main stretch it was captivating. I had not expected the sheer number of murals nor how detailed they got. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised! In other news I got cornered by a couple of people that were patrolling the length of the wall and wanted me to sign something and give them money. I fumbled around and passed them a euro before pushing past and merging back into the crowd. Not sure if I handled that one correctly but whatever.
After walking the length of the gallery I crossed the river (the Spree I think?) and found a spot along the river bank that was relatively unpopulated to eat lunch. Oh beautiful blood sausage, how you transcend what leftovers came before you. After eating I wandered northward towards the Computerspielmuseum, which caught my eye on google maps and it would make for a decent return loop back to the hostel. Made for a good walk with some interesting sights and a couple more hidden graffiti spots that I quite liked.
As it turned out, “speil” means game! So I ended up at the computer game museum, and of course once I found that out I had to go inside. Inside it was basically a comprehensive history of games from medieval times to 2017, with tons of interactive spots and old arcade games that had been restored. It made for a fun couple of hours and an escape from the crowds which were getting pretty bad.
Afterwards, I walked about an hour back to my hostel, just soaking up the city, and arrived just in time for a total food crash disaster! I couldn’t decide on where to eat during my walk and when I got back my umbrella was missing so I had to go convince the front desk that the cleaning staff must have picked it up because I didn’t have any other roommates. He was adamant that wasn’t possible, but lo and behold it was in with their cleaning supplies when he finally went to check. At that point I was so done with making decisions and just walked 50 feet outside the front door to a fish takeout place and overpaid for some mediocre food that I really should have eaten like two hours beforehand.
With that ordeal behind me the rest of the evening was very peaceful, I didn’t have any other roommates checking in so I got to relax for an hour before passing out. I head out for Warsaw tomorrow and have an AirBnB apartment downtown so it should make for a nice place to recharge for a couple days. I really liked Berlin though, great food and just a cool city filled with neat folks and a blend of old buildings with brand new mega-city complexes that I like to look at.
