Guten Tag from Berlin

We are now at the close of the fourth day of our European adventure - the first time I have had a combination of time and internet access. We left on Sunday morning heading towards Strasbourg, via Reims. Reims was a typical French town with a totally incredible cathedral - where the coronation of French kings once took place. It was a terrible day weather-wise so we just walked around the cathedral (which rivals Notre Dame in some ways), got lunch, and left.

Arriving in Strasbourg, we found our little hostel - safe and clean but leaving us thankful we were only there for one night - and set about finding dinner. Adopting the 'when in Rome' philosophy, we were wholly local in our choices - Alsatian food and Alsatian wine, including my favourite - vin chaud (glühwein in German, mulled wine in English). In the morning, we wandered around the city centre a bit. The Strasbourg cathedral was just as magnificent as that of Reims but it was incredibly different - different style, different feel. Before leaving, we visited the first of what would turn out to be many little Christmas fairs. These are held outside in town squares and in pedestrian areas (of which there are many in European cities), and vendors set up stalls of locally made goods, Christmas decorations, and foods. The weather finally turning nice, we hopped in the car for the short ride to Frankfurt.

Without realizing it, we were suddenly in Germany. There was no border, not even a noticeable sign. Hoping to have my passport stamped, I was disappointed, but I suppose took it as a sign of a more unified Europe. Our 'hostel' in Frankfurt was actually a hotel, with incredibly reasonable prices - and, unlike Strasbourg, a shower with water pressure more than a light rain. Frankfurt was badly damaged during WWII so much of the city is new. It has the distinctive feature (unlike most of France) of having skyscrapers. These aren't clumped together, however, they are stuck seemingly hodge-podge all over the city. One of these skyscrapers is the European Central Bank, which is proudly proclaimed by a huge sculpture of the symbol for the euro. What isn't modern skyscrapers in Frankfurt is relatively new low-rise. It's not quaint or as esthetically pleasing as the picturesque, mainly uniform 19th century buildings of Paris. In fact, it's decidedly uninteresting. We wandered around the centre of town, saw the cathedral (which was mostly destroyed in the war but used to be the location of the election and coronation of German kings (or emperors or something)), and found a bite to eat. Of course we wandered around the Christmas market, which was surprisingly extensive.

With a 6 hour drive ahead of us across Germany to Berlin, we set out early yesterday. The autobahn really is an experience. The drivers all seemed good and everyone appeared to understand the rules of the road - the most important of which is that if someone is coming up behind you, move out of their way. I estimated that I saw some people going upwards of 180km/h. I didn't feel as though I was ever in any danger though. Our drive turned out to be even longer than we anticipated, the lack of speed limit on the autobahn notwithstanding. We decided to change our gps setting (yes, we have a wonderful GPS named Sean. He's quite obliging) to take us off the highway so that we could see some German towns.

We finally got to Berlin after about 8 hours in the car. Oddly though it was a great day. It was a long drive but never boring. Great music from an alternation between our ipods, interesting scenery, and good conversation kept us going.

The hostel in Berlin is amazing. It is nicely decorated, big, bright, clean, safe, busy, and bustling. The staff are both cheerful and helpful, and the accommodation more than adequate - surprisingly nice and spacious. I would recommend it to anyone coming to Berlin on a budget.

Taking the recommendation of one of the staff here, we went to a Swiss restaurant for dinner. I had an absolutely delicious traditional swiss winter soup and German wild boar with mashed potatoes - because why not try interesting food, right? We washed it down with a Swiss pinot noir and I of course finished off with a mug of vin chaud (now glühwein as we are in Germany).

So far, I like Berlin. It is an interesting city. We were mostly in old East Berlin today. I absolutely cannot believe how much construction there is in this city. Street construction, new buildings, renovations, all sorts of work being done. There are few new things being constructed in Paris. There is something else you never see in Paris - empty lots. The buildings to me see more stereotypical of eastern Europe than anything similar to what I saw in Paris. No 'beautiful' buildings really. Another difference is that Berlin seems like densely packed than Paris - the streets are wider, the buildings further from each other.

Today, we saw/visited/walked by:
the Berlin cathedral,
two other cathedrals,
Bebelplatz - where the Nazis burned 25,000 books in 1933,
Unter den Linden - a famous thoroughfare,
the Brandenburg gate,
'Checkpoint Charlie' - the American army checkpoint where diplomats could enter and exit East Berlin from 1961 to 1989,
two more Christmas markets - of course,
the Holocaust memorial,
the Reichstag,
Hotel Aldon - where Michael Jackson dangled the baby out the window,
Tiergarten - a huge park in downtown Berlin,
Potsdamer Platz - the centre of modern architecture in the city.

Now we are off to go back down to one of the little Christmas markets that has a skating rink. After some skating (which with an Aussie ought to be entertaining), we're going to sample local street meat (the have 'wurst' in every type you can imagine) and of course some glühwein.

Auf wiedersehen.