... berlin, berlin, wir fahren nach berlin! (part 1)

[txorakeriak]

The last week of July I was in Berlin with my princess july_v to do some sightseeing and watch the friendly between Hertha BSC and Real Madrid. And it was AWESOME. Jules is one of the most amazing persons I've ever met. Absolutely adorable. And funny, and clever, and I'm gonna stop flailing now. XD *glomps princess*

Of course we didn't manage to do everything we had planned, but that's not necessarily a bad thing because it means we have to go back! XDD

You know, before I did this trip to Berlin, I had only been there twice: once with school, and once during my job training. Both trips focused heavily on politics, i.e. the 3rd Reich and the GDR. And since we got enough of that during lessons, I was horribly annoyed by it and not really that keen on Berlin either. But thanks to Jules I now know a completely different side of Berlin, one that isn't grey and annoying but colourful and fun and very interesting! We decided to ignore everything related to politics, and it was brilliant.

We visited:

• The Museum of Natural History. What a great place. It includes, as Jules called it, the "longest legs in the universe", and a lot of other very interesting things. I particularly enjoyed the stones (especially the malachits!), the store room of the dead, conserved animals, and the models of the insects (flea, mosquito, etc.). Oh, and they had a room with lots of stuffed animals, including one that was called Bongo. XD
  
• The Reichstag - but only from the outside, it was on the way to the Spree river boat cruise.
  
• The House of Cultures of the World - but again, only from the outside, because it was near the place where the boat cruises started. XD
  
• The Brandenburg Gate. There were TONS of people! We walked through the middle aisle because we could. XD
  
• The German Currywurst Museum. I loved that one to bits. They have lots of information about the history of the currywurst, with interactive stuff like a currywurst computer game, a currywurst stand where you can pretend to serve customers, a room where you can smell spices and guess their names, a movie about Berlin and the currywurst, and the best thing: a gigantic, currywurst-shaped sofa. XD Oh, and afterwards you can taste currywurst! :D
  
• The Sea Life Centre, where we touched starfish and corals, acted silly, took an elevator through a gigantic aquarium and saw a fish that looks like Piqué. XD
  
• The Gay Museum. They had a special exhibition about football additionally to the permanent exhibition about the history of homosexuality and gay culture. In the football exhibition, there was a dress with the patterns of a football on it, called "Ballkleid". XD
  
• The Ritter Sport Bunte Schokowelt - a chocolate museum where you can make your own chocolate by choosing your favourites from a long list of possible ingredients. One bar costs 3 Euros, which is about three times the normal amount, but at least you get your own personalised chocolate. XD We didn't buy any personal chocolate but I got myself tons of "ordinary" chocolate. XDD I love the stuff.
  
• The Hard Rock Café. I make a habit of visiting it every time I am in a city that has one, so obviously we had to go to the one in Berlin as well. We didn't get a table because it was so packed, but we got seats at the bar and had a hilariously funny barkeeper to entertain us. Oh, and the food, as usual, was excellent. :D
  
• Dunkin Donuts at Potsdamer Platz. Yes, this deserves to be mentioned. I love donuts. XD
  
• The Olympiastadion. We didn't do the stadium tour, but obviously we had tickets for a match. ;)

We also saw a lot of other, very important buildings during our Spree river boat tour (during which we also attempted to write fanfic about Javi Martínez and Kike Sola), and we were at the premiere of "Green Lantern" - we didn't watch the film, but we saw all the fancy cars drive up, haha! Oh, and we ate at a lot of great restaurants: a Mexican one where I had chocolate chicken and we were served by a waiter who looked like the lovechild of Karim Benzema and Antonio Adán, the Berlin Vapiano which agreed to serve us lunch even though it was only 11am, a Vietnamese restaurant where I ate shark, a great Currywurst place (where we were served by a Hertha fan even though we were wearing Real Madrid shirts XD), and of course the Hard Rock Café. And we had breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. Nom nom nom.

We also spotted "Kike's Restaurant" (obviously belonging to the awesome Kike Sola of Osasuna), and Kaká's shop, a place called "Ave Maria" that sells lots of religion-related stuff. XD

Of course, there are pictures!



This rather intriguing building is near the central train station and looks a bit like the soundcard of a computer. XD



This bar was near our hotel. We didn't go in, but we assumed there are about 300 strippers in there. XD



The local restaurant of the FBI. Or something.



Potsdamer Platz at night!





The world's longest legs. :D





This looks like the skull of a wild boar or something. No clue. But I liked it!





Aww!



I love anteaters. XD



Definitely the best room in the museum. :D









Fascinating! :D



Spiders! This kind used to live on the balcony of my old flat! Whenever I saw one, I called it Switbert.



Our table on the Spree river cruise boat!



BASQUE BOAT! :D





Berlin central station, as seen from the river!



CAPTAIN MORGAN! XD



This building reminded me A LOT of the Silken Gran Hotel Domine in Bilbao. ;)



The Reichstag!







This is not, as the name says, the beer stock exchange but a restaurant. Hilarious name though! XD







The Berlin cathedral!







The Reichstag again.





The statue on the Victory Column (Siegessäule).





Must be awesome to live there!







And again the Reichstag, this time from the front!



Brandenburg Gate!





The currywurst computer at the German Currywurst Museum!



Interesting looking fish at the Sea Life Centre!



Inside the AquaDom, a gigantic aquarium!



Piqué! XD The resemblance is more striking when you see that fish from the front, but alas he didn't want to be photographed that way.



Outside the Olympiastadion!

The pics of the match will come in a separate post as there are too many. Jules completely abused my camera and took approximately 2,459,570,284,196,340 photos of Antonio Adán. ;)

Thanks so much, july_v, for agreeing to go on this trip with me, for planning most of our sightseeing, and for being absolutely awesome. I adore you to bits. :) And next time we go to Berlin, our queen sheep_emilia and our countess zimena must join us! :D