Ich Bin Ein Berliner!

Berlin

Filed under: Life, travelogue — SEB @ 12:38 pm Edit This

I was in London the past week for business, and had a few days of leave on the tail end of that trip, and am spending it in Berlin. While I’m anxiously awaiting the start of my MBA studies at Villanova on 11 Aug, I’ve taken some time to enjoy the sights and sounds of one of Europe’s most wonderful and storied cities.

Full of everything you would expect of a sophisticated European capitol, except the high prices and crowds of American and Asian touristas. The lack of crowds and low prices have made it a real treat.

Rich, magical, and full of history, I’m amazed at how Berlin is in the midst of transformation. I arrived Saturday, frankly somewhat exhausted by the previous week’s efforts in London (mainly pub crawling with my client and a number of British Officers). Took a lengthy nap, as I knew I had a Berliner Pub Crawl later that evening, courtesy of Insomniac. We hit a number of smaller clubs in East Berlin, a beerfest, and then on to the later gritty clubs of East Berlin, most of which don’t start until midnight or so. Finally dragged home around 2:30 am…

The next day, waking fully refreshed, I took a tour of Berlin via Fat Tyre Bicycle Tours. Berlin is an incredibly flat city which makes it ideal to see via bicycle. What a great way to see the city! We saw Karl Marx, the TV Tower, Brandenberger Tor, Tiergarden, Bellevue, Reichstag, Gendarmarkt, the University where Hitler and his crew burned 20,000 books, the Jewish Memorial, and Hitler’s bunker, plus a number of other sights I can’t remember.

Fat Tire Bike Tours - Berlin
Panorama Strasse 1a
10178 Berlin, Germany

Tel: +49 (0)30 - 2404 7991 | www.FatTireBikeToursBerlin.com

I ended up last night back at the festival, and linked up with some Irish lads on a stag party, and we ended up in 2 sort of underground techno clubs with some Irish girls who live here in Berlin, and knew the password and guards working the doors. I’m getting too old for this sort of business…my German language skills were pretty rusty, but managed to get along without too much difficulty.

Getting around Berlin is really easy given the S-Bahn and U-Bahns, the streets are NOT crowded at all, meaning you can also get a Mercedes cab pretty much anywhere in the city for less than 10 Euros.

I’ve put the rest of the pictures up here if you’re interested.

Tschuss! Auf Weidersen! Gruss Gott!