Woke up at 8:30 feeling like P.Diddy, we're out the door, gonna hit this city. How many times did that song get stuck in our head over the week? I promise more than a few times. We hit the breakfast buffett for some European style breakfast...bread, cucumbers, and orange juice that tasted like Tang. Reminded me of our hotel in Istanbul's breakfast.
We decided to head to Potsdam, land of Berlin Palaces for the day, until our other members arrived in the afternoon. After a quick look at a subway map we head out, taking the U-Bahn to Friedstachfe and then switching lines to the S7 to Potsdam. One of my skills I've mastered in Europe is the domination of foreign forms of public transportation. At the train station, we asked for information (better than wandering) and were pointed in the direction of the 695 bus to the Palace and Sansoucci Park.
We got off the bus and walked towards the park. We found the palace...which must have had a thousand steps. All I could think of was Ace Ventura and the Slinky Steps. Ofcourse I didn't have a slinky on me, so we settled for running up the steps singing the Rocky Theme song. Laura was laughing at her crazy American friends. Or maybe she was too focused on the pond that had frozen over. Never had she seen frozen water in real life. As we stood by the fountain, I almost got schwinned by a little boy on a bicycle who just about plowed into me.
We took a stroll around all the palaces and the grounds which would've undoubtably been much cooler if things weren't frozen and the statues weren't all covered for the winter. We took some photos, and enjoyed the people watching of the people out on a Sunday stroll. We finally got a group photo thanks to my favorite self timer and Laura's lumberjack skills and her hauling a stump over to set the camera on.
Heading in the direction of the museum we found a WC (toilet) where Laura was asked about Australia's involvement in WW1 and WW2. War was one of the topics we were going to keep on the DL but the bathroom attendant didn't feel the same. We opted against paying to go in the museum, any museum that has a painted brick facade on the outside is probably not that legit on the inside.
Cold and tired, we walked back to the town of Potsdam for some food. We found XXL bistro for some cheap Doner Kebabs for lunch. Ahh Turkey love for sure. We also mingled with little triplet boys who kept trying to talk to us in German? or baby language? We weren't sure. After fueling up, we wandering, stopping to shop for shoes (at 10 euro a piece, we couldn't pass it up). We wandered for a bit more than decided to head home.
We walked towards the bus, and just our luck it was pulling up. So I ran for it, obviously. Crossing like four lanes of traffic. My comrades were not as diehard, and I ended up getting on the bus without them since the German driver didn't really comprehend my pleas to "Wait". No worries, I knew where I was going and would just meet the girls at the station. A few minutes to myself and my ipod wasn't the worst thing in the world. When I got to the station I wandered around and then waited at the ever loyal McDonald's for them. We took the train back and all kind of dozed off, until we were awoken by the train conductor yelling something in German over the loud speaker. Not sure what he said but it sounded scary.
The cold air had taken it out of us, so we went back for a nap and to wait for Jen and Stacy's arrival. When they arrived, we suited up and headed out for dinner. Locating Dinner and Restaurants proved to be difficult in Berlin. We even asked locals (originally from Canada) for suggestions and they had none. We wandered around a bit, and finally found this little restaurant called the "Potato Cellar". Literally everything on the menu was potato something. or potato with something. I ended up ordering just a cucumber salad, still full from lunch. We ate and discussed all good things, like Keeping up with Kardishans. American culture seems so ridiculous when you explain it to foreigners. In typical German fashion, the beer was cheaper than water, so Jen and Stacy ordered some. However, it tasted like Keystone Light. Are we in Champaign or Berlin? Oh and we are pretty sure we heard a dog bark in this restaurant. Seriously weird.
We wandered in hopes of finding some type of German night life, after no luck, we headed back to the hostel for a hot shower and bed.
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