Berlin: Museum Day

I do believe that this is the first post I've written while partway under the table - but free wifi is surprisingly hard to come by in Berlin, and the bar we're in offers it!

We arrived in Berlin late last night to a long, long walk to our hotel - but since we spent most of the walk in the dark looking at things that we were excited to learn more about in the morning, it was a quick and fun jaunt. Once we arrived I had a wake-up call about how old I'm getting: we received a room upgrade from a basic room to a beautiful suite, and I was (and still am) absolutely beside myself because we get a washer and dryer!!! We now officially only have to live for 3 weeks with laundry done only in the sink! Oh - and we have a beautiful suite with a living room, balcony and the most comfortable bed we've slept in yet here. I like that, too.

After sleeping far too late because of the wonderful bed and enjoying some wonderful German breakfast/lunch, we took off for Museum Island to start our explorations. Most of the museums in Berlin are on a small island in the middle of the river, connected by bridges. This turned out to be our most museum-focused day so far, as we toured the Berlin Cathedral, Neus Museum and Pergamon Museum. (Spelling might be off here - I'm on vacation!)

The Berlin Cathedral was lovely - beautiful architecture and decoration, but the real selling point was the view of Berlin from the top of the dome. For a last minute addition to our plans, I'm certainly glad we did this!

The Neus Museum, while we went believing it was solely Egyptology, is in fact a huge museum filled with very early history items. Egypt is a large amount of the museum, but there were also many rooms full of artifacts from other cultures.

The Pergamon Museum was an interesting and strange place. There was a VERY long line to get in, and the museum inside was less than half built. Many exhibits were missing or incomplete, and only half the building was even accessible. After a lot of walking both to Museum and inside the museums themselves, we finished up our first night in Germany enjoying happy hour with German beer/wine and dinner in a fantastic German beer hall, where Patrick assured me that their beer was every bit as good as the amazing food.