"I'm a Jelly Donut" and Other Berlin Adventures

By Megan

Berlin was so good to me- from the funky hostel (see my previous hosteling post) to the bicycle tour, hippos at the zoo, and of course the Tiergarten.  My faithful travel bud and I organized a jaunt north starting in Berlin; the plan was to start in the famous capital, then work our way down to Vienna.

Germany was an entirely new concept to both of us.  All we could say was Gesundheit, küsse, and 'I speak English', even worse than our Italian, but we had few communication difficulties.

I was excited as a five-year-old as we headed toward the zoo, and furthermore, I was equipped with a camera and the know-how to use it.  The hippos were comical, the rhino quite serious, the giraffes awkward, and Knut the famous polar bear was in isolation (it seems that the more famous you are, the less likely you are to play well with others... just saying).  I actually didn't expect to enjoy/exhaust myself as much as I did running around the zoo.  In any case, a triumphant evening at a bier garden was in store.  They didn't have any vegetarian brats, but the baked potato was delicious and the Berliner Weisse (beer with raspberry syrup added) would have won over even the most serious of beer aficionados.

The infamous wall

With a desire for speed, we decided to take a bike tour of the city and got to the Fat Tire tour station early.  There was a Spanish tour available, but we decided to wait and see how full the English tour was- 70 or so other riders later, we went with the more intimate tour in Spanish, which included just me, my bud and our Valenciana tour guide.  She showed us all of the city's most famous sites, and via bike was a lovely way to see so much history in such a short amount of time.
Something from the tour that struck me much so was Bebelplatz; it's a memorial to a Nazi book burning that took place.  A piece of glass allows visitors to look down on empty shelves, representing the loss of understanding and knowledge.  "He who burns a book is capable of killing another."  It's a strong statement, but the idea is that by burning a book, you lose the knowledge of the book, effectively killing the right of someone who wants to learn.

Bier Garten? Yes, bitte.

After a long day of bike riding, we decided to relax in the MASSIVE Tiergarten and we weren't alone.  Our wonderful guide told us that public nudity was allowed in some parts of the gigantic park, but who would have thought that the two of us would end up smack-dab in naked central.  At least two gentleman visited the park seeking to catch some rays sunny side up.

It was time for us to move on to Dresden, but one more note- Ich bin ein Berliner- the famous quote, did not make JFK  a supporter of Berlin, but rather, a jelly-donut... and people still chuckle at the grammar mistake 40+ years later.