Berlin!

This morning we took a train to Berlin. It was a relatively short ride, about 2 hours. We took the 9 o'clock train, since we didn't want to get up too early, but didn't want to miss out on Berlin by going later in the afternoon. We got to Berlin and found our hotel. We were too early, so we dropped our bags off and hit the city! We walked around a mall like area near our hotel.

Doug saw this in a store and found it hilarious. It looked like the store was doing a liquidation sale, but still. Silly women finding shoes...


A big food here (according to our guidebook) is Currywurst. Basically it's a bratwurst covered in ketchup and then curry on top. So we decided to try some. Except we don't like curry...so we figured we'd get it without it. It tasted just like a hot dog. It was good, but it didn't feel like we were eating German food...They sure piled on the ketchup!


We ended up in front of the Berlin Zoo. We thought it would be fun to go in and see the animals. According to our guidebook, it sounded like it would be worth it. We decided that the price of the zoo would decide it for us. We knew that they had pandas and polar bears, but the San Diego zoo has those. Although we don't go all the time, and it's expensive! And last time I was there, there was a 90 minute wait to see the pandas, which I didn't wait in. It turned out that with our student ID's (which don't expire till next year), it was only 10 euro each (about the price of the Santa Barbara Zoo!) Worth it. It was nice to take a break from touring cities and to just enjoy the animals. We got to just spend an afternoon together under an umbrella as it rained off and on. It was quite enjoyable :)

Indian elephant. Definitely reminded me of the Jungle Book elephants. Hup two, three, four!


Throwing dirt on itself to keep cool


Baby hippo :) So cute


Hippo! There were at least 4 in the tank. They'd pop up every once in a while, but the water was too murky to see through the glass


Wolf (Doug's favorite animal). They were running around their habitat and were interested in the people watching them. They'd come up to the glass and look at us and then run away. The glass made it hard to get a picture, but we got this one from another viewing location


We freaking loved this brown bear. I think he ended up being our favorite animal there. He loved all the attention he was getting and even posed for pictures. He sauntered over to where there was a crowd, and then sat on his haunches and paused for a bit. Then raised himself up and paused again. Amazing. We wonder if he had been a circus bear or something, since he was so friendly, at least as friendly as a bear can get from 20 feet away!


Perspective on how close he was to us, and how he came as close as he could to us


Haha he walked around for a bit and went to this spot. We love his back legs and just how comfortable he is


We liked this sign :)


The sloth bear. Named for obvious reasons:


I loved the walkways and fountains throughout the park


I dunno what these monkeys are called, but I recognized them. We always have wooden faced stuffed animals of these


One of them started yelling and then all the monkeys started running around their rock habitat. They ran around almost 3 times. The babies held on to their momma's backs haha


African Elephants. The male kept bullying the female. Pushing her around and making her move. It almost looked like he might push her into the ravine!


The cats were in a building like how we have our reptiles. It was weird, since we're used to them being in large habitats where they're hard to find. It was cool getting to see them up close. They had a lot of leopards. One of them was making a lot of noise. I can't even describe it!








The Elephant Gate entrance






Another one of my favorite animals ( I tend to favor black and white animals). He was sooo cute. He was eating his fruits and veggies right next to the window


King Penguins. Haha I have a stuffed one like this that you can press and he talks. He says, "I am a King Penguin. I'm a bird with feathers, but I can't fly." He also talks about how he eats krill.


Polar Bears! I hadn't seen these in a while, since I'd been to the San Diego Zoo. I was sad that Knut was no longer there, especially when souvenir shops were still selling his post cards. But there were 4 other bears and they were all out in the rain with us




As I said, it started raining. We had our umbrella though. It was a humid rain. I was in shorts and was still really warm.


After the Zoo we went and checked into our room. We were really pleased with it! We were on the top floor again (almost every place we go we have been), and had air conditioning. And our own blankets, so we couldn't steal from each other :) We had to put one of our key cards in to turn the electricity, which I thought was clever for energy saving.


We hung out for a bit (I napped mostly), and then we got hungry. We walked down the shopping courtyards near us and stumbled upon this little stand. Apparently doner kebabs are popular here. I dunno what kind of meat was in it, but it was good. It had a dill sauce, onions, red cabbage, cucumbers, and tomatoes, and lettuce. And it was really big! It was soo good though. We were really glad that we tried it!




These are the cross walk guys and they are represented at every souvenir shop! Cookie cutters, mugs, key chains, shirts. Apparently they're emblematic of Berlin. I liked the hat!




Haha we bought our copy here. We don't own it yet and it was only about $7 (4.90 euros). And it has the English version on it. And now we have something to watch at night! Or on the train.


At the mall that's up the road from our street we found these in bakery. They weren't as good as French pastries, but they were good. Doug got the eclair and I got the strawberry puff. The filling tasted like strawberry ice cream :)