achtung, baby

it's sunday morning and i've been in berlin since thursday evening.

i had a preconceived notion of what a hostel would be like and the one in prague fit it pretty much to a t. the one i'm at now does not - not at all. it's located in what would have been east berlin and not surprisingly this are is a hotbed of renovation and building. the acutal building that the hostel is in was a brewery at some point. the rooms have arched exposed brick ceilings that are 10' tall. it's only been here for a bit over a year so it's clean and not worn down. the picture is in the lobby. yes that is a bar you see. the yellow tables are set for the breakfast buffet - it's nicer than some i've seen in regular hotels. within the complex there is a beer garden. i love this concept of the beer garden - take an open, unused space put some tables, chairs and umbrellas out and deliver a trailer that opens up to reveal beer taps and coolers for bottled beer. this particular one also has a trailer that serves bratwurst. my first impression of the little complex is that if it were in baltimore it would be a struever brothers project (if they weren't broke).

due to some bad info in my guide book i missed going to terezin outside of prague so my first full day here i went about 20 miles north to the memorial at sachenhausen - a former concentration camp. i'll talk about it in person if you ask me but i don't really feel like writing about it here.

it seems the big difference between berlin from london and prague is that in the latter two there are sights all over where as they seem a bit more spread out. so day two meant a lot of walking for me. walking it was my choice - there are hop on/hop off tour busses but sort of like wandering around. once again i got to see something i didn't expect to see...i was at the brandenberg gate when about a dozen police vehicles pulled up followed by a group of a couple hundred protesters. they were protesting the g8 summit meeting in italy - it was a satallite protest for those budding anarchists who couldn't afford the 25 euro fare to italy to protest. the way i know this was because as i was taking pictures a guy comes up to me and - in german - asks that i stop taking pictures. i - in english - say i don't speak german and he then tells me in english and explains that the protesters don't like having there pictures taken because there are privacy issues and it can lead to the police harrasing them. i will not speak to the veracity of this statement but i will tell you what a moron i think this guy is. their group holds a protest at the brandenberg gate at 1pm on a saturday in july...there are a few thousand toursists there...tourist love taking pictures. not to mention there was press there and the ultimate...the cops have cameras! there were cops there with video cameras - at
least 2 that i saw. at the least sign of trouble (there was one little scuffle) they start filming. so einstein asks me to stop taking pictures. being polite i say yes and put my camera in my pocket but thinking this guy is trying to hold back the reine river with a broom i walk away and beging taking pictures again. if you notice on the left side of the photo is one of the cops with a video camera. and all the way on the right you can see the lens of someone from the press. anyway it was a fun hour and it was cooler than the armed forces day parade that i saw on tower bridge in london.

the rest of the day was spent wandering around and finding places to hide from the on again/off again rain storm. i can only imagine the miles i walked yesterday and that's on top of the 5 or so miles i ran in the morning so i think today is a veg day.

hope all is well in the states and good luck in the michael jackson memorial service ticket lottery!!!

happy trails,
dan