Back to AirBnB life, we checked into our new place in Berlin, a small room in the Mitte neighborhood. After checking in, we started our stay by exploring the area around Alexanderplatz and the TV tower, taking in the sights of beautiful churches and towers as we felt out the area around our new home base.

Eventually our stomachs lead us to search for dinner, finding a great neighborhood away from all the tourists. After being shocked to see some “floating noodles” from across the street we had to check it out, and ended up staying (although not eating the floating noodles). After our closer look we realized the gimmick was created by a rod above the bowl holding the noodles up giving the illusion of them floating. Pretty neat! We really enjoyed the food and chowed down on some great pho and dumpling soup!

We were pretty wiped from the travel day, so we went back to our apartment early which gave us a good start on the next day! We started our day by venturing to the same neighborhood that we had dinner in the night before, feeling good about our chances of finding a great coffee place. While our first choice had a line out the door, we only had to walk another 100 feet down the road before we ran into another excellent option – Bonanza Coffee Heroes.

Properly caffeinated, we made our way to Mauer Park for the weekly flee market held there. It did not disappoint, as we spent our morning meandering through the stalls, ranging from touristy-trinkets, to trash, to boutique items.

After finishing up at the flea market, we headed to see the Berlin Wall Memorial. It was very moving to see where the wall stood, as well as being able to see where all the old tunnel routes used to be, learning more about the history as we walked through the park. This was one of our favorite parts of our time in Berlin and thought the memorial was well done.

Living up to all the millenial stereotypes, we found ourselves at a restaurant called Avocado for lunch. It was a cute cafe with outdoor seating overlooking the river and Museum Island. The tables were a hot commodity as ours was swarmed by people when we left. Rejuvinated and thankful for the break from the sun, we headed to Museum Island, planning the rest of our day out.

We decided to go all-in on tourist sights, heading to Checkpoint Charlie. Although the idea of Checkpoint Charlie sounded interesting and we expected to learn lots while we were there, we were disapointed to find that it was not what we hoped. The combination of hundreds of tourists swarming the booth, the McDonalds next to it, and the fact that the actors were taking a lunch break – eating pizza at the checkpoint, ruined it for us.

However, while we were there we remembered that our AirBnb host had messaged us earlier in the day to tell us about the one English tour at the Topography of Terror that was held that day at 3:30pm. We looked at our watches – 3:22. Opening our map to see it was a 5 minute walk, we took off for the museum and showed up just as the tour was congregating. We spent a really enjoyable hour with a super knowledgable guide who walked us through a few of the exhibits – mainly focusing on specific photographs and asking us all very thoughtful questions in order to enhance our knowledge. It was a total highlight of our time in Berlin, though very somber.

After visiting the museum we walked to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and walked between the pillars, taking in the memorial and the emotions that came with it. We headed back to the AirBnb after what had been a long and emotional day.

The next day we had breakfast at a coffee shop that Becca’s dad recommended: Distrikt. The coffee was excellent and the food matched it.

After breakfast we made our way over to a different park: Tiergarten. We spent hours exploring the park, there were many gardens, monuments, and even a river with turtles in it!

In the evening we spent time exploring the same neighborhoods that brought us great food success already, we found a really good burger place (burgers again, we know). They brought all the patties out on hot plates so that we could cook them a little longer to the perfect amount of done-ness.

We decided that Tuesday was our “museum day” because we could get a pass for a discounted rate to see all of the museums on Museum Island (5 of them!), but the hitch was that it was a one day pass. We really enjoyed spending the majority of the day wandering through some really amazing museums. We also broke up the time with a picnic outside of one of the buildings. We only made it to three of the five museums, but were happy with the amount that we were able to see.

That night we had our craziest meal of the trip yet (according to Ryan, Becca says it is a toss up between that and the Bao Burgers). Looking to try venturing to a new part of town, we found a small Italian restaurant that was a good distance from our apartment. Ignorantly, we decided to go for a whole pizza, even after the man taking our order looked confused at our request. A few minutes later we understood his confusion, as he brought out a pizza the size of a small child. Never ones to pass up a challenge, we set out to make sure no pizza was left behind. After a long, messy meal we walked away with our heads held high, victorious over this insane meal.

Berlin was great to us! We loved the city and learning more about (some pretty recent) history!
Leaving Berlin proved more difficult than anticipated, although you’ll have to stay tuned to find out why…