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| Erin's Journal for 9-17-02 This morning we arose a little later than planned, due to a somewhat sleepless night. The pillows were such soft, fluffy goosedown things that it was like having nothing at all beneath your head. I am used to a firm pillow, and even with both of our jackets folded up under my pillow, I was uncomfortable. Glenn was nice and let me sleep a little! We got up around 10, showered, ate breakfast with the two guys who had shared our room for the past few days, and left for the Pergamon Museum On our tour yesterday, Kenny had mentioned that the Pergamon was the one museum you should see if you only have time for one. He was right! The displays there were too huge to put on film! The immensity of the Pergamon Altar, the front of which was entirely moved to the interior of this vast building's entry hall, is beyond comprehension until you're standing on it! The marble friezes were incredible too, and then we moved on to even more amazing stuff! The gates to a Roman marketplace and the Ishtar Gate (of Babylon, ancient Bible city) were just a few of the wonders of this place. We took a lot of pictures of some of the more jaw-dropping pieces, but couldn't get the really big stuff into the frame! Sorry, you have to go see it yourself After over 3 hours wandering here, we stopped for a beer before going to the other museum 'must see', the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It documents some of the elaborate escapes made by eastern Germans into the 'free west.' Some include a woman stuffed into two connected suitcases on a train, a 4-year-old boy smuggled out in a shopping bag, a homemade submarine, and a hand-stitched hot-air balloon (an American movie called Midnight Crossing was made about this). Amazing stuff! We ran out of time there and rushed back to our hostel at 7pm to meet Paul and Kim, friends from Seattle who planned to stay the night in our hostel on the last leg of their trip. Unfortunately, they had discovered that trains were not running between Prague and Berlin at all, so we didn't get to catch up with them, but their experience warned us that we'd have to find another way to get to our next stop, Prague! By the time all this was sorted out, it was almost 10pm, so we didn't want to go far for dinner. We walked about 5 stores down and took a chance on a hot dog place. It turned out to be good, and we didn't get sick. The guy was very nice, and we noted that his beer & water prices were much lower than at the hostel. We'd be back! After dinner, we went back to do journals and relax before bed. |
| This example of ingenuity in gardening was on our way to the museums today. There was a local trash collector standing nearby, clearly thinking I was crazy for taking this photo! |