Day 9

Today we took a bike tour of Berlin! The hot-ass tour guide from Canada did a great job maneuvering us through the traffic. We managed to steer clear of the millions of buses, pedi-cabs, pedestrians and cars. In our short picture-taking breaks, Mike the bike guy, rapidly narrated the history of Germany and Berlin. Some of the bike tour highlights were: Bebelplatz site of the Nazi book burning, Nazi headquarters which managed to avoid being bombed (a pity because it’s one of the ugliest buildings in Berlin) and the site of Hitler’s bunker and place of death. We also revisited the Holocaust Memorial and learned that the same company who supplied the anti-graffiti material for the concrete was the same company which provided the Nazi’s with poisonous gas. The company donated the anti-graffiti material The memorial still cost 27 million Euros.

After a quick break back at the Hostel, we took the train to Kreuzberg with the intension of going to the Carnival of Cultures. Once there, we found out it didn’t start until 6pm. We had 3 hours to kill so we went over to the Jewish History Museum by Architect Daniel Liebskind. Neither one of us are big on museums, but we ended spending 3 ½ hours experiencing the history of the Jewish culture and religion. It wasn’t half as depressing as the Memorial. Debbie wasn’t a big fan of the architecture, but in my professional opinionJ, the sensual qualities (lighting, angularity), really enhanced the viewers experience.

The Carnival of Cultures was packed full of people, food, music, and drinking. We worked our way from stand to stand in search of exotic and interesting types of foods (and something cheap). We collected coucous salad, baked bananas and Arabian baklava.

Once again, we arrived “late” to the Hostel, around 9ish and all our roommates were already asleep! This ended day 9.