Day 1: Exploring Berlin on little sleep

After over 20 hours of travel we arrived in Berlin around 3PM local time and headed to our sweet hotel.

We were pumped to see our room as each room of the hotel is decorated by a different artist. Check out their website (Arte Luise Kunsthotel) to see some of the cool rooms. This was our room (dirty socks as we'll call it):

After leaving the dirty socks behind, we went out in search of lunch and do a bit of walking around the city. We first went to get Döner Kebabs....a treat Alison ate many times while studying abroad. This was the grown-up version. We waited in line for about 30 minutes for this yummy treasure. Then we had plans of getting pretzels and the store closed in 30 minutes so we walked quickly to the Pretzel Bar while eating our Döner. We arrived and there wasn't a great selection since they were closing so we passed and thought we might go have some schnitzel, but then we decided we weren't hungry enough for that so we headed back to check out some of the sites on our list.

First we checked out the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Really well done. Loved all the different sized blocks.

Then we walked over to the Brandenburg Gate and then to the Reichstag. Then, we walked over to Bebelplatz to see the Book Burning Memorial and then to Berliner Dom. Beautiful sites and it was a great day for a walk.

Alison also got to see her favorite part of Berlin...the East Berlin red/green men!

Then we walked home and stopped at a restaurant on the water to have some German treasures. Currywurst, "meatballs", wine, and beer....just what we needed to get a good night's rest. Went to sleep a bit before 10 and slept till 7. A good first day!!