SCHNITZEL, BEER AND FAMILY
Anne-Krijn and his family were the first of my Dutch cousins to visit our family in Holland back in the early 90's. Since then, my trips to Holland have always included spending time with their family and it's always enjoyable. AK and I began making plans to spend a few days in Berlin in 2009 when I first moved to the Netherlands; unfortunately, it never happened. When I moved to the Netherlands for a second time in 2012 it was the first trip we planned! AK, his girlfriend Eva, Martijn and I booked five days at the end of August in the cultural city of Berlin.

We took the train from Leiden to Berlin separately due to a job interview Martijn had that morning. AK and Eva arrived in the afternoon and scoped the city before meeting us when we arrived in the evening. We immediately went in search of a German meal to soothe our hungry stomachs. After sharing flammkucken (a German type crepe) we dove into a piece of schnitzel over a bed of spatzle. AK, Martijn and I enjoyed our pint of German beers; however, Eva was not so fond of her choice. Some type of juice which we all attempted to drink...without success. Even adding water didn't appear to lessen the bitterness. In the end it was the better decision to stick to what we knew...Bionade it is! After dinner we decided to have a drink on a terrace. Strangely, Berlin was quite different than the Netherlands where there are beautiful terraces and squares everywhere. Instead there are terraces; however, they are pretty small and always next to a busy street. Very similar to the big cities in North America. In the end we walked by a Turkish restaurant hoping it would be open. It wasn't; however, the owners were sitting outside and invited us to sit down and have a few drinks. It was a very pleasant evening and we were even able to try some Turkish alcohol as well.

We also took part in Sanderman's Free Walking Tour through Berlin. It started at the Brandenburger Tor and took us through three hours through the city ending up on Museum Island. We were able to learn a lot about the history of the city and also heard many interesting popular stories (including seeing the hotel where Michael Jackson held his boy out the window). The most interesting to me was that you can see bricks making a trail through the city. These bricks represent where the Berlin Wall used to cross through the city. We were also able to pass Checkpoint Charlie, portions of the Berlin Wall and Nazi buildings. In the evening we grabbed dinner, once again opting for traditional German cuisine. As we were leaving, we noticed loud music and a large group of people coming our way. We opted to grab a final beer and see what would happen. It turned out to be a protest against the banning of the Love Parade with numerous homemade floats playing various types of rock and heavy metal music. It was crazy to see! Definitely in the right place at the right time. Finally we ended up at a Jamaican Beach Bar, an outdoor bar where the floor was sand. Not really our style, but neat to experience.
We ended up making our way back to a bunch of the museums we passed on our tour the day before. They were very interesting, but a lot of information and at times a bit too much for me. But I'm not the biggest fan of traditional museums anyway. At least we were able to spend a little more time at places like the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie as well. In the evening we headed to a beer garden which had been recommended by our tour guide. It was fabulous! Extremely beautiful and quiet in the middle of a forest, yet bustling with friendly customers. We enjoyed pizzas and of course a few pints while we sat under the night sky. One of my favourite spots in Berlin and if I go back, I'm definitely making a planned stop to enjoy a beer there.

On Sundays, there's a large flea market in Berlin. We stopped at Balzac, a German coffee shop, which AK and Eva had run into and LOVED the last time they were in Berlin. The coffee was delicious and definitely made me wish Holland would jump on the Balzac bandwagon. We then went over to the flea market where we spent the afternoon. We grazed through the stalls picking up a few pieces of jewlery and also trying out some delicious German sausage. There was a beach bar set up in the middle of the flea market where we were able to relax and chill out over a few drinks which was really nice, especially when it started raining.
Overall it was a fantastic trip to Berlin. It was wonderful to spend so much time with the four of us and we felt a click with each other which made the whole weekend relaxed and fun. Hopefully we'll be able to have more trips together in the future.