on wednesday afternoon, after three awesome days in munich, we arrived in berlin. both cities were destroyed during world war II, and both were rebuilt in completely opposite ways. munich was rebuilt in very traditional architecture, with an attempt to resemble its post war form. berlin is completly different, and was rebuilt with an aim at new age architecture. they are both very cool, but very different cities.

we are staying at the helter skelter hostel which is right next to the spree river which goes right through the city. the hostel is pretty cool, but the people that work the front desk are a bunch of idiots. you are suppossed to be able to ask the front desk people for recommendations or directions or anything you need help with, and everytime we have asked them for help they have screwed us. the first night we asked peter, one of the front desk guys, for a club or bar recommendation. he recommends this place called tresor and he writes the direction on our map. a couple hours later it is 1 am, we have followed his directions, and we are in the middle of a sketchy part of town with no place called tresor in sight. then yesterday we wanted to see a movie, so we ask the front desk girl to help us find the movie we want to see, superbad, and to make sure its in english. she tells us that on thursday, friday, and saturday its playing at 11pm in english. we get to the sony center movie theater, which was probably the coolest movie theater i have ever been to, and the ticket lady says it plays at 11pm every night EXCEPT thursday, friday, and saturday. then today the front desk girl tells us the free walking tour leaves at 115pm from outside the hostel. we get downstairs at 110, and another front desk girl tells us they just left, but if we look for a big guy in a hat we might be able to find them. a big guy in a hat might be easy to locate if this city wasnt huge, and everybody wasnt wearing hats because its f***ing freezing. anyway, the past couple days we have seen just about all the sites in our guidebook on our own. the berlin wall,checkpoint charlie, the parliament, the holocaust memorial, etc. we skipped the museums because i really dont need to see another museum for the rest of my life.

this city is really cool though and is really futuristic. the public transportation is amazing, so getting around has been easy despite the size of the city.

last night i found myself saying a sentence that i never ever thought would come out of my mouth: "i wish that book was longer". i finished john grisham's the firm the other day, and with nothing to read the down time and travel time can get pretty boring. michael bought a book of sudoku puzzles that he tells me are fun, but id rather continuously bang my head against the wall then do those puzzles.

our next stop is either amsterdam, somewhere else in germany, or somewhere in the netherlands. i guess we will figure it out tomorrow after we checkout.