September 2014

It was a rainy day so we headed into Cologne to checkout the Chocolate Museum and then a festival that was going on.  We parked in a garage and headed to the museum.  The museum covers the history of chocolate, how it’s made, fair trade, and things that are added to it (like spices).  You get to wander through the exhibit and even into a tropical garden.  The garden is heated so it was like walking ...

Travel day… not much going on besides a subway trip, a short plane ride to Cologne, and the a ride in the car to the house.  I’m visiting with some friends and everyone was getting into town and working today.  We went to this great Greek restaurant and had a ton of food (and drinks).

Other than that it was a quiet day.

It’s my last real day in Berlin and I’ve got one last thing to do before I leave.  Berlin has a giant TV Tower (Fernsehturm) that has an observation level at the top.  I decided to head on up.

Once I found the entrance (it’s not clearly marked) I got my ticket and got in line.  Right in front of me though was this extremely rude group of older people; I’m guessing a tour group.  One lady ...

My time in Berlin is quickly coming to an end.  I leave on the 19th and fly to Cologne/Koblenz and come back on the 22nd.  Then I have to be up early on the 23rd to catch the train to Munich.

Since I’ve only got 2 days left I decided to pick up some souvenirs and gifts while I was in the city.  I went back to KaDeWe and some other stores to pick up some items.  Spent most of ...

Decided to start the day off by wandering through KaDeWe.  It’s pretty much a big department store.  The best part of the shopping center is the food floor.  It has multiple little restaurants where about 10 people can sit around a little kitchen.  They have all sorts of food you can order: German, American, Italian, Indian, Vegetarian, and others.  If you don’t want to eat there then the floor is also a big grocery store.  It includes ...

Just a heads up to anyone following that I was without internet for a few days so the posts are behind.  I’m working on getting them caught up.  To keep them in order I’m having them post on the dates they would have originally been posted.  Since I’ll be adding multiple posts over the next few days to get caught up make sure you check a few days previous to see anything you may have missed.

The weather was even worse today than previously but that worked out well because I was getting low on clean clothes.  Spent the day at home doing some laundry.  Didn’t really do much but venture out for food late in the afternoon.

It was a crappy weather day and rained most of the morning.  That made it a perfect day to check out a museum.  Today it was the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German History Museum).  The permanent exhibit is the history of Germany from the beginning (whenever you want to consider that) to the current.  The museum was giant and had a ton of items.  There were a ton of paintings of rulers who I’ve never heard of.  Of course, ...

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is an amazing site.  When you approach it you see an entire city block of “stelae” or these gray stones protruding out of the ground.  You can wander through them and as you approach the middle they get taller until they are a few feet/meters above your head.

After you done wandering through the field of stelae you can go below them into the exhibit. ...

Since the weather was decent I decided to hop on a train and head in the other direction from Berlin today.  I headed towards Potsdam and Sanssouci.  After some trouble figuring out how to get there since some of the train lines were under construction and closed I finally ended up at the Potsdam train station.  I wandered around a bit and then found a map that lead me to the park.

Sanssouci park is big; almost ...