The main floor of the hostel was very nice, with a long bar, comfy couches with lots of nearby electrical outlets, free breakfast, and uncrowded rooms. There is a central, open courtyard of which my, and every other interior room on the 4th floor, had a nice view. My room is around 25 feet long and 12 feet wide with 2 sets of bunk beds, then a single bed that I took, and a set of small lockers that were positioned right next to my head. You might think having my roommates noisily opening and closing lockers right next to my sleeping head might be a problem, but it turned out not to be, for which I was thankful. The two gurls who came in the first night and bunked next to me were on a whirlwind tour of Berlin and toured the city during the day, then stayed out late every night, but also got up early every morning to jog. So I hardly saw, or heard them.
The room had very large windows letting in lots of light, with heavy curtains that could be pulled closed if you wanted to sleep in the daytime. If the weather would have been better, I’d have probably spent more time in the courtyard down below as it was very inviting, just off the dining room. As it was, there were only a couple times it was warm enough to spend much time there. Though we did have mostly cloudy weather and some rain showers, occasionally the sun would burst through and smile on us for an hour or two at a time. And it tended to be fairly chilly even then so jacket weather mostly during my stay.
Now that I was in Germany, I was kind of at a loss about what I wanted to see here in Berlin. I’d been traveling for over a month, and was kind of museumed out if you know what I mean, so little I was finding online interested me as far as tourist attractions go.
Ok, well, I’ll just tour around. The hostel had brochures for bus tours and such, so I’ll do what I’ve done other places in Europe, take a bus tour to get oriented, then go back and visit interesting places I’d seen on the bus tour. And then there was one bike rental place the hostel recommended that seemed like something I’d like to do too.
The bus tours started just a block or 3 away from the hostel which was handy. Staged right next to a park. Had this cool naked lady. It’s the Neptune Fountain. Seems to be a copy of the one in Florence, Italy. But, whatev. Still pretty cool.
Those pink pipes are used for water. They are all over this section of town. Some artists conception of modern Germany from 10-20 years ago or something. There are other places in town where the pipes travel over sidewalks along streets. All brightly painted. I couldn’t find much history on why they’re not underground, but it’s their city so they can do what they want. And there was a bunch of restoration going on too. Mostly of the tourist attractions I discovered.
And here’s the Berlin TV Tower. I thought about going in and touring, ended up not doing so. Kicking myself now for not taking a ride up to the top. There’s a restaurant up there too. Spins around, makes one revolution, in 30 minutes. Occasionally, if diners start taking to long to eat, they’ll jack the speed up to 30 revolutions per minute. Diners end up like Garfield stuck to the window from the centripetal force, surrounded by their food, dishes, flowers, tables, etc. Then they fire hose the whole place clean, flushing the tourists down that central shaft into a large pool at the bottom, and it’s ready for the next influx of tourists. True story.
So that’s the on-foot tour of the Alexanderplatz. Basically a large public plaza. Just a short walk from the hostel. Couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried. On one street next to the plaza are a whole row of tour buses. Not very active this time of year as it’s not really tourist season yet, but they do depart every 15 minutes with around 70% ridership aboard.
This old building was pretty cool. Huge. Berlin Cathedral. Not much of a name, but it works for them I suppose. That’s it’s nickname…it’s real name? Evangelical Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church in Berlin, Germany. That’s why it has a nickname. The tour bus stopped a minute here so we could get a good view of the Cathedral and surrounding area. Figured I might come back here in a day or two and wander through it.
And a museum…the Altes Museum.
And here’s a shot of the tour bus. There is a retractable, soft roof in case it rains. Which it did near the end of the circuit. This is a jump on, jump off tour but I didn’t see anywhere to jump off that I wanted to visit all that badly.
This is the world famous Brandenburg Gate. A few years ago, your view from this vantage point of most of the gate would have been blocked by the Berlin Wall. Here’s a view of it using augmented reality: Brandenburg Gate blocked by the Berlin Wall. Kinda cool, huh?
Hey, that building looks kind of important…
It is! It’s the Reichstag Building. Or rather a tiny portion of it. Overall, it’s huge.
Here’s the whole thing as we got further away.
I think this is the Rhine River.
And a newer modern building the tour bus operator was telling us about for some reason. Can’t recall now though.
And here’s Bellevue Palace. The official residence of the president of Germany since 1994. Built in 1786. 
Here’s the Berlin Victory Column. Built in 1873. Surprising it made it through WWII. It’s in very good condition, considering.
And a little further on, a remnant of the Berlin Wall. We’ve been in East Berlin for quite a bit of the tour by now and this remnant is about all that’s left of the wall. It’s being preserved. The graffiti is only on the western side as there was a death zone on the eastern side where East Berliners would have been shot if they approached the wall. Fitting that the rain started around this time. Dreary and drab here in East Berlin…even today. But you can see where they’ve started to turn it around. Fresh paint and rebuilding going on all over. 
And here is Checkpoint Charlie.
As you can see, the rain kind of put a damper on any by foot sightseeing so after getting back to the hostel to re-think my clothes, and have a nice hot beverage, I just web surfed for a couple hours until it cleared up. Than walked over to a nearby courtyard surrounded by all sorts of restaurants. Wasn’t too hungry so had a light dinner. Here’s the soup, didn’t get a shot of the entre’. It’s around 6:30 PM.
While I was eating, these 2 women came by and sat near me, there’s a 3rd gal behind the column. This gal here in the foreground looked very much like a friend of mine in Fairbanks. Not an exact image mind you but the sound of her voice, her mannerisms, the way she held herself, her laughter, are just so reminiscent of my friend that I engaged her in conversation. My friends heritage is German by the way. Can’t remember all the details, but I gave this young woman the email address of my Fairbanks friend so they could get in touch if they wanted. 
After dinner I wandered around and found this spectacular bar. I don’t recall the beer, so I doubt it was very good.
And that’s the end of my first day in Berlin. It was fun. Did have to dodge the bad weather a bit, but it sure beats being too hot.
See you next time!