Berlin?? Not so sure yet

Today was our first full day in Berlin having arrived late last night. Here are some things we have learned that Berliners don't like:

Us

Our luggage

Helping us in stores

Answering our questions

Having our Backpacks/pocketbooks in museums

Here are people that do like us:

People from countries other than Germany (refer below) 

You can probably tell that our day today has been kind of a roller coaster, starting off poorly and ending well. 

Most awkward moment: I'll begin this by telling you we have a very modern hotel room complete with an open concept red bathroom and electricity that doesn't work unless your room key is in a lock. So naturally, the shower is odd too. Leah calls out to me this morning asking for help turning on the shower. I'm half asleep and barely functioning so I cannot figure it out either. After five minutes of twisting, pulling, and consulting the room guide, we are completely perplexed.  I called down to reception and instead of an explanation they send an old man in overalls to help Leah turn on the showsr as she is in her bathrobe and my head is under the pillows hiding from embarrassment. 

Worst part of the day: today started off promising and we set out with high hopes and a full agenda. The first task was to buy a pair of Birkenstocks.  After a few frustrating stores where we were ignored or scoffed at, we came up empty handed and attempted to do some sight-seeing.  We were pretty confident we had figured out the transportation system but quickly learned this was not the case as we ended up going one way towards our intended destination only to stop and head the opposite direction twice. We finally were told by mime that we needed to get out of the subway station, walk to a bus, and take that to god knows where.  We got off at the first stop that looked interesting.  Additionally this all occurred during a heavy rain downpour that the iPhone weather app forgot to mention so we had no umbrellas. (I didn't personally mind the rain since it dropped the temperature 10 degrees.)

High hopes:

Quickly shattered:

Still not so sure about this....

Scarf turned into head covering during downpour. I hope you like it because it is the last you will see it as it is riding solo on the S5 having been left behind during the train confusion. 

We were able to make a stop at an old church that had been bombed during WWII and there are just ruins of it now as a reminder of the war's destruction. Here is a before and after:

And this is what it looks like today: 

Best part of the day: "it only took us 6 hours to finally know what we were doing"  ~Leah at 4:00 pm when we had actually found a decent destination.  This is the point in time where things really started to look up for us.  We got off the bus at a promising stop that seemed to have some things around to see. Our first stop was a store to purchase ponchos and some Berlin schwag. 

Then we found a beautiful church that provided a lot of photo opportunities:

Next,  we walked a little ways in our sweat boxes, I mean ponchos, to the German History museum. The museum was good although we had limited time to visit it. We made it through the 20th century history floor, which matter-of-factly described the history through artifacts like propoganda papers and posters, clothing, and pictures.  

 

After the German History Museum, the rain had stopped and there were a variety of street vendors. We saw some people making custom tshirts using a man hole cover as a stamp. Leah and I thought this was cool and bought ones for ourselves as souvenirs. They are currently hanging up drying: 

Inking/painting the man hole cover

Making Leah's shirt

We then found another Birkenstock store and successfully purchased a pair for ourselves at a price that is way cheaper than the US. Mine cost only €39.95!!  Hopefully they will be useful for the rest of the trip. 

Best thing we ate:  We have actually had some really great food here. Last night was a delicious Indo-Thai restaurant that we inhaled from being so hungry due to our starvation train diet. Today for lunch, we went to a German restaurant and got our fix for the salty delicious food. I had schnitzel and Leah had stuffed cabbage leaves.

We ate dinner tonight at a Swiss restaurant and had delicious fondue. 

I'm hopeful that tomorrow will be a good day and one where we can do the things we have planned to do. With only a short time here, there's not any to waste!