Berlin Hauptbahnhof (the main train station) though was anything but dark - a 
5-floor mega structure with trains coming in and leaving at different levels, bustling eating places with people stuffing themselves with breakfast, and best of all, a glass front façade that helped the sunlight spectacularly illuminate the entire building!
We had booked ourselves into Wombats Hostel, which one of Berlin’s best rated ones. It was indeed impressive with a classy yet cool reception area, 6 floors worth of clean rooms and a nice bar on the 7th. The folks at the reception were quite resourceful and had answers to pretty much all our queries.
The plan for the day was to do a ‘Free’ Walking tour of the city. We took a day pass for 2-5 people for ~15 euros so we could use any train or bus for the entire day upto 3am the next day. Only later did we realize that we could have taken a 3-day pass for much less and saved some moolah.
The ‘Free’ tour is actually free, but the guide calls out quite clearly that they ‘work on a tips-only’ basis and you’re pretty much ‘supposed to’ give a tip at the end of the tour. The group size is about 25 people, and a 5 euro per head tip means that’s a cool 100-150 euros for our ‘free-tour guide’ for 4 hours of walking and talking stories about each monument! Of course you could just give him 2 euros at the end of it, but wanting to demolish images of ‘chindi’ Indian tourists, the three of us paid a massive grand total of 15 euros. The trip also serves as segue for several ‘paid’ trips that our guide never failed to mention once every 20 minutes.
How was the tour? Well, it was alrightish, led by a humorous guy named Sebastian, who spoke QUITE a bit! We started with the BrandenburgerTor at Paris Platz - A nice ‘little’ gate on a nice little square with the Goddess of Victory (formerly Goddess of Peace) on top of it. It was the anniversary of the re-unification of East & West Germany and there were bands playing behind the gate which was not open to the public on that morning. Right next to the Paris Platz is the hotel where Micheal Jackson famously held out his son from the balcony. Room rents can go up to 15,000 euros a night. I mean, really? It doesn’t even have like a stunning view, duh!
Then there was the Jewish memorial, a 
photo of a soldier jumping over the Berlin ‘wall’, a car park which was formerly where Hitler’s quarters were, a memorial to the dead ‘sons’ in the war (both the Jews who were massacred as well as the soldiers of Hitler’s army – lives lost, are lives lost, I really liked the concept), Charlie checkpoint, a gay king’s palace, and that of his brother’s, a couple of museums and a restaurant where we had a snack break. Sebastian told us some interesting stories behind every monument/landmark/non-landmark and since I wasn’t exactly taking notes, I hardly remember any of it. But it was fun while it lasted.
The sun was really beginning to belt down and Sebastian’s humor was starting to tu
rn into a bit of a rant. We wished it was over sooner rather than later and finally we got done by around 3. I was quite famished, and once done, we rushed to the nearest restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet and helped ourselves to a sumptuous meal.
We headed back to the hostel, got some rest, took a shower and headed back out for dinner. Berlin has innumerable good restaurants and bars to choose from and we didn’t go too far from our hostel, which itself is in quite a good area, and had a good meal. With me trying to keep off meat, it was usually a pasta or, at most, a fish dish that would be on the menu, with always a new beer to try. I found a particular liking to the taste of the dark beers and quite enjoyed sampling them at every meal (Yes, quite the ‘drunkard’ I was).
Berlin’s pubs are deserted till about 11, or so said many sources, so we drifted into one just after 12. It was called White Trash and was just a 2 minute walk from our hostel. Some really random music was on, and they for some reason I will never understand, had a screen showing some soft porn. We had a beer each and moved on to another place. Turned out later it was actually a café… The next place, was actually a pub with college-goers dancing away to glory completely out of sync with the music. I looked at them and went “Hahhaha! Idiots!”, at the same time realizing that I was laughing at myself 3-4 years ago doing the exact same thing J. The beer continued to flow, and after I was sufficiently sleepy, I made a beeline for the hostel and fell into a deep slumber almost just before my head hit the pillow.
The next morning started with the project of finding an awesome breakfast place. Out came the Lonely Planet Guide 2008 and we were off on this walk. And we walked, and walked, and walked. We must have gone up and down the same street some 7 times I think. Finally we figured the place had closed down. After all, it was the 2008 edition of the book, and the recession had since come and not quite gone! So we ended up having breakfast at around 12, and it was a cheese and salmon overload as our hungry stomachs gorged on anything in sight!
Then, while the ladies took a 
tour of this place, I took a 2 hour nap on the grass under the sun, contemplating the meaning of life & such. It was also the moment when I realized I should be writing my blog entries lest I forget what all has happened. So I headed back to Wombats to write this blog and the ladies went off to see a Nazi concentration camp! I had no intentions of doing that; it was way too creepy for me!
Dinner & drinks was further away from the hostel this time, in a place called Kurfurstenstrasse (I hope I got that spelling somewhat close to what it is)! We walked out of the station and felt quite out of place, as the place was teeming with ‘escorts’ just standing pretty much in the middle of the road. We walked for about 10 minutes to get to our destination – Einstein Café. The desserts were outta the world and we filled our tummies with unlimited quantities of raisins, ice-creams, and such. Not very friendly on the pocket, but I guess it was worth the walk.
We then headed up to catch a glimpse of the Reichstag by night. It is a truly imposing structure and has a huge open garden right in front of it. This is what I loved about almost all the buildings in Berlin – they were huge, magnificent, built by probably fairly megalomaniacal rulers, and they completely and utterly dominated the surroundings they were in. And they stood in complete contrast to the drab, aesthetically not-so-pleasing buildings of Capitalist backgrounds in the Western half of the city.
That was end of day 2 and day 3 was going to be a trip up to Potsdam, about 1 hour from Berlin to see a pretty little castle. I wasn’t too impressed with the place, but it was a bright, sunny day and good time to just soak in the atmosphere. We came back the hostel sometime in the evening and our stay in Berlin was about to come to an end. But not before we had made the long walk along the East End Gallery which has some really cool paintings on the last remaining piece of the famed Berlin Wall. It was an absolute delight to walk this stretch at night (it was about 9 pm), with absolutely no one around and a cool breeze floating around. I also saw my first spots of rain on this walk and I guess it was a sign that winter was just round the corner.
My gloves, monkey cap and jacket were about to come in really handy in Prague & Krakow!
The train to Prague was at 5 in the morning and despite my relative lack of sleep in the days before, I was up, excited and wide awake in wonder as the train rolled by mountains and rivers and forests and about the most awesome train ride one could ever have!!
