Berlin

Beginning a long awaited vacation in a big city can sometimes be a mistake.  Although we enjoyed our 4 days in Berlin, we have decided it would have been better to start in the opposite direction of our intended itinerary and visited our friends in the outskirts of Vienna first, where we know we will relax and just enjoy their company. This time change thing makes traveling difficult.

Here, in a nutshell, are the pros and cons of our time in Berlin…

Pros:

1. Our hotel, Hotel Art Nouveau, was in a nice area, very close to some posh shops and restaurants. Too bad I am not a big shopper. The entire top named designers had shops in this area. Notice that beautiful bag in the mosaic #1, it was carved out of wood for an art display.
2. The hotel room was large and clean, quiet and really perfect. We actually were upgraded to a suite.
3. The first full day in Berlin was warm, sunny and enjoyable. We went on a boat tour on the river Spree to see all the sights and it was the best thing to do on our first day. We got a good idea of the set up of the city
4. The beer in Berlin was great.
5. The food in Berlin was great.
6. Mr. Romance really enjoyed seeing all the fancy cars, Bentley, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Audi…many different models than we don’t see in the US.
7. Nice, clean and comfortable taxis and trains.
8. Most people were nice and spoke English, willingly.
9. We got to meet friends of our son and spend a really enjoyable evening with them and their two beautiful children
10. I got to meet Tacha, the lovely and famous member of Fat Quarterly.She generously gifted me with her newest book, Hexa A Go-Go
11. On our last night we went to an Italian restaurant and I was able to speak Italian and order in Italian. I was quite impressed that remembered the right words and did not mix it up with my spotty Spanish.
12. We received a lovely surprise of candy sent to our room from Brigitte, whom I had done some quilt Market sewing.
13. The first time I was able to check the Internet I found out I was a finalist in two categories in Ellison Lane’s Summer Sewing Contest. You still have time to vote. I am #2 in the quilt category and #3 in the Home Dec category!

Cons:

1. The Internet in the hotel was spotty and did not work in our room. We had to go to the common area to use it.
2. We took the Big Bus Tour and it was so boring. The bus gets stuck in traffic and it makes for a very long tour.
3. The city is really big and the things we wanted to see were far apart, so we were unable to see all.
4. The breakfast in the hotel was boring. The exact same thing every day.
5. Our luggage was lost in Paris and we did not receive it until the second day in Berlin. Luckily we always plan for this and had a change of underwear packed and necessary toiletries with us.
6. The meanest clerk was in the coffee department in KaDeWe department store. We were on the food level oohing and ahhing over the displays taking photos, when I snapped a photo in the coffee department. She came up to me clapping her hands and yelling at me that no photos were allowed and there were signs everywhere saying so. I told her that no one else had said a word and that if I had noticed a sign I surely would not have broken a rule. Argh…couldn’t she just have said, “Sorry, no photos please”? I nicknamed her Brunhilda!
7. It was a lot colder and rained two of our full 3 days. That made it hard to go sightseeing, but we did the best we could.

 Next stop, Poland...

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