Berlin was my favorite of all the European cities we visited - a city torn between the past and future. Half of the wall still remains, and the main square (Pottsdammer Place) is nothing but cranes and half-built buildings. Berlin is the city of the future, aimed reclaiming the title of German's capital in 2000. They're building monorails, crazy buildings, wiring the city with fiber - its crazy.
They also speak German.
German is a crazy language. Weird letters, weird sounds. We got on the U-bahn (subway) knowing we had to get off at Mehringdamm, but combine similar sounding stops, a thick German accent and a bad PA system and we were easily lost. In any case, we stayed a great hostile called Hotel Transit which had a cool lounge and cute German girls hanging out.
Berlin has so much history to it - seeing landmarks on sightseeing tours actually mean something. Unlike London where its "Wow, Big Ben", in Berlin walking down the street you can still see WW2 remains of buildings bombed and feel bullet holes scattered throughout buildings. The Berlin Wall museum is worth seeing also.
We continued the tradition of banning all foreign cuisine, parking our ass at TGI Friday's. I also had the chance to kick Karl Marx in the crotch. He deserved it.
Next - on to Salzburg.