Chapter 3: Day 3 and 4 in Berlin

Day 3: This morning, I woke up at 10am and head out onto the freshly snow-laced Berlin to have breakfast in a small cafe - cold cuts, cheese and bread and butter. Delicious. And a giant hot chocolate with whipped cream. Soon, I will move off to the Holocaust Memorial and Jewish Museum, and maybe the Ramones Museum too (I didn't end up going).

As you approach the Holocause memorial - passing what once was Hitler's Bunker, but is now a parking structures - it seems flat and unimpressive. As you get closer, however, it's enormity consumes and looms over you, with the ghostly echoes of other voices anonymous directions from within the monument, an appropriate cocaphony of the abundent Berlin crows singing out in the sharp, cold air, the overcast sky, the leafless trees, creating an ominous, dark and powerful memorial to the fallen jews of the Holocaust, both haunting and beautiful.
Walking past there I run into a large, undestroyed section of the Berlin Wall and the Topography of Terror - the main base of the SS guard during the war which was unearthed just over a decade ago. It was creepy seeing the dead walls of the former base of such an evil force. Heading just east I got to Checkpoint Charlie, a main Berlin wall checkpoint.
On my way to the Jewish museum I stopped in on a small cafe for a coke and a small pizza - Berlin does pizza surprisingly well.
These thermal underwear were the best purchase I have so far made.
At the Jewish Muesum, they have something in the design called the Holocaust Tower, a voided void in the structure which is cold, and dark and tall, running the vertical length of the museum with no heating or light and only a small strip of a window to allow natural light to filter through from the dark, overcast day. A haunting and cavernous memorial to those fallen. Also along the way was the Garden of Exile, a slanted garden with tall concrete pillars with trees growing from them dedicated to those who had to flee their homes to escape certain death.
People of note from Museum: Jean Heinemann, Moses Mendelssohn (the German Socrates) and Dr Magnus Hirschfeld.
I saw a huge stack of kippot there, on with "My Bubby is Voting Obama" labelled Obamica '08, one with Batman on it and another with the cast of "Friends".

I spoke with Anna on the phone on my way home from the Jewish museum and because I wasn't concentrating I got a little lost, but made my way back to Potsdamer Platz.
When I got back to the youth hostel I red for a while and ended up falling asleep for an hour. I awoke with a start and I was sweating in the cold. I went to the bathroom and had my first proper shower since I arrived here and all of a sudden my head itched a whole lot less.
As I walked to the shower, I noticed a new roommate enter our room from afar. As I exited the shower I noticed a boatload of new kids playing in the halls and settling into their rooms - a boatload of Australian High Schoolers, and I sighed. I left to leave them behind. Oh well. I head back to the room and get ready to go. I didn't go far, I just headed down to the small pub called Cocktails down the road and ordered a tea with rum (by accident of miscommunication) and the most German meal I've had so far - sausage and potato salad. When I walked in, the place was empty except for the bar owner sitting round the front, watching the German version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" She spoke little english, but we understood each other thanks to the few Yiddish words I managed to utter that were German.
Also, for all you lovers of BEERFEST - The Boot is REAL! It's on a shelf in this tiny bar...hmm...
As the host sat and smoked, she always checked the door for someone else, like she was expecting someone.
And she was.
Soon he arrived and they began talking animatedly in German and soon changed the channel to "Mein Restaurant| and began enjoying that as they smoked and chewed on sunflower seeds.
I left there, paying the 7 Euros due and walked back to the hostel - it seemed I was getting used to the cold as it didn't bother me as much to have my coat unbuttoned and hat untied and scarf loose around my shoulders - that or the thermal underwear was saving my ass. WHen I got back to the room my silent roommate was asleep, so I took my book and walked downstairs to read in peace as light rock, metal and ska played over the loudspeakers.
As soon as the computers freed up I went and read my emails and sent a couple back home. 22:30 rolled around and I grew weary and went back upstairs to shower and head to bed.

Day 4 so far: I woke early again this morning and read until sun-up, hideen once more by the everlasting carpet of clouds. I went to a small cafe near the hostel and ate a light breakfast of a salami baguette and a hot chocolate. It struck me, too, that this, my 4th day in Berlin, that I had not much left I wanted to see and grew weary of this dank city. Unless I get on the alternative Berlin tour tonight or tomorrow, the next 2 days will be very boring.

- from the Journal 12th and 13th of Dec.

And that's it so far, I sit here writing from a net cafe and soon I will move off to do...something. Until next time, guten tag!