The rest of the trip was far quieter, time in the Zurich lounge, our first Brezel!, then onto the Berlin flight where we actually watched our bags being loaded onto the plane.  One less thing to worry about. 

It is a gorgeous day to fly as we soar over the Swiss countryside, past lakes and farmland with the Alps in the background. 

Our flight arrives on time, our driver does as well, and we are quickly arriving at the art’otel in Berlin, where they actually have a room ready for us where we can freshen up, drop our bags and hit the city.

Taking it easy today, we wander up to Museum Island, enjoying the beautiful architecture of the Berliner Dom cathedral and the odd, but nonetheless beautiful, reconstruction of an Indian ceremonial gate, juxtaposed against the very modern Berlin Tower. 

Deciding to take a break, we found a great restaurant across the Spree River – Julchen Hoppe – where we sat outside on the patio for perfect afternoon snacks.  We munched on the Berlin Platter – sausage and “meatballs” (more like a meatloaf) plus salad and bread – a perfect combo with Ed’s Berliner Kindl Weisse beer and my Rose. 

Then it is off to the DDR museum, which we had been looking forward to visiting.  It is described as an interactive museum that lets you experience living in the era of Socialism in Berlin with tons of “touchable” exhibits.  That may have been so, but OMG.  It was a total nightmare!  There were way too many people in very small spaces, no way to see exhibits, just too crazy. The only thing we managed to explore were the recreations of an apartment from the time.  Might have been a great museum, but…nope.  Not when we visited.  Bummer.

Back out onto the less crowded streets, we decided to just head back to the hotel, with a beverage stop at Brauhaus Georgbraeu, then a quick walk past St. Nicholas’ Church (where we plan to stop at some point in time) and finally on to the grocery store for provisions before hitting the hotel to freshen up.

Organized and refreshed, we wandered out in search of dinner.  Our plans were to head to a couple of restaurants a few blocks away near the river, but our interest was peaked by a restaurant across the street that didn’t show up on the maps.  Musterek turned out to be a lovely little Turkish restaurant, where we luckily enough scored a nice table on the sidewalk and had a lovely meal of Babaganoush, Zucchini Fritters and grilled octopus.  Excellent – not exactly a traditional German meal for our first evening, but we have plenty of time for that going forward.

A short walk back to the hotel where we spend the rest of the evening, forcing ourselves to stay up as late as possible to overcome our lack of sleep and jetlag.