Matt and Janelle in Europe

We went to the zoo on our second day in Berlin. Berlin's zoo, or Zoologischer Garten Berlin, is Germany's oldest and has the largest number of species (1,500) of any zoo in the world.

We walked to the zoo, stopping at a McDonald's for a cheap lunch. Once at the zoo, we used our Berlin WelcomeCard to get a modest discount on our zoo tickets. We tried to get tickets to the aquarium as well, but found that the discount wouldn't work for a combined ticket.

Once inside the zoo, we immediately noticed how flat it was, especially compared to the very hilly San Diego Zoo, which we are used to. As mentioned above, the zoo has the largest number of species of any zoo, so we ended up seeing some animals that we'd never seen before, like the large, swimming, rat-like nutria, which were hilarious to watch. We also found that many of the animals' exhibits were both indoor and outdoor; we had seen many empty outdoor cages, but soon discovered that each had a connected indoor counterpart and that the animals were mostly in the indoor areas.

Lino's roommate had told us we would need just a couple hours at the zoo, but we ended up staying for over double that as we explored just about every exhibit. Berlin's zoo was home to the famous polar bear Knut, who was rejected by his mother and subsequently raised by humans; though Knut had died a year earlier, we still checked out the eisbar exhibit.

After we had seen just about everything, we left the zoo and headed toward the east side of Berlin, which Lino's roommate had recommended to see the different culture on the other side of the wall. The public transportation was frustratingly crippled by construction while we were there, but we eventually were able to get to the east side. Once there, we stopped at a butcher's shop that also sold food, and got some traditional meat dishes with pickled red cabbage and potatoes.

After dinner, we walked toward the Spree River, stopping at the shore to walk along the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall. In recent years, this section of the wall has been painted by muralists and now forms the largest outdoor art gallery, called the East Side Gallery. We walked along its length, looking at the murals, which are painted with various messages and styled. There were many people posing for pictures in front of the paintings and even adding their own little bit of graffiti, which we would have denounced if we were in an English-speaking country! We walked a little more around the area, called Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, and then fought our way back to the apartment on the beleaguered public transportation.

Once we were back, we saw that Lino had finally returned from his trip! Janelle finally got to meet the guy who's place we'd been staying at for two days. We talked for a long time and since Lino hadn't had dinner yet, he cooked us a classic German meal of fishsticks, boiled potatoes, and frozen vegetables. Lino had to wake up early for school, so we retired a little early.

We took the U-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, one of the bigger plazas in Berlin. Before leaving from the station nearest Lino's place, we bought two Berlin WelcomeCards, which provide unlimited transport and discounts for several of Berlin's sights. We found some coffee and a pretzel, then headed toward some landmarks. We headed just past the base of the Fernsehturm, a tall TV tower originally built to show the strength of the DDR(Deutsche Demokratische Republik).

Our first stop was the Rotes Rathaus, or "Red City Hall," of Berlin, which had a pretty cool interactive tabletop display about Berlin's monuments and sights. Next, we continued on to stop and look inside Marienkirche, a church in the same area as the city hall with a gothic influence, like many of the other churches we'd seen in Germany.

We walked onward toward the creatively-named Museumsinsel, or "Museum Island;" it's a part of an island in the river that is home to several of Berlin's important museums. Here, we found a museum, the DDR Museum, which shows various aspects and history of life in East Germany before Germany was unified through interactive exhibits. Neither of us had really learned much about the Berlin Wall in school, so it was interesting to be able to both learn the history and see what life was like for those who happened to be east of the dividing line.

From here, we walked past the nearby cathedral, the Berliner Dom, along one of Berlin's main streets until we reached a second small museum. This museum presented the history of Berlin (from its founding until its present) via short videos and an audio guide. It was a nice primer to introduce us to the city as we learned about the settling of the area, the effects of both world wars, and the context and implementation of the Berlin Wall.

After this second museum, we caught the bus and headed back to Lino's apartment. On the way back, we stopped at the same market as the night before and bought some more dinner. We returned to the apartment and ate dinner, then tried to plan the next day and went to sleep.

After one last homemade cappuccino, we confirmed our train time, packed our bags, and left the great apartment in Hamburg. We walked to the closest S-Bahn station and found lunch on the way at a small restaurant we had looked at the day before. Without previously realizing it, there was a great lunch special and we stuffed ourselves with the soup of the day and two pizzas. After eating, we made our way to the main Hauptbahnhof for our next train leg to Berlin.

After a relatively short train ride -- only an hour and a half -- we arrived in the capital and biggest city of Germany, Berlin. Our original plan was to stay with someone Matt knows named Lino. Lino is 21 and a student at a university in Berlin. In fall of 2011, he studied abroad at UCSD (which is the school that we both attended). Lino's last name is the same as Matt's maternal grandmother's maiden name, and he is apparently a very distant relative; he found Matt's mom on Facebook while he was studying in the US, and Matt's family had him over to their house for Christmas. Matt had told him about our plans to visit Germany, and he offered to host us. Lino was visiting family on the day we arrived in the city, but he graciously offered to coordinate with his roommate to let us stay in his room even though he wasn't there. We were planning on meeting with his roommate, Simon, at 7 PM so had a little time to kill before arriving there.

We found the tourist information office in the large train station and got a map and many brochures about sites in the city. We sat outside in the sun and read through the brochures, trying to decide what we wanted to do in the next few days. We decided then to walk to Lino's apartment, even though we could have taken public transportation.

Our walk took us by a few main Berlin sites, including the German parliament building, the Reichstag, first built in 1894. The building was damaged in a fire in 1933, which was used as a propaganda tool by Hitler. It was also bombed during World War II and poorly reconstructed during the Cold War before finally being completely renovated (including adding a glass dome) in 1999. Matt took a few pictures while trying to avoid everyone playing frisbee on the field in front of the building.

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We also walked through the large park, Tiergarten in the middle of the city and stumbled upon the Victory Column. This column was constructed in the 19th century after a series of successful wars, when Berlin was the capital of Prussia. After admiring the giant column, we continued and eventually found the apartment.

We were warmly greeted by Lino's roommate, Simon, and then gladly rested for awhile after carrying our packs for a few hours. Simon gave us directions to a nearby grocery store, explaining that the restaurants nearby were quite expensive. We easily found the store and as usual, were impressed by the low prices. We bought a large amount of food and brought it back to the apartment to cook. After a great dinner, we began talking with Simon. He gave us a mini history lesson about Berlin and we stayed up late talking about the city, the European Union, and our travels through Europe and his travels through the United States. With a busy day ahead of us, we finally said goodnight and went to sleep.

Thunder woke us early and we eventually got up and made more cappuccinos while listening to the rain on the glass skylights in the apartment. Eventually the rain died down and we set off on our day.

After we left the apartment, we walked toward the nearby red light district, which was listed as one of the top sights on TripAdvisor (which we often consult when figuring out what to do). On the way, we passed two music clubs that the Beatles played in when they were first starting out; apparently Hamburg was like a second home to them in their beginning. We walked along the main red light district street, Reeperbahn, which mostly had several clubs, restaurants, and shops. We found a Polish restaurant nearby for lunch, then headed toward the main canal.

Matt had read about a century-old tunnel, the Elbe Tunnel, which crosses from the main part of Hamburg into the industrial part. We found the tunnel and walked across, then sat around in a small plaza on the other side. There were some nice views of the city, and we saw several cargo ships that seem to typify the Hamburg port.

We headed back across the tunnel, then walked along the docks. They were lined with seafood shops, restaurants, and boat tours; we stopped briefly to get some ice cream.

We continued on to the old port area, the Speicherstradt, that we had seen yesterday, but explored it a bit more. The buildings are all made of bricks, and there are numerous canals running between the buildings. The city is trying to build up the area as low-cost housing, so there was a lot of construction going on, but the area was nice nonetheless.

We found there was no convenient public transportation to use to get us back to our room, so we decided to walk. Along the way, we passed the most well-known church of the city, St. Michaelis. We went inside the church, which had a much different interior than the gothic German churches we'd seen before.

Once we were back at the apartment, we decided to just go to the same nearby Indian place that we'd gone to a few nights earlier since we liked it so much the first time. We ate another very filling dinner, then returned to our room and went to sleep.

Our first day in Hamburg can be characterized by one word: walking. After waking up and making cappuccinos using the espresso machine, we set out to explore the city.

While walking towards the city center, we found a few sites to stop and explore along the way. We walked through a very large park that had great water features, playgrounds, and flowers, along with many people enjoying the sunny morning. We continued and ran across Hamburg's most famous church, St. Michaelis. We walked around the perimeter, but unfortunately the interior was currently closed. As we got closer to the city center, we also stopped for lunch at a kebab shop which had a long line of businessmen, which we correctly thought would be a good sign for the food. Finally, we found our way to the Rathaus town hall, located right next to a large lake.

We rested a bit in the shade of the town hall. In the middle of the city are two large lake-like bodies of water with buildings, plazas, and trails positioned around them. We headed toward one of the lakes and started walking around it. Once we got to the second lake, we started walking along its edge for a little while, eventually turning around and heading back toward the city center.

We passed by a couple churches and eventually reached the main canals, lined with old brick buildings that were once warehouses for spices, rugs, and other traded goods -- Hamburg used to be (and still is) a major trading port of Europe. The old port area was nice to see, but we ended up on this strange peninsula area with a ton of construction (for a new part of the city) and had to retrace our steps to get back into the main part of the city.

Eventually, we started heading back to our room, stopping at the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Once back at our room, we calculated that we had walked 11 miles that day. While our day didn't focus on any specific sights, we had explored much of the city as we walked through it. Before going to sleep, we did some more research on the city's sights. We planned a bit of the next day, then went to sleep.