"...just like Baylin."

(Note that I don't think I will be proofreading this post so I apologize for any typos and grammatical errors in advance).

So we are pregaming one night in Zurich after befriending an awesome Aussie couple (they are the best people in the world to party with and thankfully we've been meeting heaps of them on our travels) and we begin conversing about cities where there just seems to be too much to do, and I mention Rome as the best example I know of. Our Aussie mate replies, "Oh, Rome, definitely. Heaps to see there... actually, it's just like Baylin."

"Bay lin?" we replied, faces contorted with confusion. 

"Yeah, yeah, Baylin. Heaps of historical stuff."

"Bay...lin. You mean, 'Bali'?"

"No, no... you know, BAY-lin."

I felt remarkably ignorant for not knowing about this "Baylin" city, and our faces displayed such emotion. He continued, "Baylin, in Germany. The capital."

"Oh! You mean BER-lin!"

I have a ton of other similar stories of trying to decipher our friendly if backwards Australian mates, but I think that serves well enough as an intro to one of the most interesting cities that we were fortunate enough to visit. Berlin was not on our original itinerary and I couldn't have been happier that we detoured there for two nights. It was a packed two nights and days, I assure you.

The first night we decided to do an organized Berlin pub crawl, which was nothing short of amazing. The night in general was quite a blur, but we made friends with an Australian couple that we hung out with extensively the next day/night and would eventually meet later in our journey. Other than that, we went to a bunch of bars and finally a club, made some cool stops along the way like underneath a bridge that was decorated in graffiti (Berlin has more graffiti than Rome, so it definitely takes the tops in that regard):

Before we went out for the pub crawl, during the day we went to a Hertha Berlin soccer game at Olympic Stadium. I've discovered that live soccer is just awesome. It's like a college game day but the whole city mobilizes for their team. 

Above, me in front of Olympic Stadium. The 2006 World Cup was also played here. It's an experience that I cannot adequately describe. And below is yours truly in front of the pitch from our seats:

Berlin defeated Borussia Montgladbach 2-1. It was 90 minutes of 40,000 completely drunk Germans (and two Americans) screaming and swearing and chanting and singing and it was just a ton of fun. To be fair, from watching the soccer game itself, AC Milan is a far, far better team than either of the two we saw. I think AC would crush either of them.

Anyway, one soccer game and one pub crawl down, the next day we went on an organized free city tour of Berlin. It was almost four hours and it was just an epic history dump on behalf of our young American tour guide (from Jackson, Missouri of all places). The tour began in Pariserplatz where we saw this rather noteworthy hotel (below):

I say it's noteworthy for two reasons: 1) luxury penthouse suites here will run you a cool 12,000 Euro a night. 2) For you Michael Jackson fans, this is where Jacko dangled his baby outside of his balcony window in 2002. I remembered that headline so that's why I included a pic of it.

In the same square (Pariserplatz), at the end of Unter den Linden is the famous Brandenburg Gate with the Roman goddess Victoria sitting atop it in her chariot. Basically, long story short, Germans/Berliners have a great sense of humor and named the square Pariserplatz and put a statue of victory on top of it facing the French Embassy as Germany had to reclaim the statue after French occupation, etc. You can find the story on Wikipedia, I'm sure; it'd be a good read as it makes you appreciate Germans more and despise the French more, so everybody wins.

One of the next stops was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also sometimes called the Holocaust Memorial. It was designed by Peter  Eisenman and it's basically an almost 20,000 square meter site with tons of concrete slabs of various sizes. Eisenman has been purposely been ambiguous in describing his theme/motivation for the memorial, but I was told he was influenced by the Jewish cemetary in Prague. Either way, it's a pretty remarkable site:

Next stop, an ordinary parking lot (below):

Kidding. This is the site of Hitler's underground bunker and headquarters during his reign. It is also where he committed suicide and his body was partly cremated and eventually discovered by the Soviets. The Berliners did want any particular attention given to Hitler's death site. So it is now an unremarkable parking lot and a common area for dog owners to come and let their dogs relieve themselves, and is one of the few such places in Berlin where it is not required to pick up after your dog. So that would be Berlin's opinion of Hitler in a nutshell.

Not far after that is the only strip remaining of the Berlin wall (below):

As you'd imagine, when travel restriction was finally lifted between East and West Berlin (another remarkable story that is just too long to type), the wall came down not all that long after. People would want to come and pick at the wall to get a piece of it, but to prevent that the city has erected a protective fence in front of the wall (probably the king of all ironies). The wall itself is riddled with hesbestos, so keeping a piece of it isn't advised should you own some.

Not far from that is Checkpoint Charlie, the main intersection and height of tension during the Cold War (famous for that picture of an American tank facing a Soviet tank a few meters away, both sides having orders to fire if fired upon): 

I'm telling you, the amount of stuff we saw that day was ridiculous. We went back in time, circa 1700, to when French Huguenots found a safe haven in Berlin and did extensive beautification of the city. One such beautiful piece was the Huguenot Church:

Which shares the same square as a Catholic church (below):

Berlin is not at all a Catholic city, but if nothing else it has been rather tolerant of religions. The church is located not far from the square where the infamous book burning incident took place at the onset of the Nazi regime. There is now this plaque inserted near the book burning memorial (which is an empty underground library visible through a glass floor) with a quote from Heinrich Heine, "the man who predicted the holocaust:"

The quote translates to "They that start by burning books will end by burning men." Pretty powerful stuff.

The square is immediately adjacent to a statue of the coolest guy I never knew a whole lot about, Frederick the Great (below):

So apparently he was the only person ever in history to be bestowed the title of "the Great" while he was still alive, and for all that I learned about him, it makes sense. Brush up on him on Wikipedia if you have the time. He's rad.

The last stop on our tour was the Berliner Dom:

It's situated on one side of Museum island but is by far the most remarkable piece of architecture for miles around it. Berlin has never been a seat for a Catholic bishop, so its being titled the Berlin Cathedral is something of a misnomer, but who cares, it's pretty. All in all, the tour was simply the perfect way to learn a lot about the city, and you only need to tip the tour guide at the end. 

We were leaving the next morning, but before we got on our early train we visited the Reichstag, the building that is now the host to the Bundestag, or Germany's modern-day parliament. You go up this enormous spiral pathway until you reach the top where there is a huge glass dome with some amazing panoramas of the city. You can also look directly below you and watch the parliament meetings in progress:

(From the top of the Reichstag dome.)

All in all, I'm not sure if I was able to appropriately describe how fantastic Berlin was. I wish we stayed there four or five nights instead of two. It has such an amazing mix of history, character, nightlife, and culture that truly makes it a very unique place and somewhere you just can't help but falling in love with. I'd say it's in the top seven somewhere, but the BCS rankings are still being calculated. 

And with that, Berlin was our last stop in Germany, and it was Auf Wiedersehen to one of the coolest countries in Europe.