Continuing the previous post about the longest day ever now that I have rested and have more time:
Once the tour was done, we found ourselves standing outside the Berliner Dom. Our natural reaction was to enter the church, pay a couple of Euros, and climb to the top of it. We were able to walk around the base of the dome and take in a 360 degree view of the city. Though it was cloudy, you could still see everything. Afterwards, we visited the royal crypt in the cathedral's basement to see the ornate coffins of dead German kings and emperors.
Our next stop was the Pergamon Museum, Berlin's equivalent to a walk-in ancient history museum. I use the term "walk-in" in the most direct sense of the phrase: the first room contains a reconstructed Greek temple! It was a temple containing a holy altar from the ancient city of Pergamon in Asia Minor (now Turkey) that the museum had dismantled and rebuilt in Berlin. The exhibit has the massive 3-story-tall steps and entryway along with the frieze and altar from the temple's interior and the frieze that ran around the whole outside of the temple. This spectacle however was topped by the room next to it which contained the entrance to a Roman market place, a 4-story-tall structure that is more than 60% intact and must have been 30 yards across. In the room right after that, they had the gates of Babylon! That is, the gates from the real city of Babylon, as in, one of the7 wonders of the ancient world. The gates are made of blue brick, are three stories tall, and still have the cuneiform inscription that says something along the lines of "I am King Nebuchanezzer and I built these gates of Babylon and they are guarded by the Gods." Though one of the two wings of the museum was closed, we still had our minds thoroughly blown.
From here,we ate dinner at a restaurant called the Block House, where Maddie and I each had cheeseburgers. Then it was a quick cab back to the hostel for a 30 minute nap because at 8 pm, we planned to go on a Pub Crawl! For 13 Euros. Sandeman's took us to four pubs and then to one club. The four bars were: Silberfish, a German basement bar; Berlin Central Club, a bar with a large dance floor where you were more encouraged to dance than to drink; CCCP, a crowded Russian-themed bar with a live band; and Belushi's, an American sports bar/hostel. Around 12:30 am, we all boarded a train and headed over to the most bumping part of Berlin, Kreuzberg. This is the Southeastern part of the city where all the big bars/clubs are. They took us to Club Matrix, a club with 7 dance floors, underneath the train station. We explored all of the options but stayed mainly in the top 40/Pop room. Highlights included a urinal in the bathroom that was a painted porcelain recreation of the Rolling Stone mouth, boogieing my pants off, and dancing with Maddie in a cage next to the dance floor. At 2:30 am, we left the club and got to bed at 3 am.
Thus concludes one of the most active days of my life.
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