berlin

for some reason i just knew i would love berlin. it’s a bit random, as (to be perfectly honest) it’s not a place i gave much thought to prior to moving here. but the little bits and pieces i heard and gathered prior to visiting were enough to (rightfully so) convince me of its appeal. it’s dark, grey, gritty, and with a pretty tainted past, if any city has one. but there’s an energy that zips through the city, both above and below ground. the bright yellow u-bahn (subway) trains are enough to convince me. you know how i love yellow.

there’s just way too much berlin to squeeze into the 4 days we had. there’s historical berlin (which was our primary focus), art berlin, shopping berlin, wandering and people-watching berlin, foodie berlin. with the chicklets in tow and horrible weather (RAIN. GAH.) we were limited in how much we could accomplish. at one point it was pouring rain and wen & i were each carrying a rain-soaked little girl, and i turned to wen and said, these chicklets are slowing me down! i do so adore these adventures w our family, but good lord it would be easier without my littles. as we drove away after our 4-day adventure i was literally clawing at the car window, straining my head to catch one last glimpse, looking at wen with sad little pathetic eyes, wishing we had just one more day. but i’ll be back. alone. and in the meantime, it’s still incredible how many amazing things we saw …

the history of berlin is just SO MUCH. literally, at times too much for one little heart to take. at one point i was trying to explain the cold war and the berlin wall to piper, and after my feeble attempts she just looked at me and said, i don’t understand. and honestly, all i could say was i don’t really understand either. i don’t understand how these atrociously sad things could have happened. and not so very long ago. i didn’t even touch world war 2 with her. how could i? i can still barely wrap my head around it myself. at the holocast memorial we just stopped and stared. there were no words.

on a brighter note, i loved the street art (to a point of obsession). the east side gallery is a section of the original wall which is now covered with a.ma.zing art. love. and throughout the city were little artistic expressions popping up all over. obsessed.

we stayed at an uber funky hotel, hotel q, which was in the totally wrong location (imagine staying on the upper east side in nyc – pretty, but not much happening) but was ohsoperfect for the chicklets. it had a bathtub … built into the bedframe. and in case you are wondering, yes, if you are 5 years old, that is pretty much the coolest thing to ever happen. i think piper would have been totally content to just stay in our hotel room for the 4 days. we had a big, studio-apartment sized room (totally a rarity in europe), so in spite of the lame-ish location, we were still happy campers.

i’m already so ready to go back. let me know if you are older than 3 or 5 years old and have any interest in a weekend get-away, focusing primarily on art-berlin, shopping-berlin or foodie-berlin. or hey, with no littles slowing us down, we could feasibly do all 3.

in the meantime, ciao berlin. vielen dank for everything, it was fab.