Berlin is awesome!

I will never understand Parisian strikes. Granted, I haven't tried very hard to, but this is from what I understand of metro/RER strikes: the strikes last for a fixed amount of time... but it's not *really* a full-out strike - trains and things still run! Just... slower. The good news is that I've only been through two Paris transit strikes. The bad news is that the second one took place yesterday.

As in the day I had to get to the airport.

As in the day that some Parisian airlines also decided to go on strike.

Luckily, I was able to move my flight to earlier in the day (albeit, I had to sit on the runway for an hour and a half)! I just had to take a really circuitous route to get to the damn bus stop so I could get on the damn plane and sit on the damn runway for 1.5 hours.

You can imagine my relief when I popped off the plane and into transit-efficient Berlin! The buses and metros are really easy to navigate, and since almost everyone here speaks English, I don't feel as bad about being an obnoxious American tourist. I met my sister at the old Wilhelm Kaiser Church, one of the few buildings/things to survive the war. Knowing that I was absolutely starving, my sister brought me a berliner (with plum jam filling!), then took me to a stand that's well-known for their doner kebab (think gyros... except made with chicken) and Curry 36, which is well-known for their currywurst (info on both can be found here). I do want to note that the doner kebab - a delicious, hot and crusty bun filled with chicken, fried potatoes, lettuce, onions, peppers, feta cheese, eggplant, and sprinkled with lemon - cost 2.70 euro. 2.70 EURO! In Paris, that would get you, like, two croissants! Gaah.

Afterwards, we trekked over to the Reichstag dome, took a bunch of pictures, and headed over to my sister's host family's apartment. Her host parents seem like really awesome people, especially since they're letting me stay over while they are on vacation (ironically, in New York). It feels really nice to be at home. Granted, someone else's home, but I really miss the feeling of sleeping in a place that feels lived in, a place that actually has history and character. Gosh, I can't wait to set up my room again in Chicago...

Anyway, I slept so very, very soundly yesterday night, and kind of want to crawl back into bed. Instead, I have to get a move on and (1) cook lunch, (2) buy a toothbrush, and (3) get my butt over to the Technik Museum. Not to sound like an uncultured cretin, but because I've been hopping from art museum to art museum over the past 3 months (e.g. the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam; the Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, Musee Maillot, Musee Carnavalet, Pompidou, and Dali Space in Paris; the Picasso museum in Barcelona; the Dali museum in Figueres...), I'm getting a little tired of wandering around and looking at art. The Technik Museum looks so, so incredibly cool; it kind of reminds me of Sony Wonder in NYC, except way bigger and awesomer. Maybe more like the Benjamin Franklin Museum in Philly. Both Sony Wonder and the Ben Franklin Museum were two of my favorite childhood museums, so I'm pretty jazzed about what I'm about to experience!

I'm feeling rumbly in my tumbly - time to cook!

xoxo,
D