Holy Schnitzel

Note - Frankfurt coverage from Molly, Berlin from Joe, hence the multi-author viewpoints below.

The Best of the Wurst

After stuffing ourselves with breakfast in Interlaken, we were headed for our homeland. We found our apartment with relative ease and met our host, a sweet German lady who was actually Spanish, which made communicating much easier when her English and our German faltered. We dropped our stuff and walked to Berger Strasse, a mostly pedestrian street with tons of stores and restaurants, and passed through a park and fancy Chinese garden along the way. While looking for our already chosen dinner spot, I spotted a window front from across the street that was labeled The Donut People. Immediately interested, I then noticed a man standing out front holding a tray and realized that they were handing out donut samples. Major score. We each grabbed a sample and determined that we had to buy some for the next morning (I went with macchiato, Joe got cookies and cream).

In our donut excitement, we had passed the wurst stand we were looking for so we backtracked a bit to BestWurst, a locally renowned place with five varying levels of heat ranging from mild to expletive hot. I ordered a simple bratwurst and Joe ordered a double wurst combo with tier three heat, both with fries. The lady taking our order seemed concerned that an American was getting this and warned Joe to take it easy and to stop eating if his fingers or face felt numb. Just what you want to hear when getting dinner. I could smell the spice from across the table and Joe made it through the wurst unscathed, although there were a number of tears and nose blows to accompany the meal. Full of the best wurst (this oxymoron never gets old), we walked to the end of Berger Strasse to the Solzer beer garden that served apfelwein, a local drink that tastes basically like still cider. We ordered two bembels, small clay jugs that are specifically for serving apfelwein, and played card games until we were sufficiently tipsy for the walk home.

One spicy wurst.

We daydream about apfelwein bembels.

An original stop-motion puppet from
the Nightmare Before Christmas in the film museum.

The next morning, we ate our delicious donuts and took it easy for a bit as I had an apfelwein headache and needed a little extra time before we set out into the city. Our host graciously let us borrow her and her husband's bikes, which were perfect for cruising around bike friendly Frankfurt. We crossed the river and started the day at the Deutsches Filmmuseum, a small but extensive museum that chronicled the history of cinema from the beginning, ending in a well-edited sequence of famous movies that were organized by feature and subject (sound, lighting, costumes, cinematography, etc.).

From there, we biked over to the Museum fur Moderne Kunst contemporary art museum, where a famous Austrian artist was featured. Some of his stuff was really neat, although a lot of it was meant to be interactive and the museum was ironically very strict about not touching the works. In fact, my toe was accidentally over the line of an exhibit, which the museum authority pointed out sternly, so I moved back a step only to have him warn me again that I am not allowed to go past the line, which my foot was most definitely behind. The entire third floor was closed for the setup of an exhibit that looked like it would have been the best of all of them.

Frankfurt's modern skyline.

Joe on a stylish pink Bianchi.

We walked through the town and got a pretzel to snack on while we wandered by the mall, some very old churches, and castle remains. We got back on the bikes and rode to Gruneburgpark, Frankfurt's largest public park. We circled the botanic gardens a number of times before realizing that it was paid entry only and heading back to Gruneburgpark to walk through. We rode back through the city to the apartment, where Joe made chili for dinner and we lounged around making plans for our next destination: Berlin.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

Arrived in Berlin after our most trying rail ride to date—a delayed train that finally arrived, only to stop for mechanical reasons about halfway to our destination, forcing us to wait for a transfer to a very busy train. Sat across from a nice mother and her very outgoing little girl though, rather talkative for 2 years old and making friends left and right. The Berlin Haufbanhof (main station) is huge, several levels of glass and metal housing many shops. On to the S-bahn, the overground train system, after purchasing a 72-Hour Berlin Welcome pass, very worthwhile investment discounting museums and covering our transport for the duration.

Got off at our stop near the zoo and after some typical wrong-way wandering found our way down a pretty upscale shopping district, past the old bombed out church that is currently undergoing renovation, through the misty rain to the Hotel Berlina. Checked in, dropped our stuff in the 4-bed room we had to ourselves, and out into the encroaching night to explore. We headed for Alexanderplatz, a main transport hub and home of the World Clock that even included Denver on its city list. Past a dude playing Led Zeppelin under an overpass and up the Fernsehturm or TV Tower, a large spire remnant of the soviet era and apparently run by the same company as the John Hancock building in Chicago. Super fast elevator up the 300 or so feet to a circular viewing platform, along the windows of which were descriptions of the neighborhoods below. A solid historical and contemporary overview of the cosmopolitan metropolis, although our nighttime view was mostly twinkling lights.

Some more nighttime wandering past another Poseidon fountain, the Dom (Cathedral), across bridges and Museum Island, where there was a massive construction site for a new modern art museum, down a ways to the Brandenburg Gate, perhaps the seminal Berlin landmark. Through the arches and a quick left past the US embassy to the Holocaust Memorial, a hundred or so monoliths of varying size set in brick rows. As you walk through, the ground dips and the stone columns rise, creating a disorienting and claustrophobic effect. Apparently it is controversial though, as the company who manufactures the anti-graffiti coating supplied the Nazis with chemicals during the war.

Brandenburg Tor.

The Bauhaus Archiv building is inspired by
the school's design philosphy.

Grabbed some beers and soup in a restaurant near our hotel, a nice warm-up in the rain then hit the hay, getting up the next day for a foggy, rainy market nearby. We had lunch plans but that didn't stop us from nomming on the free samples. Across the misty river to the Bauhaus Archiv, a museum dedicated to the legendary design school. Nerd heaven for us! The Bauhaus was founded in the '20s and dedicated themselves to designing beautiful and functional objects d'art and manufacturing, everything from furniture (they invented the steel-tube chair) to painting to photography to architecture, even a small theater group and weaving school. We were disappointed to be there in between two different typography exhibits, though, and there was almost no typography in the main exhibit.

Uptown to a great neighborhood for huge plate-sized amazing schnitzel at Osswald Restaurant. Paired with beer of course and oh so very delicious, served with potatoes and a small pickle-salad. Overstuffed, we hopped a tram to Hackeshir Markt, where we walked by a vaudeville theater and through a series of art-deco courtyards, through a market and back to Museum Island, where we hit the German History Museum. Way too much information for our allotted two hours, covering everything from the Germanic tribes in Roman times through the Holy Roman Empire to the Cold War. Very detailed historical overviews and many interesting objects and pieces of art.

Forced out at closing time, we headed down the street to the Dom, or Cathedral, a gorgeous marble interior behind the dark exterior with green copper domes, highly baroque. Reconstructed after an unexploded bomb fell through the roof during WWII. We climbed to the top and walked around the dome exterior with the sun setting, then descended to visit the crypts, one metal coffin clearly shredded by the shrapnel of the bombing. Back on the U-bahn to find a brewery called Brewbaker, located in a strip mall market of sorts which was closing as we entered, all the lights off save a chandelier or two in the restaurant corner. A decent IPA but no real hop bite (this is the norm for Euro-IPAs), a solid pilsner of course, and really good Berliner Weisse and Ginger Pilsner varieties. Weisse beer in Berlin is a weak sour beer usually flavored with syrup. A pianist busted out the entire Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack while we sipped our brews in the candlelight.

Best schnitzel ever from Osswald restaurant.

Berlin Cathedral.

The next day we started off by visiting the East Side Gallery, a large hunk of the Berlin Wall that is still intact and was covered in street art back in 1990 (and recently retouched by the original artists). A nicer day but still quite cold—probably because Berlin is further north than anywhere in the United States (except I guess Alaska). Lots of great street art all around the Kreuzberg neighborhood, including a giant astronaut all down the side of an apartment building.

On to the Jewish Museum, another incredible building by our old friend Daniel Libeskind who, if you recall, also did the Denver Art Museum and the Imperial War Museum, which we visited way back in Manchester! He is also the architect of One World Trade Center, by the way. Shining multi-angled metal, with seemingly random windows like claw tears. The metal will apparently oxidize with time. Descending to the bottom floor, there are three intersecting hallway axes, simulating the disorienting journey made by Jews fleeing Germany. Purposefully included "voids" of empty space are spread around the museum, powerful in their unheated blankness. Outside, the Garden of Exhile is a similar monolith grid to the Holocaust Memorial. The top floor held an overview of Jewish history from ancient to modern times, so the museum doesn't just focus on WWII.

Art on the East Side Gallery.

Jewish Meseum incredible architecture by Libeskind.

Stopped by the outside of Checkpoint Charlie, the Western transfer point in the Berlin Wall, then on to Topography of Terror, an outdoor and indoor timeline museum of the SS housed on the former grounds of their headquarters, showing how Hitler seized power and convinced the populace to follow him, with much help from Goebbels and co. We grabbed dinner supplies and had a middle-eastern-ish meal of naan-like bread, veggies with canned hummus, and leftover cheese and wurst from Switzerland. Then we headed out to find a laundromat and try and locate some streusel, or was it strudel? We didn't really know, and when we finally got some strudel, it wasn't what we were looking for, though it was still really delicious.

We paid for the hotel buffet the next day as it was a solid spread that we could both (A) max out on for breakfast and (B) make lunch sandwiches from, only stopping our food stealing when we figured someone would take notice and tell us it's a buffet, not a grocery. Back on the S-bahn, then a very crowded train trip to the Czech Republic!