Ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin, ...

I'll start this entry off on our way back to Zwolle. James and I spent the last four days in Berlin and are now heading back home. We are off for more then a week now and enjoy our time together.
Christmas we spent with our friends Arjen, Jos and Yaser. We were eating goose, something that has become a little tradition now. It was nice to spent the holidays at home, after I had one of the most stressful periods at work just the weeks before.
On Sunday after Christmas we took the train to Berlin. Pino and Frank were waiting for us at the platform already and when we got to Pino's house Christian had already prepared a wonderful meal (“happy meal!”) for us.
On Monday we took a stroll to the Potsdammer Platz, the city's center back in the 20's and 30's, and the Brandenburger Tor (with the new American embassy). James and I went to the Pergamon Museum while Christian, Frank and Pino did their own stuff. It's years ago since I was in the Pergamon Museum, but I still remember the most impressing artifact back then: the Istar gate of Babylon. And it made a deep impression on me again, but this time I was also amazed by the big section of Islamic Art. Some of the exhibits reminded me of the things I had seen at the Islamic Museum in Istanbul. The difference here was that many exhibits had images of humans, something that I hadn't noticed that much in Istanbul. In the evening we all had some pizza at the Prenzlauer Berg before we headed off to the Prinzknecht.
On Tuesday James and I explored the city on our own. We drove S-Bahn to Spandau and walked around in the old center. After that leisurely start we did some “hard history”. We went to the commemoration at Plötzensee. About 3000 opponents of the Nazi regime were brought to death here. We got some good insights on how life was back in the 30's and 40's. While waiting at the bus stop we met an old lady. She said she was 85 years old. She asked if we came from the commemoration, and then told us more about her experiences during the war. From Plötzensee we went to the former Checkpoint Charlie. History was covered there for the period right after the war till the unification of Germany. Of course the accent lay in the period of the cold war. Though we didn't visit the Mauermuseum we got a lot of information on the panels that were installed along the Friedrichstrasse, the street on which the checkpoint was situated.
To end the day on the sunny side we went shopping at the Alexanderplatz and headed home where an other wonderful meal made by Christian and Pino was waiting for us.
On new years eve we bought some bottles of Rotkäppchen sekt (sort of champagne), walked around the Kurfürsten Damm (the former center of West-Berlin) and visited the Gedächtniskirche, before we headed east to see the town of Köpenick. After a little detour we arrived home again where we were resting to be fit for the night. In the evening Krijn, Jan-Willem, Ollie, Andreas and Maurice arrived and all together we went to the bear-party in Moabit. Though all the bears were moaning and complaining about the party on the next day, James and I had a really good time there.
I end this entry with some words about the weather in Berlin. I must say that James and I were freezing our asses of when we were walking around the city. So we enjoyed every possibility to warm up in public transport.
Special thanks to our friends Cristian and Pino for their hospitality! I hope we'll meet again soon here in Zwolle.