Brandenburg Gate

We stopped at Brandenburg Gate so see where the Berlin Wall was.

We're in a pretty good mood considering the anti-American protesters surrounded by police officers with machine guns in the background.

Knut and Other Berlin Animals

Stopped off in the Berlin Zoo to see Knut and some other zoo babies. Berlin seems to have some animal husbandry program, and they had lots of young guys. The baby lions were my favorite. We stayed until closing time at the zoo, which was also feeding time for the big cats. The noise in the background is an angry oselot waiting for dinner.



The Panda was getting so close! He was more into showing off than the Pandas in Washington DC. Those Pandas were hungover. I swear.











I was surprised how close the zoo allowed you to get to the animals.






Eoghan could have reached in and grabbed one of these Penguins. Nothing good would have come of it, but he could have.






Remember Knut? Cutest polar bear baby of all time.....
















Well, he's is all grown up now... but still pretty great. He spent most of the time we were there taking some kind of snow bath.




We finished the night off with some Glühwein (hot, sweet wine) at a Christmas market outside.

Berlin Day 1

Things started a little roughly here in Germany. Our Ryanair flight was rerouted from Berlin to Leipzig. After a few days of heavy snow and winter storms, the Berlin airport had run out of the deicing fluid necessary to clear the runways. Leipzig is about 118 miles from Berlin. The airline had no support for passangers once we landed, and simply told us "good luck". None of the other passengers seemed too angry or surprised by the whole situation. Generally while everyone was mildly inconvenienced, people seemed sure they would make it to their ultimate destination.

We found the train system that would take us into Berlin, which was confusing and difficult only because we don't speak any German. The names of cities and towns look like total gibberish most of the time. We should have studied a little bit more German before traveling. Having almost zero words or phrases makes even basic communication difficult. Once in Berlin we've found almost everywhere has someone that speaks English, but I still feel guilty for not making more of an effort to learn some German before I left.

Despite arriving several hours late, our AirBnB host was very accommodating and friendly. He's originally from Chicago, so that was interesting. The place is very nice and seems to be right in the thick of things. Here is the view:

A few blocks down we found dinner at Prater Garten. It's one of the oldest beer gardens, started in the mid 1800s. Of course, with all the snow we weren't interested in the garden aspect but we went inside and had some tasty beer and traditional German food (Königsberger Klopse (meatballs in caper sauce) and Roast Pork with Potato Dumplings and Coleslaw). A fellow dinner inside the restaurant was a tiny black poodle with a red plaid jacket.

Almost as surprising as a dogs in restaurants was that Berliners smoke in the bars. I've gotten so used to the prohibition on indoor smoking that I can't really decide which seems more taboo to my Chicago standards.

Broken Camera

My camera seems to have succumbed to injuries received this year at Lollapalooza. It makes updating difficult because a post is simply less interesting without them. Hopefully, I can snag some pics from Enda and Aoibheann. I guess I could also do something in Paint. That is the current status anyway.

Dublin-Limerick-Lahinch

These are the beautiful lights on Grafton street. We did some shopping in the very fine shops there, but not really much buying. There were lots of various street performers, including a fire thrower. A anti-fur protest was going on, making everyone uncomfortable.

We spent the night in Limerick with Éanna. From there, we traveled to Lahinch this evening for dinner tonight. Everyone is getting all geared up for a pig slaughter tomorrow. Details to follow.

Yesterday we had a great dinner at L'gueulton. We picked it out and when we got there we realized we might have chosen one of the most popular restaurants in Dublin. (Pic from their website. I didn't want to be that annoying touristy girl with her flash bulb) A sign taped to the door said "Full" which seemed strange because they don't take reservations. When we got the attention of the very busy host/waiter he told us people were waiting in line down the block and around the corner when they opened at 6. Maybe, just maybe if we came back 2.5-3 hours later we might be able to get a seat.


Well it smelled wonderful and people obviously liked it, so we decided to wait it out. In the meantime, we headed over to The Clarence for cocktails. It seemed like the whole city was out on the town for holiday parties. There were some extremely sparkly shoes out! The Clarence was full of people on their way to parties and grabbing a drink with the people they actually like before spending hours with co-workers.

When we headed back to the restaurant, they were able to seat us at a cute table under the chalkboard. I had the Baby Chicken and Eoghan had the Steak with a garlic butter sauce. It was amazing. Mine was actually a cute, little baby chicken. I took a picture, but you won't be able to taste the cuteness. We finished off with an equally amazing chocolate tart. So yummy.


After dinner we met up with Eoghan's friends. They were literally just around the corner. Eamon and Orla (Getting married on New Years Day) were in town picking up a wedding dress. It was great to see people we knew and we had a great time out with them.

Today we got a late start. We did manage to go to the Kilmainham Prison. It is probably most famous for holding participants of the 1916 Easter Rising.
Pretty interesting place.

Tomorrow: Heading across the country on the train.

Arrival

We got in early this morning around 8:30 am local time. It's pretty cold out, and we even saw a few snow flakes. The hotel was a little hidden but we found it, checked in early, and got some rest. Now we're heading out for dinner and pints!