Berlin, part two

I'm sitting in the wind with a shawl over my head right now -- it got super windy about an hour ago, just in time for me to meet a friend...whose train is late. Oh, my life!

So, blogging to use up the time (out of tea). It's been a busy day, with a timed entrance at the Neues Museum. I was anxious about getting there on time, so ended up arriving over an hour early. Time for breakfast! As mentioned earlier, I've developed a mild fixation on the East German Ampelmann signs. Holy crap, I found an Ampelmann-themed restaurant! The "small" breakfast was more than enough for little me, and also quite good. Plus, Ampelmann on everything!

Neues Museum

Pergamonmuseum

It was finally time to go into the museum. The city card that I have is worth the price just for Museumsinsel, where I get into all of the €10 museums for free. I made it through two today, the Neues Museum and the Pergamonmuseum. Both were great, full of interesting artifacts in well-planned exhibits. The Pergamonmuseum is especially impressive, with its (plundered?) recreations of buildings from Greece, Egypt, and Turkey. It's simply amazing to see how big they are.

Sadly, they had no copies
of this poster for sale

It was halfway through the museum-day by this point, so I decided to put off other Museumsinsel sights until finished with the history museums. They're a big reason for this trip, after all. I went to the Deutsches Historiches Museum, which was also first-rate. In a way, it was more of the same, but it was also unique in a number of ways. The museum seemed to be a bit more even with the historical time-periods, something across which I hadn't yet come. The special exhibit on Deutsche Wiedervereinigung (German Reunification) was pretty neat, as well.

The Berlin museums all have a coat room/lockers that are free of charge for placing your things. They don't want accidental damage to the exhibits and this is quite the smart way around such. My shoulders generally ache from carrying my ladybag for around ten hours a day, so it's been great to have a place to set it for a great portion of that time. Thanks, guys!

After the museums closed at six, I am to meet up with Deutschklasse M. Here I am now!

Later...we ended up at a swanky hotel bar in Alexanderplatz that had free champagne for ladies, a guy playing oldies, and local masseuses who peddled short back and neck massages to the patrons. Normally I would've said no to spending money on a massage when I still have time left on my trip, but boy was it worth it! M. kept accusing me of having "happy massage face." She was probably right.