Wonderwall

Ahh, our first full day in Berlin. Today we biked about 20 kilometers (7 miles) with Fat Tire Bike Tours as part of our crash-course introduction to Berlin. And there were a few near-miss crashes today between bike and curb, bike and person, bike and pole, and bike and car. Luckily we all made it through the 5-hour tour in one piece and got to experience some genuinely 'real' parts of Berlin with our wonderful tour guide Marielle.



Of course one of the highlights was visiting parts of the original Berlin Wall, which was virtually completely covered with graffiti.



We covered a lot of ground today, visiting everywhere from busy, commercial Alexanderplatzt to the eccentric and somewhat seedy Gorlitzer Park, which was full of Turkish immigrant families barbecuing and Rastafarians smoking weed.



For lunch we had delicious Durum Kabobs - sort of similar to a gyro, but wrapped like a burrito - at a little restaurant in the former West.



Later that evening (it stays light here till about 9 p.m.), Professor Freeman took us to an outdoor carnival he had found out about online. After walking through another questionable park, we found the fair in all of its muddy glory.



Boasting the typical mix of spinning rides, midway games and various fried foods, the carnival was a photo-op gold mine. Or at least it was until the sky decided to open up and give us a good dousing.





We all basically sacrificed keeping ourselves dry for the sake of protecting our precious camera equipment; always a must. But a hot shower and delicious meal at the Chinese restaurant around the corner from our hotel ended the night nicely for us.