germany: berlin

I came to Berlin for two reasons: one, I was hoping to finally have blue skies. And two, I wanted to see the dome on top of the Reichstag. I succeeded in both, yippee!!
My overnight bus from Copenhagen arrived about 20 minutes late, but I didn't much care. I'd been to Berlin previously, so I didn't have a huge list of sights to see starting immediately. 
I started walking toward my accommodation, the walk took a lot longer than I thought. I'm sure I looked it up at some point but I'd clearly forgotten what the map had told me, as it was a long walk. When I looked again, it was 4 miles. That's not a huge distance, not at all, but I was carrying my pack, wearing a jacket-ish thing over a t-shirt, and long pants. 
By the time I got to my accommodation everything was soaked with sweat, gross. Plus, I wasn't feeling so good from sweating out all that water.
I wasn't able to check in so early, but I was able to use the bathroom to change and clean up. I sat around for a while, because I knew I needed it, then started walking.
My first spot was a bakery I remembered from my last trip to the city. They had really good laugencroissants (like a cross between a pretzel and a croissant,) and a pastry with cream and sour cherry jelly. So good.
From there I started another long walk, and this time I knew it was going to be long.
I stopped at various points along the way, including at the ruins of a church. Most of the walls were standing, including where stained glass windows once stood, but the roof was totally gone. There was an art exhibit in one area, but it didn't seem very interesting to me. 
I passed a traffic circle with a fountain in the middle. I stepped into a store selling drinks and bought way too many. Several schorles (mineral water with juice. I had rhubarb, wildberry, and something else,) and a flavoured water. Carrying all those bottles in a bag over my shoulder was heavy, and I felt a little silly with the bottles clinking against each other nonstop. 
Eventually I got to my destination: the Stasi museum. It is actually just one building in what used to be an entire complex used by the Stasi in Berlin and the surrounding region.
It wasn't the cheapest museum I've visited, I think it was 6€! Then there was a photo fee of 1€. Argh.
I had high hopes for the Stasi museum, but it didn't end up being as awesome as I wanted. I was able to see rooms in which various people worked, and there were descriptions of 'important' people in the organization, as well as the work they did. 
Each room had old school furniture, but I'm not sure it was actually old furniture. The style was old but none of it looked at all used. The building didn't feel very "lived in," for lack of a better phrase.
All of the cabinets that had held documents and books had been cleared out, with the doors left open. I liked seeing some of the technology used back then, including phones and cameras. 
I walked through every open room on three floors, then left. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects was the covering built over the street in front of the front door of the building. The building was built without the covering originally, but then the powers that be realized anyone in the surrounding buildings could see who was coming and going, and they didn't love that at all.
I walked back toward my accommodation, and walked past it to get to a food court at a nearby mall. 
I wanted tofu and veggies for dinner, it was just about dinner time. The place from which I wanted to get food was closed, so I found a shwarma stand instead. I brought the food back to the hotel, then checked in.
It felt really good to sit down for a while, and I began to realize how dehydrated I was. One of my legs was cramping, and I could feel the heat coming off me even though I'd started to drink water steadily.
After a couple hours I started walking again. Thankfully, I didn't have all that far to go. My goal this time was the Reichstag building, becauseI had booked a (free) ticket to go up in the dome.
It's easy to book a ticket to go up in the dome, just look online; you can't go up there without a ticket, which is for a specific time of your choosing.
When I arrived, I went through security, then someone took a group of us into the building. The entrance is sort of an airlock, in that everyone enters the door, it closes, then the next door opens. Everyone fits into a large elevator, which seems to move really slowly. Eventually we all piled out again, and took a few steps to a desk handing out audio guides in various languages. I put on my audio guide, and started heading up the ramp. The powers that be have figured out a way to get a whole lot of people into the area without feeling super crowded.
The audio guide is GPS enabled, it knows exactly where you are on the ramp. As you walk (slowly) up the ramp, you get to listen to information about various buildings you can see from the dome. I loved learning some history and some modern information. The guide also tells you about the building and some itself, which I found fascinating. When the dome was designed (considerably later than the rest of the building,) the environment and economy were taken into account.
There are a bunch of solar panels on the roof, and there is a window shade of sorts in the middle of the dome. There is a hole in the middle that allows hot air to rise, keeping the parliamentary chamber underneath quite cool without big aircon bills. It's hard to describe in a way that gives you any idea what it all looks like and how it all works.

After walking up the ramps to the top, I walked down, and exited the whole thing the same way I entered. It didn't take me long to get back to my hotel, thank goodness. On the way I walked through the Potsdam Gate, which was lit up as usual. What was not usual was the way the platz in front was blocked off, I don't know why. When I got home I crashed quickly.
I was so tired that I slept like a rock, through most of the night. Eventually I got moving, and took advantage of the buffet breakfast.
After eating I packed up, and asked the hotel to store my bag again.
One of my travel apps told me I should be able to see an old East German watchtower a few streets away. I ended up walking past the tower a couple times before I saw it. It now blends in between a couple trees on a sidewalk.

My next sight was a wall mural that ended up being mostly blocked off, I don't know why. There was a tour group standing around listening to a description of the wall, I wonder if the description included a reason for the wall. I was able to see it by reaching as high as I could with my arm (and iPhone camera,) on my tiptoes. A selfie stick would've been really useful, to get more height, but I have no plans to buy one of those for the time being. 
From there I aimed toward an area full of museums. I made my way to the German Historical Museum. The entry fee wasn't cheap, but it ended up being a pretty big museum with extensive displays. They wanted me to check my purse, saying it was too big, but I didn't love the idea of leaving my wallet and passport in a place without a lock. 
It starts with the history of the area hundreds of years ago, and goes all the way through modern times. There are photos, descriptions, models, posters, etc... I looked at a lot of it, but by the end I was feeling rather dazed with all the information.
I walked a little behind this museum, to another museum, this one an art museum. Unfortunately, it wasn't open. That didn't stop me from taking a couple photos on the big staircase leading up to the entrance, and in the columns surrounding a small yard in front.
From there I went for another long walk. I walked all the way to Schloss Charlottenburg. It was well over an hour before I arrived at the schloss. When I got there, I discovered I had showed up on the one day a week it is closed, argh. Oh well. The front gate was still open though, so I got to take photos with just me in the yard. Yay! Part of the yard was covered for construction, I conveniently avoided that view.
At that point, I was ready for dinner, so I walked alllll the way back to my hotel. I actually walked a little further, so I could finally get the tofu and veggies I'd been craving.
Once I got back to the hotel I ate, while charging my phone and wasting time online.
When I grabbed my pack to get to the bus station, I knew what I had coming. Since it was nighttime, I walked without listening to my normal podcasts or audiobooks. 
I knew where I was going, the total walk took about 90 minutes this time around. I got to the bus station about 20 minutes before my bus departed, everything worked out well. Like most bus and train stations, I was able to find stalls with snacks to take with me on the bus. 

Berlin is a great city, there is still more I want to see. It's one of those cities that has an incredible amount of history from different eras, as well as being a modern city with a mixture of architecture, food, and culture.