Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, and Berlin decided to celebrate by not being 1000 degrees. It was a much more reasonable 73, and while it did pour later in the night, I preferred that to dying of water loss.

Some epic clouds, foreshadowing
the downpour to come

Marcos and I slept in, because what is your birthday for except getting obscene amounts of rest? Then we walked to Maximilian's, a traditional German restaurant about 20 minutes away. We got the Bavarian starters, which included a couple of dips (one cheese, one yogurt) and a pretzel––the ratio of carbs to dip was not nearly ideal, as we had a good 2/3 of the dips leftover, but it was very tasty––and the "sausage parade", which was 6 sausages of 3 different types with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.

Marcos deemed the white one "grub-like". Fortunately,
it tasted better than it looked.

There were radishes, which we did not eat. Meat and
carbohydrates only!

It was very delicious and extremely filling! We also got a light Munich beer, which Marcos found to be extremely mild and therefore drinkable.

Deutscher Dom

Afterwards, we ventured to Gendarmenmarkt, the square with the Französischer Dom and Deutscher Dom churches (which I visited 3 years ago), and then went to Fassbender-Rausch chocolatiers (which I also visited 3 years ago!).

Französischer Dom in the background

I had wanted to go to the Operncafe for my birthday cake, but they closed in 2011, sob.

Thanks for the gigantic chocolate recreation of the Reichstag,
honey––it's just what I wanted!

F-R was delicious, though! We got a mocha chocolate mousse cake and an Eisschokolade, which was cold chocolate and ice cream––very rich and filling.

OH MY GOD I AM SO EXCITED

We then booked it back to the hotel so I could try and Skype with the family, but they had not had success getting it to work and were a bit annoyed by the time we finally got in contact. Still, it was nice to hear their voices :-)

Ric came over around 8:00, and in my excitement to see him I managed to break a wineglass in the bathroom, so we chilled in the hotel room while we waited for housekeeping to come up and clean up the glass.

Marcos had gone to get razors and got to walk in to a glass-strewn room, which was probably less surprising than I might hope, given my general flusteredness. Ric is doing really well––he's married (we get to meet his husband later this week, at which point we can apparently also do laundry at their place, hurray!) and runs a modeling agency and seems very happy with his life, which is great! We drank the rest of the vişne şarap (wine) we'd gotten in Şirince, and then ventured out for a birthday drink/snack. It was raining by that point, but we trekked up to Potsdamer Platz and had a cocktail in the Sony Center, after which Marcos and I headed up north to meet Matt at a jazz club.

The S-bahn did not seem to be running that direction, so we took a cab up there and arrived just as the jazz was ending. I was quite tired and a bit hungry, so we took the S-bahn back down to our hotel (it's less than a block away from the station!) but were unable to find any open food places, so I snacked on some Tibs and called it a night. All in all, it was a very pleasant day, and it's nice to be back in Berlin!

This is half a block from our hotel; Ric said it is the only part
remaining of the old head train station, through which all
deported Jews were processed on the way to the Concentration Camps.
Hence why nothing else is left of it. Such poignant reminders
strewn throughout the city of its horrific past.

Today, we were thinking of going to Potsdam but after all the walking yesterday, but I ended up not feeling up to it, so instead we just took an easy day in. We walked to the döner place around the corner (only 3€ this time!), and then to the grocery store a couple blocks away where we bought 4 different kinds of chocolate and some off-brand Pringles, because we are adults.

Mm, yes, the Brandenburg Gate

You can see here, the horses and columns representing
militaristic strength

Truly, a memorable monument.

I actually have no idea what this thing is. --Marcos

Me: Look happy about meeting your true love!
Marcos: They're never happy about it when they meet him.
Me: Then look unhappy about meeting your true love!
Marcos: (This face.)

Me: Am I allowed to eat my true love? Otherwise,
I am not interested.

Then I did some preparation for the conference, though not as much as I had hoped as the sites I was supposed to download content from were not working, and just chilled out, as it was raining and gross for most of the day. For dinner, we went to a Vietnamese-sushi place a couple blocks away (I'd forgotten how there's no such thing as non-fusion Asian restaurants around here!), which was quite affordable and, as usual, very filling. Now we are relaxing in our very nice hotel room (free upgrade!). We're moving hotels tomorrow to be closer to the conference, and I have a tutorial to go to tomorrow afternoon about using Mechanical Turk for research, so no more nice relaxing days for awhile. Marcos is planning to wake up early and go to Gendarmenmarkt to get the Domen in the morning light, when they're not backlit. We'll probably eat döners for lunch again, haha––so cheap, so delicious!