I just had a delicious breakfast, and still have an hour before we meet our coordinator, so what better time to catch up travel reflections. I would like to notify the Hampton Inn that after visiting Europe again, my breakfast "bar" expectations are quite high. This morning I had nutella toast and just about any fruit you could imagine, even cherries, mango, and very fresh strawberries. It was fantastic. If you're a meat/savory stuff eater for breakfast, they also have a great meat and cheese selection. Unfortunately, unlike a Hampton Inn or Best Western, there were no Texas shaped waffles. That is a little disappointing.
So far I have been a little lacking in my motivation to keep up with a travel log this trip. I'm going to blame it on the 7 hour time difference. The jet lag made me do it - or not do it in this case. Overall, things are going really well, and we have visited two beautiful cities. Yesterday we visited Schworer Haus KG, a company that makes prefabricated homes and bathrooms. Since their prefab bathroom facility is near Berlin, that's the one we were able to visit. It was a really interesting visit, and I learned a lot about how prefabricated home units or particular rooms are thought up and constructed. What really interested me is that fact that these things are full of tile, and they rarely experience any damage during the transportation process.
Once we wrapped up at the prefab bathroom facility, we came back to the hotel for a quick bite to eat. I tried a curry wurst, since apparently those are popular fare in Berlin (sold at every "fine" food stand in the city). You would think that since I am pretty sure I ate a pigeon burger in Amsterdam several years ago that I would be a bit more leery of something like a curry wurst from a stand, but...the stand did look clean, and it is in a permanent position close to our hotel. It was actually very good, and I learned how to order curry wurst (without skin), with bread and a Fanta. I was very proud of myself, since asking "with bread" was a complete guess, and I heard the German man behind me order it the same way. So, moral of this story is that I am very food motivated when it comes to learning...as if that is any real surprise to anyone who knows me very well.
After a quick bite, we took the tram by our hotel (Berlin is extremely navigable by the way), to the Berliner-Kindl-Schultheiss Brauerei (Brewery). The tour was much like any beer/liquor production facility tour. They did let us watch the bottling process, which is always fun. Here, they still do bottle deposits, so if you take your glass beer bottle back to the store, you get money. Seeing the washers at the plant was interesting. Germans in general tend to be very conscientious about waste, so recycling is just a part of everyday life. The brewery gave a tasting, and offered us 3 beer samples. We're not talking a normal tasting here...3 full size beers. I had one. It was a wheat beer/grapefruit juice mix, and was very refreshing. It would be great for a hot summer day. Since it was in the 60's and raining here yesterday, the hot Italian food for dinner was actually more appealing than an ice cold beer. Berlin has lots of different kinds of restaurants. There are few "traditional" German ones, so although eating Italian food (or Vietnamese food, or falafel) in Germany may sound odd, it's pretty normal in Berlin.
Since I was lazy yesterday, I didn't really describe a lot about one of my favorite parts of the day Tuesday...dinner. We visited that great German restaurant with the schnitzel. If I ever had a restaurant, I would envision it to look something like that. It has old wood floors, and rough wood paneling halfway up the walls. It was decorated with all kinds of weird old yard-sale-esque trinkets. It also had a "mounted" disco pig on the wall (a pig head made of a disco ball), I guess to represent all the pork they serve everyday. Although it was a bit out of place with the rustic look, I would say that it added a little "whimsy" to the place. One of my favorite parts was that none of the plates matched, but every piece was some kind of secondhand China. Needless to say, it had a lot of character, but it worked the "farmhouse" look very well.
Today we're off to visit Deutsche Bahn and a German Historical Museum. Then I have class. I'm sure the students must be thrilled. Tomorrow we head to Hamburg by train. More adventures to come now that I am feeling slightly more rest/motivated!
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