The day started bright and early--much, much too early. My dad can be occasionally very frustrating to travel with. Very occasionally. He likes to relax, but he also likes to get up early and do things as soon as possible and thus, I found myself being woken up by him at 8:00AM.
Well, I was hungry. So I did wake up.
My dad had been hoping to leave at 10AM to go... off to do something and apparently my parents had decided that we would visit museums. This was where things started to go downhill. When my mom said she wanted to go to museums, the obvious place to check out would be Museum Island. Where my mom actually wanted to go though, was the contemporary museum (which my dad looked up separately on his google apps map on his phone). None of us realized that these two places were not one and the same. Then there was a slight debacle where my mom checked the weather and apparently it was supposed to rain the next day, so why not check out museums tomorrow? But, my dad being the ever-so-patient man, got very annoyed that we were not leaving and it was already past 10AM, so instead of listening to my mom, he very unceremoniously ordered us out of the house and off we went in search of Museum Island.
I had already been quite put off by my dad waking me up so early and then being so insistent and grouchy about leaving at 10AM, and then was even more annoyed by the fact that he wanted me to be the guide to the place we were going so I sort of just motored on forward, grumbling to myself and being in a generally, quite foul mood. Along the way as well, my dad kept asking why we weren't heading to the Brandenburg Gates, why not there, and if anyone knows a map of Berlin, Museum Island is not anywhere near the Gates. In fact it's in the complete opposite direction and was pretty much just a horizontal walk from our apartment. I should have realized at that point, that the contemporary museum that my mom wanted to visit was not at Museum Island--but I didn't realize.
Thus, we arrived at Museum Island, a short 30min walk that felt a bit longer due to the cold. But we arrived and I was happy because, finally, some warmth!... Except not, because my parents looked at the list of museums in the area and suddenly they were telling us to leave. Wait. Why were we leaving? Because my mom wanted to go to the Contemporary Museum. You have got to be kidding me.
With a resigned sigh though, we grabbed my dads phone and he pointed to a star on his map and said that was the museum. We took his word for it. We looked at where it was and I felt my heart sink--it was very, very far up north and would take at least another 30min walk. Why was it so far up north anyway?!
We headed there anyway. So we walked, and walked, up and up and up, and the finally we reached an area and looked and... this didn't look like a place where a museum would be? Confusion. Look at the map--okay, it's down the street. We walk down, see a tiny, tiny little building and... there is no way that is the museum! It wasn't. Thankfully, but not thankfully. Where had we walked to? The Berlin Wall. The actual Berlin Wall.
Going back to yesterday, when we arrived at Checkpoint Charlie, my dad had actually wanted to find the Berlin Wall. After doing some research later that night though, he realized the wall itself was actually very far away. Apparently, he had still placed a star of it on google maps and rather than choosing the star that he had placed for the museum, he had told us to go to the star for the wall.
By this point, it was 12. We were freezing because from 10AM until now we had literally spent our entire time walking outside, and personally, I was starving.
Regretfully, due to all these circumstances, we didn't even bother looking at the wall. It was too cold, I was hungry, and if anyone knows anything about me I am an incredibly grouchy person when without food. Finally, we figured out exactly which star was the contemporary museum (and sadly there was no easy way to get there without walking) and thus we set out again on foot. Thankfully, it had only been a short 15min walk away, but by then 15min honestly felt like hours. We arrived though. Finally.
The first thing we did upon arrival was eat. We entered the small cafe/restaurant, sat down and had "lunch" (or what really felt like a light snack). My dad wasn't up to the idea of eating a full lunch because he wanted to hit the museum ASAP. Well fine. Let's have it his way. I ordered some currywurst and a hot steaming cup of hot chocolate. It was the traditional kind they had in Germany, where they gave you a cup of hot milk, and a piece of chocolate on a stick, and you melt the chocolate yourself. It was delicious and you know what it tasted like? Ovaltine. I had always thought Ovaltine was a weird bastardization of hot chocolate (that I absolutely love, don't get me wrong), but apparently, if you go by German hot choocolate, Ovaltine is quite authentic. Who would've known? The currywurst was absolutely delicious too, but that may have just been because by this point I was honestly ready to faint from hunger (I'm exaggerating, but I really am a terrible person to be around when hungry).
We finished our food and then made our way to the actual museum. At this point, we split up again, my parents went off by themselves and my friend, my brother, and I went off together. My friend was not a big fan of museums in general, I am impartial. I don't mind going to them, but nothing ever really fascinates me--especially art museums. I'm much more of a science museum, history museum type of person. I like art though, and I won't say art museums are boring. I like walking around them, and looking at them, but I'm not going to lie and pretend that I understand anything or that I am even remotely critical about what I'm seeing.
So we sped through. We were given a time-frame of about 1.5 hours (from 2PM - 3:30PM) and in that time we actually did go through very gallery and even had some time to spare to browse around the bookshop, and a neat little area in one of the galleries that had a lot of books at urban art and what-not. The bookshop actually had a very interesting collection of things and I wouldn't have minded staying longer, but by that point I started feeling a bit burnt out by the events of the day and the fact that I didn't have a proper lunch, and I think I was feeling slightly dehydrated.
3:30 rolled around and we made our way back to the apartment--this time, thankfully by public transit. Before heading home though, we accompanied my parents to the grocery store to pick out what we wanted for breakfast (some yogurt, bread etc.) and at the store we came across fireworks! I've lived in Japan and set off fireworks there, but the thing about Japan is that their fireworks are expensive and actually quite boring? Japanese fireworks are of the "spraying" variety--they have a few that shoot things out, but none that fly. Germany on the other hand, did have rockets that could fly, and not only that but their fireworks packages were insanely cheap.
Needless to say, me and my brother bought a (I guess most would consider it a small pack, but to my brother who was from Canada where fireworks are usually illegal, and to me who only experience with Japanese fireworks) a big pack of fireworks for only $15CAD. It came with 7 rockets, 2 roman candles, 1... other thing, some dynamites, Chinese firecrackers, incredibly tiny cherry bombs, and a whopping 40 sparklers (what do you even do with 40 sparklers)?
One thing I will say about Japan is that when they give you 40 sparklers, they are interesting and multi-coloured and some do crazy things like spit a ton of sparks out. These sparklers really were just the boring average sparkler -- but I'll tell you about our fireworks escapades tomorrow, when we actually set them off.
We got back to the apartment, and my friend was feeling much more awake today it seemed so we actually talked. We spent a lot of time wondering if we should watch a movie, and what movies we had that we could watch and finally we decided on watching The Social Network because I had never seen it. The dinner was made, and served again, and we actually spent a very long time just talking about a lot of things--our largest debate was about Harry Potter and being sorted in to houses, and something about whether you could decide to be put in a house and what that said about you and what-not. It was a very intense debate, but we talked about many things in relation to Harry Potter. We also delved in to the world of Asian idols, and good-looking celebrities in general and the sad lack of any good looking male celebrity under the age of 20 who was also interesting in personality (all we came up with was Daniel Radcliffe), but how if you look at female celebrities, all of them are interesting. Etc. etc. etc. the night wore on and soon it was time to sleep.
I was actually quite exhausted and my brother--who had also had a cold--had actually passed out quite a bit earlier. I was determined the finish The Social Network, but nearly fell asleep in the process. Needless to say, by the time my head hit the pillow that night, I was out like a light.
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