Berlin Day 3 - Zoo and East Side Gallery

Sunday, 16.04.2017

The weather today was unfortunately unchanged. Still gray, rainy and cold. Not very good conditions to spend the day outside. Today we had planned a visit to the Berlin Zoo, which is the most species-rich zoo in Europe. We didn't let the weather stop us and dressed warmly. Since I didn't really expect such cold weather, I unfortunately didn't have a really warm jacket with me and so I wore four layers of clothing that day...

Visit to the Zoo

For a visit to the zoo, it is best to plan a whole day. The area is quite extensive and there is also an aquarium. For the proud price of 20 euros, we were allowed to enter and started our tour of the zoo. It started raining in between, later it even hailed. My mood sank with the worsening weather. Somehow, it wasn't really fun anymore. We could have easily saved the price for the aquarium, because we just rushed through it and were glad to be outside again. Due to the weather, it was simply overcrowded inside. That actually describes Berlin quite well: overcrowded. I was also getting annoyed that you couldn't really go anywhere without finding yourself in a crowd of people. But what do you expect from a big city?

East Side Gallery

We spent about three hours at the zoo, then we went to the East Side Gallery. Actually, the plan was to walk the entire wall, after all, it was only two kilometers. But who would have guessed, it started raining terribly again and it didn't stop quickly either.

Lost in Berlin

So we went back to the train station, where we then went to Alexanderplatz to visit the Dungeon from there. I really wanted to go in there, I had never been in one and wanted to take a look at it. But as I had suspected, the line was way too long again. Besides, the Dungeon only had two hours left, so it probably wouldn't have been worth waiting in line anymore. So we stood there somewhat clueless at Alexanderplatz and didn't really know what to do now. The weather was too bad to stay outside, all the indoor attractions were hopelessly overcrowded. So we made a detour to Dunkin Donuts and tried to cheer ourselves up with some treats there. Finally, we went back to the hotel, we were pretty tired anyway and I just wanted to get out of the cold.

Life in Berlin is not easy...

At least we had enough time to get ready for dinner. We went to Friedrichstraße, where we found an Argentinean restaurant and had a good meal there. We didn't really feel like going for a drink, so we headed back. On the street, we were approached by a young man, probably not much older than us. At first, I thought he wanted to ask us for directions, as he initially asked where we were from. He engaged us in a friendly small talk. A short time later, he explained to us that he had recently moved to Berlin, that life here was not easy and that he didn't have accommodation for tonight yet...Translated: he asked us for money. I was somewhere between pity and annoyance. He had been really nice, which made it especially difficult to refuse this request, but if we had given something to everyone who asked us for money this weekend, we would probably have to beg for money ourselves on the streets of Berlin now, because we wouldn't have any left. At the latest, I knew here: big cities are not my thing.

So I was actually quite glad that we would be leaving the next day.