Halfway Over

Gutten Tag!  I just got back to Prague from Berlin and so far this has been quite the whirlwind trip.  First, we got out just fine last Friday and arrived in Dublin shortly after 5:00 am.  However, I've heard a lot of good things about Aer Lingus, and my experience with them was very disappointing.  First of all, alcohol is always free on international flights.  Any airline, any section of the cabin, it's always free.  However, apparently not on Aer Lingus.  Granted, I can understand not wanting to provide unlimited alcohol on a plane to Ireland, but still.  To make it worse, after pushing the drink cart through, they then got on the intercom and made a big deal about the Duty Free shopping cart that they were continuously pushing up and down the aisle and telling us all about things we could buy.  I felt like I was back in my car at any intersection in Chicago where I'm constantly subject to homeless people, newspaper vendors, or various charities knocking on my window and trying to get my money.  Jesus Christ people, do I look like an ATM?  The in flight movie was "License To Wed" so I turned on my mp3 player and had a little Sondheim festival in my seat.  Unlike Air France, they only had one screen in the front of the plane and showed one movie, there was no choice.  After we landed, we took our time going through customs and getting money (the bags were checked in all the way to Prague so we didn't have to worry about retrieving them) so that we wouldn't be milling around the city center for too long in the dead of night.  We got a teriffic cab driver who was very friendly and told us where we could go around the office where we needed to pick up the tour bus tickets.  She dropped us off at a nearby hotel and pointed out the bus stop.  The hotel's coffeehouse wasn't open yet, so we walked around a bit, which was nice to see the city so early (it reminded me a lot of certain scenes from Once), but it was also kind of scary, there were a lot of drunk people heading home.  I wanted to take some pictures of the bridges lit up, but I didn't want to pull out the camera at 5:30 am and be like "naive tourist here, just waiting to be ripped off" so I didn't.  We walked around A LOT, by Trinity college, the town hall and Dublin Castle, and then walked past the Westin hotel which was just opening its restaurant.  We had breakfast and sat for a while (they were very friendly and very patient, and can I just say, the Irish are really a very attractive people, at least while they're young).  Then we hit a couple of souvenier shops and then picked up our bus tickets.  This was an hour and a half, hop on/hop off tour that went around the city center then out to the Guiness factory and Kilhearn (sp?) jail and then back to the center.  It was very cold, we initially sat on top, but after 5 minutes went down into the bus.  We did one complete tour then went again and got off at the Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral.  We got on again and were starting to nod off already, so we finished the track and started again and went to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells and then hopped in a cab back to the airport.  Again, we got out no problem, but this plane was even worse.  It looked about 20 years old, no movie or anything, and this time they even charged for pop.  I fell asleep before we even took off and slept most of the way to Prague, so it didn't bother me.  We landed, got through immigration, met our friend, and went to his place to drop our stuff off.  We went out for a quick dinner then returned and crashed for about 12 hours.  Sunday we walked around, hitting some of our favorite sites (the Infant Baby Jesus was wearing his green outfit that day), and then we had an opera that night.  It was called either A Well-Paid Walk or A Walk Worthwhile, depending on who's translating.  It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen.  It was written by an avant-garde theatre team during the 60's and had been fairly successful at the time.  It was apparently made into a television movie directed by Milos Forman, although I can't find it anywhere, and he directed this production.  It was much more musical theatre than opera, and was a very crazy Czech style, but it was good and Forman came out at the end and said some words since it was the premiere.  We then went to Restaurant Rekjavich for a fantastic dinner and then went to bed.  Monday we walked around again, doing some shopping, and then did a Haunted Prague tour that night, which was fun, although extremely cold.  That seems to be the theme of this trip, cold weather, along with unruly children.  Tuesday we hopped on the train and made it to Berlin.  We stayed at Hotel Alsterhof which was very nice.  We checked in, put our stuff in the room, then had the concierge get us tickets for Tanz der Vampire and then walked around.  We got tickets for another hop on/hop off bus tour for Wednesday, walked around a bit, then went back to the hotel to change.  We had a great traditional German dinner at Reiser-2 restaurant and then went to Theatre des Westens for the most crazy spectacular show I have ever seen.  I did pick up a CD on the way in, figuring even if it sucked it would suck in a good way.  We were in the 5th row, center, which was phenomenal, and the show was insane, but in a very good way.  I can see why it didn't succeed on Broadway, the whole Euro-Spectacle thing was very over by then and apparently the producers made several changes to the book to try to make it more friendly for American audiences, but it had the opposite effect.  However, what made it a classic was not just that it somehow used a German version of Total Eclipse of the Heart to open the second act (which I'm sure they weren't able to use in the States), but that later in the act, they used a German version of the Taylor Dayne song "Original Sin" which was written by Meatloaf for the 1994 movie The Shadow.  How obscure can you get?   It was awesome.  It was kind of long, but really kept our attention.  After the show we went back and went to sleep, and then Wednesday we slept in longer than we wanted, but eventually got up and caught the bus.  We went around the west and south city center area and then got off for the Checkpoint Charlie museum, which was fascinating.  We got back on and went through East Berlin, then got off at the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate.  We did a little shopping and got a snack, and tried to go into the Reichstag, but the line was hours long, so we hopped on the bus and went to Charlottenburg.  We bought tickets for dinner and a traditional concert which was done in the palace, and we walked around a bit before dinner.  By that time it was really cold and my throat was starting to bother me.  I could tell I was getting a bad cold.  The dinner at the Kleine Orangerie was excellent and the wine helped push my sore throat back a little.  The concert was excellent, but afterwards, it was about a 2o minute walk to the nearest subway, and by the time we got there, my cold was in full swing.  We went back to the hotel where I popped a Benadryl, but I didn't sleep well, I could feel the sore throat in my sleep, and woke up with my entire face in pain because of pressure in my sinuses.  I took a Sudafed and eventually felt better and we walked around a bit, did some more shopping, and then went to the German History Museum.  Now, that is a Museum.   We pretty much spent the rest of the day there, which was nice to stay inside, and then we picked up the luggage and went to the Hauptbanhoff and got on the train to come back.  We got back not too long ago and I'm about to head to bed and see if I can sleep off some of this cold.  Overall, despite the weather and not feeling so hot today, it was a fantastic trip.  Berlin is a very modern city, probably because it was almost totally destroyed during the war and everything was just rebuilt.  Only a few buildings in the West were restored, unlike Vienna or Paris which completely restored their buildings, and nothing in the East was restored, they just rebuilt, so everything looks very modern and you can see that people actually live there, unlike Prague or Vienna where you have to wonder where the people live and what they do.  So, I know this is a cliche, but anyone who is anywhere near Berlin, you must run, do not walk, to Tanz der Vampire, it's so worth seeing.  Hopefully someone will catch this revival and get an idea to try it again in another 10 years or so on Broadway.  It's a terrific show and if they can do it right, it totally deserves a second chance.