West Berlin and Dr. Pong - May 20, 2013

Today started off by getting up and trying to explore a bit because we had free time until 1PM. Megan, Amber and I decided to venture out of the hotel for fresh air and found pretty much everything was closed due to some sort of bank holiday.

The three of us found this little coffee shop/bakery near Alexanderplatz and I got a muffin because the hotel breakfast hadn't cut it this morning and I was still hungry.

When we came back we all met with a photojournalist who works for a wire company and he was really interesting. I enjoyed listening to what he had to say. I related to a lot of his attitudes about career and life.

In the afternoon several of us went to West Berlin to explore that area more. We went over to Potsdamer Platz and found a festival. It was called the Berlin-Instambul festival and it was a celebration of Turkish culture.

After walking around the festival we went to the Sony Center which is this giant place with restaurants and a movie theater. It's very modern and really contrasts with a lot of the parts of East Berlin that I've explored. We also walked around Tiergarten, which is this beautiful, GIANT park near the Brandenburg Gate.

In the evening the entire group went to this Ping-Pong bar called Dr. Pong's. I wish we had a place like this in Gainesville because it was pretty awesome. I met some really nice women from Newcastle, England and talked to them for most of the night about traveling. It's so cool how you can meet people from all over the world and instantly connect with someone over a shared interest.