Hej from the Tennessee Swedes: Markets and Museums

While walking around Berlin, we saw a lot of markets. Most open areas had food you could order as already made, or food as base ingredients like meats and veggies. Also there were clothes and jewelry and such. They set up a large markets in the morning and by the evening they were gone; they did this everyday. I love the thought of grabbing some fresh ingredients on the way home. The markets were all so conveniently located near the public transport, that it would be super easy to do this as part of a daily routine there.

Veggies, salads, beef organs, pasta

There are also a number of museums in Berlin. As interested as we are in history, we really just don't have the patience to enjoy museums quite the same as other people do. We tend to take the drive by approach. We can wrap up a museum tour in less than 30 minutes easy. Mostly I only want to see actual items, so the more plaques I read saying something is a replica, the less interested I am.

My host at HZB said there was one of the wonders of the world in the Pergmon museum on Museum Island. We decided since we were that close we should probably at least see that. The Pergmon museum houses things that were taken from Turkey, like parts of buildings, giant buildings. A lot of the artifacts the Germans had collected preWWII were taken by the Soviets. Some were returned, but a lot are still in Russia.

I couldn't confirm that any of the things we saw was a wonder of the world, but it was pretty crazy to see that such large things had been transplanted.

This was the front of a building in Babylon

We are more inclined to spend money on food than museum tickets, so most all museums we saw from the outside.

We saw the Brandenburg Gate and the public viewing area set up for World Cup.

Just to the left of the gate was a little piece of home, literally.

We made a special trip to see the computer museum. It was pretty much just a trip through video game history. It was pretty cool to be reminded of all the games we used to play. And no matter how old boys get, or how fancy the new games are, the old games still suck them right in.