Day 17 (23 June): The Wall & Biking in Berlin
Today, I mostly toured the Wall and Cold War era sites. I went on a bike tour with a company called Fat Tire Bikes that was actually very good since they filled in a lot of history and anecdotes from places that I couldn't have picked up otherwise. I was even telling Julian things about Berlin he didn´t know that evening. It started in Alexanderplatz which is a big well-paved over inconcretee Communist style square that used to be the center of East Berlin.
That eveningJuliann and some of his friends decided they need to take me out and teach me more about German Beers by taking me through a series of different beer gardens that there is no way I would have found otherwise and then to a classic German Club/Disco that almost seemed to be a mockery of all stereotypes of such places. The night ended with a long bike ride home (more on that below.)
Economic observations:
1) Germans like to keep their beer flowing. If you mistakenly forget to put your coaster on top of your beer covering it once your glass is empty as I did once, you get a refill automatically and you have to pay for it whether you wanted it or not.
2) Fusioncuisinee is popular everywhere. The currywurst is a popular street food in Berlin: take oneGermann sausage, sprinkle curry powder on it to make it Indian, then douse it in ketchup to make it American.
3) Taxes and religion. In Germany, when you fill out your taxes, you have to declare your religion. If you check a religion box, then you owe more money because the government takes it out of your taxes and gives it directly to your church. Now if that´s not a good way to sort out the devout from the Christmas and Easter types, I don´t know what is. Surprisingly, over 50% of people still check a religion box on their tax return.
4) Gays in Berlin. It turns out the Berlin has the 3rd largest gay population of any city in the world. I found this out the hard way as we rode bikes through the Teirgarten late at night (read 4 am) and rode through a section full of naked men getting intimate with each other. I blame Jullian for having to see that.
5) Public transportation. Bikes are part of the public transportation network in Berlin and there are public bikes owned by Deutsche Bahn (the railroad company.) To use these you sign-up for a service that is linked to your mobile phone. When you want to use a public bike that´s sitting there on the street as we did, you literally call it up as each bike has a unique phone number that unlocks it. Your phone bill then gets charged 4 eurocents per minute the bike is used. We need that in the US, its a really clever system that could prove effective for alleviating some traffic problems.
6) BUIs. Apparently, you can also get BUIs (Biking Under the Influence tickets) in Germany whJulianlian was afraid of because it affects your car driving record. It seemed like this might be the downside to having bikes as part of the public transportation network, since I did not see many people riding them during the day, but later at night many people were.
That eveningJuliann and some of his friends decided they need to take me out and teach me more about German Beers by taking me through a series of different beer gardens that there is no way I would have found otherwise and then to a classic German Club/Disco that almost seemed to be a mockery of all stereotypes of such places. The night ended with a long bike ride home (more on that below.)
Economic observations:
1) Germans like to keep their beer flowing. If you mistakenly forget to put your coaster on top of your beer covering it once your glass is empty as I did once, you get a refill automatically and you have to pay for it whether you wanted it or not.
2) Fusioncuisinee is popular everywhere. The currywurst is a popular street food in Berlin: take oneGermann sausage, sprinkle curry powder on it to make it Indian, then douse it in ketchup to make it American.
3) Taxes and religion. In Germany, when you fill out your taxes, you have to declare your religion. If you check a religion box, then you owe more money because the government takes it out of your taxes and gives it directly to your church. Now if that´s not a good way to sort out the devout from the Christmas and Easter types, I don´t know what is. Surprisingly, over 50% of people still check a religion box on their tax return.
4) Gays in Berlin. It turns out the Berlin has the 3rd largest gay population of any city in the world. I found this out the hard way as we rode bikes through the Teirgarten late at night (read 4 am) and rode through a section full of naked men getting intimate with each other. I blame Jullian for having to see that.
5) Public transportation. Bikes are part of the public transportation network in Berlin and there are public bikes owned by Deutsche Bahn (the railroad company.) To use these you sign-up for a service that is linked to your mobile phone. When you want to use a public bike that´s sitting there on the street as we did, you literally call it up as each bike has a unique phone number that unlocks it. Your phone bill then gets charged 4 eurocents per minute the bike is used. We need that in the US, its a really clever system that could prove effective for alleviating some traffic problems.
6) BUIs. Apparently, you can also get BUIs (Biking Under the Influence tickets) in Germany whJulianlian was afraid of because it affects your car driving record. It seemed like this might be the downside to having bikes as part of the public transportation network, since I did not see many people riding them during the day, but later at night many people were.
posted by Traveling Brian at 1:02 PM
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