Brendan Doms

The second day in Berlin consisted of waking up to stand in line for the Reichstag. It took over an hour, but it was definitely worth it. I understand why the flow of people into the capitol is controlled, and it's awesome that Germany makes it so easy for everyone to see it - foreign tourists included.

Our appointment was set for the early evening, so we spent the afternoon going to the Jewish Museum. This is one place I hadn't even walked by on my previous trip because it was so far away from most of the main attractions. But thanks to the easy public transit we just grabbed a bus and found our way there pretty easily.

The building itself is really the main attraction of this museum: it's a gray metal facade that looks like it's been cut up and slashed open, with jarring jagged wounds serving as the windows. The interior is a vertigo-inducing maze that tilts and shrinks around you. Just looking down a hallway there there was an extremely uncomfortable feeling. There's an outside tombstone-like garden that also has no level ground or right angles. It really made me want to just be outside and free on level ground. Obviously, that was the idea. The final room worth noting is one that had no artificial heating or cooling or lighting. The only light was natural, coming from a small hole in the ceiling, a good fifty feet above. It exemplified that trapped feeling I had the entire time there, and with the way sound carried and echoed, along with the sense of being in the cold ground, it very much made me think I was stuck at the bottom of a very large well.

The exterior of the Jewish Museum, which in hindsight could resemble a prison.

Getting out into bright daylight after that was quite refreshing. We moved back up to the Reichstag for the best 360 degree view of the city. That rooftop is always a highlight for me.

The view from the top of the Reichstag always manages to take my breath away.

For dinner, we went to the fanciest restaurant of the entire trip: Noto. It was to the North in the Mitte district. The food was definitely the best we had at that point, but I wouldn't recommend it for the cost. A friend's tip brought us to Katz Orange for cocktails after that, and I absolutely loved it. I'd go so far as to say that it's my new favorite place to get cocktails in Europe. Much more of a speakeasy scene than I had encountered on that side of the pond before. The drinks were great, and they had a chandelier made out of ping pong balls! The decor was generally American Western - think cowboys and Indians - which is kind of hilarious to find in a random residential street in Berlin.

Our second round of drinks at Katz Orange. Mine was served with dark chocolate and called a "Gold Fashioned." The ice was made out of Laphroaig. Because of the smoky ice I was warned when ordering it by our server that it was "a gentleman's drink." He was deliciously correct.

After that we headed back to our home neighborhood where we considered going to the local crowd-pleaser bar called White Trash (a converted Chinese restaurant that kept the tacky Asian font for its sign). But there was a cover - we were told it was a "Rockabilly" scene - so instead we opted for Kuntshalle, a bar we had passed that was in a building made entirely out of shipping containers. Yeah. It was a unique experience. And the bartender who served us was from Denver. You just can't escape running into fellow Americans when on vacation, no matter the crazy places you end up.