Day 330: Berlin, Day 5--Reichstag and Good Riddance to Germany

The day started out okay today. I got us checked in online, and we have window-middle seats for both our flights home tomorrow. But, again, we got off to a very late start because I think we're just ready to leave this country. It's not completely Germany's fault. We've seen some great things and some people have been really nice here. But today we just had some bad experiences--particularly the last one--that made me very glad that I'm leaving Germany.

We walked to the Reichstag to begin things, the German house of Parliament. It's a beautiful building that someone managed to survive World War II. For many years it just sat there, but today it's very active and is a symbol of Germany's democratic government. Online, we had tried to get tickets to see the dome on top. We made a last-ditch effort today, but it didn't work. The gentleman at security said that we could get a ticket for tomorrow if we went to a certain line, but clearly that's not going to work for us.

So we decided to get a couple more souvenirs, and then we went to our usual food stand to get things to eat and drink. I wanted to try German potato salad, in particular. I ordered a currywurst and two bratwurst. He gave me two currywurst and one bratwurst. And no roll with the currywurst...he did give it to me when I asked for it, though. Of course, we had to sit outside and contend with bees. I AM SO SICK OF EATING WITH BEES. We had to do this in Paris and Germany both. Kerry has killed at least four of them; he's very quick and doesn't mind slamming them down with his baseball camp. I freak out and run away, particularly because I think they chase after me because I often wear cologne. So he is now a serial bee killer.

We went back to the mall, but through a different route, so we saw some things we don't normally see. We got some groceries for dinner tonight: water, soda, hummus, cheese. But then we went to treat ourselves to ice cream. There's this one place in the mall, called Al Teatro, that always seems to be closed whenever we go, but today they were open. And, honestly, it was the worst experience we had in Germany. The guy selling the ice cream to us was INCREDIBLY rude to us. I picked up something, and then he tried to hurry Kerry along: "What? Finis?"  (I think he may have been French.) He kept chastising us for not knowing "the rules." At one point, Kerry moved a bit to the right, near another woman ordering, and the man said to him, "No! You stay there! She goes here!" Then when Kerry tried to pay, he places the money on the counter. The man said, "No! You put it on the tray!" When Kerry did, he said, "Have a nice day," but we were speechless at this point. Then when we tried to sit down, he said, "No! You cannot sit here!" I thought this was absurd; I noticed a sign that said you have to pay more to eat there. So I confronted him and asked, "What if we pay more to eat here?" He said, "No! You can't!" And then showed us a sign. Just out of curiosity, I stuck around to see how he treated other people. He seemed to be nicer to others, BUT I will say that he didn't seem to let ANYONE sit down to eat. What an incredible asshole. Was this the rude French behavior I thought we would get in Paris? It's a shame it had to happen here in Berlin.

And after that, we just wanted to go back to the hotel, even though it was still early. I think we're both over Berlin. I think we're both over travelling. We just want to go home.

Cheers and goodbye to Europe.

Close-up of the front detail.

Reichstag