We started the day a bit late and decided to have burgers from a local restaurant for brunch. I had a chili cheeseburger that was quite nice.
Berlin Wall Memorial
After our burgers, we used the local train system to make our way to the Berlin Wall Memorial. This place acts as a symbol to show some of the remaining parts of the wall that once separated east and west Germany. It commemorates the struggles that people went through at this time in Berlin’s history and the people who failed to cross the wall. My understanding of this part of history is not great so it’s a little difficult for me to understand, but the site was interesting enough to walk around.
Spy Museum
After the Berlin Wall Memorial, we caught the train to the Spy Museum, which is a rather interesting Science Works like display of spying that happened throughout history including ancient times, the world wars, the Cold War, and even in the present. One part of this museum that stood out to me was the cryptography section as it displayed some of the simpler and older encryption techniques such as Caeser shift cipher which I recall learning about in my early computer science studies. There were also Enigma coding machines there which were of interest to me.
Christmas Market
After the Spy Museum, we decided to go to a Christmas Market. Most of the main ones in Berlin were still not yet open for the Christmas season, but we did find one called Heissa Holzmarkt. Inside the market was quite a cool atmosphere, with loud music and a diverse range of food stores and market stalls. There were many people drinking mulled wine, a practice we were sure to take part in as well. For dinner I opted for some pho that was on offer at one of the stores. It was nothing like authentic Vietnamese pho with way more ingredients including broccoli, and mushrooms which gave it a different yet still delicious taste. It was great to taste one of my favorite dishes appropriated to a different Western culture. After the pho, I had some churros from another stall.
Overall, I enjoyed the Christmas market quite a lot, and look forward to going to more in the weeks to come, especially when I go to Frankfurt in a few weeks.
