Birthday Spaetzle and First Day in Rome

I woke up my birthday morning to a party! Anna had decorated the room in balloons and a Danish which I think means congratulations! It was a great start to a great day! I opened a present from Anna (beautiful earrings and some seriously yummy snacks!) The card was even in Danish! My first Danish card!

Anna had to head out to hear some talks so I took my time getting ready and then I stuck out on my own. I went to see a small Cold War Museum (name to follow... I don't have my Berlin tour book here) where you can touch things and play with things from that time period. It was very intersting, what I found most interesting was the map the East Germany where it showed 1/4 of Germany with a giant white hole in the middle of Berlin they just took west Berlin right off the map!

Next I headed out to see the East Side Gallery which was beautifully decorated but didn't seem like the best part of town so I didn't walk the whole thing. It was then time to head back to meet Anna at 5:15 back at the hotel (did I mention the public transportation is really SLOW and the city is really big?!)

We got ready for dinner and then headed out. First stop was the Erotik Museum, apparently very "Berlin". Some interesting stuff...

Then we began looking for the authentic German restaurant from Anna's guide book. After exporing and walking without any luck we decided the heck with it, we are found a place. Wouldn't you know it... it was the place from the book! Second time that happened to use (see sushi place in Japan!). I ordered a german type cola that has orange flavouring (too odd not to try... and it was amazing!), a small beer and cheese spaetzle (that came with salad). It was AMAZING!!! Best spaetzle ever!

Before heading back to the hotel we stopped at the Berlin Gate (pls forgive me for not having the proper name!) again and it was stunning at night (and without thousands of runners and marathon spectators. We got some crazy awesome pics!

Back at the hotel, Anna had gotten some cake so I blew out my paper candles and we had cake back in the hotel room! A totally rockin' day!!!

Next morning I was up at 4pm to be at the airport for 5:30! I arrived in Rome at 9:00 and took the bus shuttle into town and then the subway to the station near my hotel. Then it was an easy couple of streets to my hotel... HA! Yeah, I got totally totally LOST! None of the streets were on my map! Ack! Finally I turned a corner and there was a giant monument (I later dicovered it was Il Vittoriano) but the only thing I was thinking was this HAS to be on the map! From there I realized I've overshot my hotel by about 5 blocks so I headed back to restart finally finding the hotel.

I dropped my stuff and headed to the Villa Borghese. I had a 3:00 museum reservation so it as quite the rush to find it and get there. the Villa was beautiful but the museum was amazing! Beautiful sculptures and painting! Well worth the trip up!

When that was done I was exhausted so I headed home grabbed some mushroom pizza next door and settled to sleep.

Now I'm off for day 2 in Rome!