It was only a fifteen minute ride to the hotel. The hotel is a nice place, located on a quiet street. There is a small cafe outside the door to the hotel. The thing that's hard to believe is that there is actually a night club located in the basement of the building! (It's 4 floors below our room, so we don't hear it at night).

Somehow the reception desk did not have our reservation at hand, but they were able to look it up and fortunately had a room available. We went outside to grab some dinner while they made up the room.

Very nice hotel, very quiet neighborhood.

Around 10pm we got dressed and went out for a walk around the immediate area. First we poked our heads into "Schuene", a dark leather bar. It was still early and it was pretty empty so we decided to go back later. Then we stopped at a bar named "Hafen" and had a drink. The odd part about this bar is that about half of the guys there were standing on the sidewalk just in front of the bar. Then we walked up the street, past "Lenz", and looped back around to "Tom's Bar". It was medium sized bar, with a small dance floor in the back. We hung around there for a bit and had a few drinks, then decided to move on.

We went back to "Schuene" and it had gotten busier. We sat and people watched for a bit, then walked back towards the hotel. Diagonally across the street from the hotel is a bar called "Knast", which means "Jail". The bar had metal bars around it, and the place had a very dark feel to it. We had a drink there and watched the locals come and go for a bit.

At this point we decided to go to the Connection club downstairs in the hotel for a bit of dancing. The music was pretty trendy, but it worked for an hour of burning off energy. After that we went back upstairs and got some sleep.

The next morning we walked to the room next to ours and had a very nice continental breakfast. Before leaving Rick's friend Robert had hooked us up with a friend of his from Berlin named Olaf. We made plans to meet him at the hotel at 7pm and have dinner. Then we got dressed and headed out for some shopping.

Lots of trees everywhere.

Our first stop was "Black Style", a rubber store in the North East corner of Berlin. We rode the subway, getting a look at lots of scenery along the way (the subway actually goes above and below ground). The area where we got off was in what used to be East Berlin. Definitely not as many trees and not a green as West Berlin.

The store had quite a selection, and we bought several things. The exchange rate is really good, which made things inexpensive.

Then we returned to the area around the hotel and went into a few other stores. "Mr. B" was a good one (not unlike "Mr. S" back in San Francisco). Finally we stopped at the Connection store downstairs in the hotel and made a few more purchases. White camouflage cargo shorts for $22! What a bargain.

Bistro Cafe am Arsenal

We went to the restaurant next door "Bistro Cafe am Arsenal" (which has become our favorite restaurant). Then we took a quick nap and dressed for dinner.

Yvonka makes an appearance during lunch.