i ♥ architecture 2008 (t-shirts still on sale)

sad but true, our overnight train car was nicer than our paris hostel.
there was soap! there were towels! there was bottled water?!
the bed was soft and comfy! AND CLEAN. we were in the lap of traveling-bunk-bed luxury.

train was awesome. drinkin' franziskaner and playin' cribbage. the stewardess (is that what you call 'em?) takes your passport and train passes when you check in, and it's kinda freaky. your traveling life-lines just walked out the door! don't worry—they were returned safely in the morning. along with some more bad train news (prinzings, 0. trains, 3.) apparently—listen up, kiddies—when you buy a eurail pass you're supposed to purchase each country you travel through, not just the ones you stop in. exactly opposite of what our travel agent said. guh-reat. luckily our stewardess was nice and let it slide. (just another example of stupid americans.) one last note on the train: in the morning, they come in and bring you breakfast and turn your bed into a chair and a table pops out and you eat there! rockin!

so we arrived in berlin, ready to embark on i ♥ architecture 2008. after spending an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out how to validate our metro tickets (we swear, the next eurotrip we'll be so cool!!), we easily found our most incredible hostel!!! more on that later.

now we began our hunt for glorious, mordern, non-US-code-constricted architecture. from potsdamer platz [some renzo piano] to the neue nationalgalerie [van der rohe; brandon said it was a religious experience] and a whole lot in between. breaking up the i♥08 tour (ok, not really) was the holocaust memorial [eisman], the reichstag [sir norman foster] and the brandenburg gate [no relation]. places like this deserve their own post...which you can find at i♥08.com.

after a real german meal of bratwurst, weinerschnitzel and beer we retired to our incredible hostel. which turned out to be one of the nicest places we've ever stayed anywhere. top floor, corner balcony, overlooking east berlin. and to top it all off, there was a bar in the basement. that. just. happened.