You can drink in public legally in Berlin, and virtually everyone does! When the weather gets nice, it's pretty much standard to grab some cold ones and head to the canal. 

Berlin is an amazing place to see live music. It's pretty much guaranteed that if a band you like is coming to Europe, they're coming to Berlin. There's also a good chance that the American band you like isn't as popular in Europe as they are back home, so you'll get to see them in a more intimate venue. There is a much different mindset here for standing up front, so there is never any problem getting right up to the stage to see the band. Look how close we were to Natalie Prass here, and we saw her in a venue that maybe holds 150 people. We see more shows in Berlin now than we did back in Seattle.

There’s still a section of the Berlin Wall up along the Spree river that is covered in murals that were originally painted when the rest of the wall fell. Though touristy, it is an iconic Berlin site and always someplace we bring visitors to the city. Turns out, Berlin still has something to teach the world about how stupid it is trying to put up physical walls to divide people.

Berlin isn't a gorgeous city full of stunning monuments like Paris, but it has its highlights. Here we are at the Brandenburg Gate when Bääki, Brain, and Tahoda came to visit. Just look at how much fun that sullen teen is having!

Starting in December, there are adorable Christmas Markets that pop up all over Berlin full of food and crafts. They always sell hot spiced wine called Glühwein, and you can choose to keep the mug they’ve created for the event that year or return it for a deposit. Locals like to bring their favorite mugs from years past, and it’s fun looking at past designs and seeing people who have been coming to the same spot to drink for decades.

We were promised a "real winter" compared to the somewhat cold, always damp PNW experience we are used to, but Berlin didn't really deliver on that in our first year. It did get real cold for a week or two, and there was one bout of legitimate snowfall, but for the most part is was gray and cold but not unbearable, just like home. Pictured here is our good friend Lizard, accompanying us on a snowy Sunday stroll. 

Sometimes it gets cold enough in Berlin for the canals to freeze. Usually this just means that people throw grocery carts and other detritus onto the ice to see if it will break, but in 2018 everything froze so completely that on on the first sunny day hundreds and hundreds of people decided to go have a party on the ice where Landwehrkanal branches into two. People were ice skating, drinking heavily, playing guitars through amps, and sitting on couches right in the middle of the canal. We saw one dude fall into the water along the edge and have to get pulled out by his buddies, but the ice was remarkably strong and deep everywhere else.

Winters are long, gray, and brutal in Berlin. When the sun finally returns and leaves reappear on the trees, Berliners come alive and congregate en masse along the canals, drinking beers next to piles of bikes and replenishing their depleted stores of vitamin D.

We are blessed to have a good friend like Christoph who is exceptionally knowledgable about mushrooms and willing to take us out in the woods outside the city to forage for them. There are a bunch of funky fungi in these parts! The most delicious one we found was called a steinpilz, which had a deep, nutty flavor and was rightfully prized by our expedition leaders.

Right on the river near the heart of Berlin is an abandoned East German amusement park called Spreepark, fenced away and sequestered but open to private tours if you’re fast enough to snatch up one of the limited tickets when they become available. Overgrown and majestic, the site is full of dilapidated rides and the ghosts of communist delight.

During the Cold War, the US government built a state-of-the art spy station on top of the highest point in Berlin to intercept radio signals from the Russian sector. The 400-foot tall "mountain" it was built on, called Teufelsberg, was constructed using the rubble from the 80% of Berlin that was destroyed during WWII. Once the Cold War ended, the spy station was decommissioned, and eventually purchased by a private owner after it had fallen into disrepair. Offering perhaps the best ruin porn in the city (we still haven't been to the abandoned theme park), the area is now a haven for street artists, and offers the best views of Berlin you can find. Paying the €8 admission is well worth it to wander through the decrepit remains of what looks like a real life Bond villain fortress.

Not far outside of Berlin is a small island called Pfaueninsel, or “Peacock Island.” Wild peacocks and water buffalo roam around the place, and you can hand-feed the birds with wild blueberries if you’re brave, like Mazz.

Berliners love any excuse to throw massive sound systems on the back of trucks and parade through miles of city streets, dancing and drinking and blasting techno. The Love Parade happened annually from 1989 to 2010, when over a million people participated and an accident killed 21 people and injured 500. Now there is the Fuckparade, which was created in 2007 as a demonstration against the over-commercialization of other parades.

If something on the street in Berlin can theoretically hold trash, it will invariably be full of trash. Bike baskets, broken TVs, discarded toilets: anything can be a trash can if you try hard enough. Except, it would seem, actual trash cans. We often see people in our neighborhood just toss their garbage directly on the street with a garbage can only a few steps away. Neukölln is pretty filthy.

The natural history museum here is great. They've got SO MANY jars full of weird stuff. They've also got a big room full of every kind of rock and crystal imaginable. If you come visit us we'll show you all the rocks and jars and you'll be like, "Wow, cool rocks, guys."

Berlin is full of parks perfect for laying out blankets and noshing all day. Sometimes, if you're lucky, the Pilsner Urquell guys come around on their cooler bikes and give you free beer. 

Every year there are huge free concerts in Mauer Park, which are great if you're willing to brave the hordes of people. So far we've gotten to see the Based God himself, Lil B, as well as a particularly great lineup of Thundercat and Flying Lotus.

There are absolutely no rules in Berlin - specifically in our neighborhood Neukölln - in regards to what is acceptable for parking your car. People will full-on park on the sidewalk, perpendicular to other parked cars in a too-small spot so half the car is on the sidewalk, or completely blocking traffic on the main road next to a parked car. You name it, we’ve seen it. Here’s someone who crashed their car into a wooden structure while parking around the corner from our apartment who just left it there for several days in a heap.

Our first New Years Eve in Berlin was spent with our friend Michelle and new-buddy-to-us Ivan, and it was easily the craziest one we've ever been a part of. Normally subdued Berlin goes wild, and literally everyone is out on the streets lighting off fireworks. It's like a war zone; there are explosions everywhere, no matter where you are across in the city. It's almost frightening at first, but once you embrace the chaos it's easy to lose yourself in the mayhem and have the time of your life.

There's a great whiskey store in Friedrichshain that occasionally has these all-day tastings for €30 where you can sample all you want from nearly 200 open bottles of whiskey and Scotch. It's a great opportunity to try all the old, expensive liquors you've been curious about but can't afford to buy bottles of or try in the bar without going broke. It's also a good way to get absolutely wasted in the middle of the day.

We love it when our friends come to visit us and crash at our place. Pictured here is our good buddy Jesus, who has since moved away from Berlin, Livie from Norway, and Christopher from wonderful Washington state. Our couch turns into a bed! We'll travel with you wherever you want to go! Let's hang out!

It’s only a couple hour drive from Berlin to the Baltic Sea, and once you get there it’s easy to set up tents in a campingplatz right off the beach and spend your days relaxing in the sand. We went in 2019 during a particularly hot weekend and found a secluded section of beach that was inhabited solely by sun-kissed naked German grandparents who looked like they hadn’t been put on clothes or found shade for several months.