.:Westend, eastside:.

In the morning after a hearty breakfast in the neighbouring, charming restaurant where we enjoyed dinner the evening before—flooring hewn out of old wine barrels and walls decorated with vintage metal advertizing art, it looked like the prototype for all those chain family restaurants with contrived Americana and atmosphere—we braved the sunny but bitterly cold avenues towards the Tiergarten and Schloss Bellevue, the official residence of the President of Germany, whose name escaped us at the time.

We explored the gardens a bit, the monuments that ringed the Siegessäule (the column with the golden Winged Victory statue). The day was filled with periodic refuge-seeking from the cold, which just seemed to stark and un-urban, totally out of proportion with visiting a big city, which usually seems bearable regardless of the weather.

We took the subway back into the center of the city, but getting back out in the cold, each time, seemed to chill us quicker and quicker, even though we tried to keep over-exposure to it at a minimum. That didn’t really work with wanting to see the sights. We saw the old Checkpoint Charlie station with various tourists’ lures at the old border and went a bit further on to the Gendarmenmarkt, that is so called from the era Napoleon’s conquest and reign, with the Cathedrals of the Germans and the French.

We scaled the stairs of the Französische Dom to enjoy the panoramic view over the city. Afterwards, we went to the world renown Museum Island on the Spree.

We waited in a line the stretched out the door for quite a while—we were getting a bit numb from shuffling and then standing still, to gain entry into the Pergamon Museum. The wait, however, was well worth it, able to see some excellent artifacts and authentic installations of Roman temples, Islamic exultations and Babylonian promenades.

We crossed the Spree again, admiring the Berliner Dom and took a rest at a Vietnamese restaurant. Berlin, we discovered and noted many times subsequently, is cheap—inexpensive—and does not disappoint on quality. One of usual haunts back home is more costly than anything we've found, even in the swankest locations. Though the sun was setting, we chanced jetting across town on the subway and taking a look at the Eastside Gallery, the remnants of the Berlin Wall decorated by graffiti artists and preserved along the boardwalk.

On returning to the hotel, in anticipation for another try at taking in some of the nightlife, we realized the imposing building that we can see from our balcony, is in actuality the infamous prison that Moabit is best known for.