Day 2

It was so hard to get out of bed this morning. A bike tour was scheduled for 11 a.m., but just one look out the window is all it took for my body to be overtaken by reluctance. Not only was it still gray, but it was raining. The type of rain that you don't even have to feel to know that it's cold. When I finally made it down to breakfast the consensus was to reschedule. Ironically, it was a beautiful day after about 12:30 p.m., but no use in crying over spilt milk. We headed out to the Annie Leibovitz exhibit for a look-see and then half the group split to do some sight-seeing at Kurfurstendamm, while the others hung back to finish a movie on Annie. Originally, Freeman recommended this site so that we could see what remained of a bombed church during the war. But after that was said and done, no one seemed to be at a loss for things to do. Not surprising that among the hordes of people there we found a group of street breakdancers to photograph, a task that kept the majority of us occupied for the better half of an hour. I am sure to any on-looker at the time, we closely resembled the American paparazzi, snapping away at what seems to be the "happening" spot of Berlin. Then I grabbed some lunch and Abigail, Kevin and I wandered the streets with the sole purpose of finding a mythical Irish pub that was falsely advertised on the wrong street. By the time we found it, in what appeared to be the basement of a shopping mall called the Europa Center, we were parched. So I ordered a waldmeister something beer, which is German for watermelon-flavored. Apparently, Germans are big on the waldmeister. I don't blame them. The place was packed with people watching the soccer game, and to that end, we found more fans later today on the subway back home. Their post-game energy was crazy.