9 August- Day 46

Neues Museum today! First of, I’d like to say, that that day I had my first bubble tea of the summer. And let me tell you …. It was excellent. Anyway, so after class, we were supposed to meet up at the Museum about 2 hours later, so we decided to get some food. In the end, half got food, and the other half wandered around the Hackescher Markt area. The Hackesher Höfe is really interesting- it’s a bunch of (I think, apartments or offices) and between them are about 8 or so connected courtyards, and a bunch of sort of hip stores on the first floors of the courtyard. There was a chocolatier, designer clothing, some urban artists display thing, Ampelmannchen store, etc. Then we headed towards the Neues Museum for our tour.

One courtyard in the Hofe

Alleyway near the Hofe.

More Berliner Graffiti. I love it

It was half destroyed in war. Now this is what the main staircase looks like.

Most likely a half completed bust of one of maybe Nefertiti's daughter or something?

The Neues museum is one of the 5 Museums-Insel museums, and it houses an amazing Egyptian collection, along with some ehhhh not so amazing collections of Stone, Bronze, and Iron age goodies. The highlight of the museum (they say they have a bunch of highlights, but I’ve seen tour books that are just like “well this museum has this and nothing else) is Nefertiti’s bust. It’s super famous, she’s super gorgeous, and one-eyed.”

All of which are true.

I was a total fail and didn't take a photo of it. Or maybe no photos were allowed? I forgot.

After going to the Neues Museum, I went to visit something really really fun. Turkish bath! The Hamam was deep in the center of Kreuzberg (also known as Turkish town), and ahhh so much fun!

So basically, you could pay for a couple hours (up to a day) and if you wanted to spend the whole day there a la spa, you could buy massages, treatments, etc., otherwise you can just used their sauna, washroom, etc. First time I could really really relax the entire trip. After you sit around in the sauna, cold shower, sauna, etc. Then there’s a room with little washbasins and smack in the middle was this big heated tile platform, and you could stick your towel on top of it and just lay down. Almost like laying out in the sun, except the other side gets heated haha.

The way it was explained it to a guy in the group: “I’ve seen more naked women than you’ll probably see in your entire life”

Unfortunately, thankfully, and obviously, no photos were allowed. But it was so pretty. Google it!