Berlin

We flew from Milan to Berlin on 3 hours of sleep.

We stayed in a place through Airbnb again – my favorite from the trip. It was a spacious apartment in an old building in Neukolln, with hardwood floors, beautiful decor, and stunning art. The host was Freeda, who uses the apartment as her art studio (hence the great art).

In Berlin, we met up with Dominik, Matt’s cousin, and his girlfriend Selma. We ate currywurst from a street stand, delicious red curry at a Thai place, American ‘California’ style breakfast, more doners (not as good as Milan though), and Korean BBQ at a place called Kimchi Princess. We shopped, explored, and slept. We strolled around the city and saw the Reichstag and Brandenburger Tor.  Matt met up with a professor at the Berlin Technical Institute and discussed future opportunities in Germany and his research. During this I attempted to find the Jewish Musuem, but instead found the nearest synogogue. We visited the Pergamon musuem, and saw the Ishtar Gate and Market gate of Miletus – incredibly fascinating. Unfortunately the Pergamon altar was closed for renovations until 2018, so we missed that.

I would love to live in Berlin. The vibe and pace of the city just suits me. Something about it feels like home already. In my head I picture us in an unknown number of years, me pushing a stroller down the street to groceries while Matt is at work, and us visiting the Pergamon musuem regularly on the weekends. Who knows if it will happen but I hope so.

Milano

First stop on our Europe trip: Milan

In Milan we stayed in an apartment via Airbnb. Our host was a cool Dutch guy, Alexander.

We visited the Duomo – which is just massive, and incredibly impressive in person.

We also ate an obscene amount. We ate some of the best pizza ever (of course) – a buffalo mozzarella pizza and prosciutto pizza.

Down in the canal district Navagili, we ate Lingerian food – roasted rabbit with potatoes, and pesto with fresh made gnocchi.We observed the typical Italian night life- well dressed couples and friends out for dinner and drinks.

By the Duomo, we ate panzerotti – which is pretty much like a pizza inside of a doughnut. Obviously, it was delicious.

In the Roma Venezia district, we ate Abruzzian food – a trio of fresh made pastas with insanely good sauces, and various roasted meats. The bread and olive oil was also so, so good.

It was also in Milan that we ate the best doner of the trip – funny, huh? It had the perfect ratio of sauces/meats/veggies and I still dream of it.

While touring and starving, we ate a mediocre Neopolitan pizza – which has anchovies. Not my favorite but an experience for sure.

And of course, throughout the days we ate gelato along the way – hazelnut being our flavor of choice.

The best thing we did in Milan – and perhaps from the whole trip – was see the Last Supper by Da Vinci. The painting in person is so inspiring and evokes this amazing feeling of awe. It is hard to describe, but it was amazing.

We also toured an old castle, and visited the Science museum.