Woke up at 8am this morning, after a pretty solid sleep. Also, cooler temps this morning, even found that I pulled the duvet on at some point. Yea! Couldn't sleep longer, so got up to fire up the first shot on the new Nespresso machine, and then head out for a run!
On my 40 minute run, I learned a lot! I realized what a great location our apartment is in - very close to lots of things. I started running down Kastienenallee, immediately finding there was an ATM 50 feet from the apartment that we simply hadn't seen yet. Next up was a burrito place (can't wait to see what that'll be like!), and sushi. Also, what was great to see was all the cafes that were already open with people having breakfast or coffee and a pastry. We hear everything is closed on Sunday, but knew it wasn't truly everything, so interesting to see how much.
And then I was down to Torstraße and Rosenthaler Platz within 4-5 minutes! Instead of running down Torstraße towards the HotelTonight office, I kept on down Rosenthaler Str do the Hackescher Markt. This is area has a ton of shopping, including seeing a Nike store and some other gringo (what's the German term?) stores, a large outdoor set of big outdoor cafes, etc.
One somewhat surprise is just past the Hackescher Markt under a bridge I saw some bums sleeping. I've also noticed a couple folks begging or similar. My prior impression was that this simply didn't exist here, but obviously that's not true. It's nowhere near the level of most US cities, but it's not non-existant. From here I popped down to the Ampelmann Strand on the river.
The Berliner Dom was easily visible from the strand. Yet another surprise at how close this was (I was maybe 10-15 minutes into the run at this point). I ran towards the Dom and over a bridge. Passed by various museums, and right by the TV Tower (Fernsehturm). I wound my way and began back up Prenzlauer Allee. Definitely some touristy stuff here. Eventually I crossed Torstraße again, which gave me a bearing, and then found my way to Schönhauser Allee which I knew would take me back.
Up Schönhauser until I reached our market. I then went along Schwedter Str (our street!) to Choriner. Choriner eventually leads the beautiful Oderberger Str, but I skipped that and headed back down Kastanienalle and home, realizing the highly recommended Babel restaurant is about 50m from our house. I've heard this Mediterranean place is great, but a bit crazy on the service (they apparently very strongly steer you to the combo plate, and expect you be ready to order immediately :) We'll have to test it out and add our own review.
By this point I'd run/explored for 40 minutes (4 miles), and things were warming up again. I'm quite excited to see this work out and that, as I hoped, this is going to be a good way to explore the city. Today we'll probably walk over/past the HT office, hit Rosenthaler Platz, maybe eat at DuDu (kids top request :) and then pack, as we head to Venice early tomorrow morning! And now I shall have another Nespresso (this thing is going to be dangerous - I can still make a better shot on my home setup, but the convenience, simplicity, speed, and relatively decent espressos are an alluring combination).
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