Vinyl Heaven

Sunday, June 9th

First thing Sunday we headed to Mauerpark where there is an amazing flea market. It's a mix of new and old. We walked in about 15 feet when I saw an entire booth filled with vinyl. I know I'm totally a trend follower that I love records so much, but there is something really fun about searching through records looking for those gems. I searched through a bunch of the crates and Jocelyn helped me by knowing which albums were good. I know the bands I want but I'm bad at knowing the songs. I found two at the first place and I bargained for two euro less. You'll notice I said, the first place. As we kept walking through the market there were more places with vinyl! We stopped at one more large place and I got two more records. I told Jocelyn I was cut off after that. In all there were probably eight or more places selling just vinyl. There were at least as many places that had one or two stacks of records along with whatever else they were selling.

In general, in California, I have found that most of the records are dusty and carry at least a couple of scratches. Depending on the price, the scratches can be minor or major. The higher quality ones though, the more desirable and in better condition and therefore higher priced, are at least dusty. So when I got back to Jocelyn's apartment and started checking out my purchases (I know I should've done it there) I was shocked and amazed and thrilled to find that all four of my new records were pristine. No dust anywhere and not a single scratch. They all looked brand new. I probably paid a little bit more for these records than I would have at home, but it was totally worth it. A completely unique souvenir. And needless to say, if you love vinyl Berlin is the place to shop for it. You'll find great stuff and it will be in mint condition. (I know you're thinking to yourself "hey, instagram addict! Where are the pictures of your records?" I totally forgot to take any pictures. Oops.)

Joc and I grabbed lunch at a doner stand at the market. This is one of the main fast food options in Berlin. It's a lot like a gyro but Turkish style. The are really really really yummy and also massive.

After lunch we headed back towards Hackescher Markt to meet up with Sheraka to check out the Pergamon museum. The museum is filled with lots of middle eastern, Greek, and Babylonian stuff. A lot of the exhibits are reconstructions of things. I couldn't tell for sure if they were reconstructions of things Germany has or had. It was cool because you could see the actual size of various things, like the temple of Pergamon. On the other hand, I thought it was a little weird because we paid to look at fake stuff. It also made me wonder how many other museums do this.

The last one is the temple and me. You can see how huge it was.

After the museum we went for dinner by the river. Where it proceeded to downpour right after we had finished. Lucky us we were able to get inside the restaurant before we got soaked!