Berlin Day 1: The Jewish Museum

This morning started out badly. I had a dream in which I had a pet bird, housefinch-sized. Most of the dream that I remember, he was my pet. The dream ended when I noticed odd colored orange blood all over the floor. I looked at my bird and found him dead, with a pin-sized hole in his forehead. Then I woke up. An ominous way to start the day.

Now, for some god-awful reason, all museums in Berlin are closed down on Mondays of all days. All of them, or almost all of them at any rate. I’m not sure why. I suppose they don’t like closing on Sundays, one of the best days for visitors to come, and they need to close one day a week for maintenance and repairs or some such. Who knows. In any case, that’s how it is. So when I planned out my activities for the day I was basically found myself with the following readily available options: The zoo, the Garden of Eden, Brandenburg Gate, and the Jewish Museum (the only museum open Monday. I didn’t check, but I suspect it’s closed Saturday instead).

Yesterday, two different sources had insisted that the weather would be good today. That should have been my first warning. It was pouring outside when I woke up. This took out three of my four options, and suddenly the indoor Jewish Museum seemed very inviting.

So I set out on my quest. It was, actually, embarrassingly easy. Either I’ve learned to navigate foreign subway systems better or Berlin has a nice, simple, efficient subway system. Probably both. In any case I got to the tourist information place pretty flawlessly, and the lady at the desk was able to direct me to the museum via the subway without any problem.