Sunday, bloody Sunday and all the shops are closed
Ahh ... Berlin.

A city teeming with energy and life. I get one day only to go there. I have been in Halle, Germany, performing with Big Art Group in the Theatre Der Welt – Theater of the World, a festival that changes cities in Germany every year with shows from all over the world. This year, 18 countries are represented. Halle is a small city, and we're thirsty for a big one.

A small group of us decided to take one of our only days off to see Berlin.

Going from the Halle Hauptbahnhof (central train station) to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, do buy your tickets in advance and you will pay about half of what we did on the day of. It cost a grand 34 euros each way from Halle, which is in East Germany, to Berlin on the fast train with no connections (one hour and 20 minutes). This is a steep price that could have been avoided had we purchased tickets the day before. And I was warned, so I can only blame myself. The train from Halle had no air conditioning on top of that, which was not fun as it was a 90-degree day.

We left Halle at noon. We arrived at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, which is overwhelmingly huge and modern. It has a glass-paned roof and glass-paned walls and, with three levels and many escalators, it truly feels like the future. When we arrived there, we got on another train — the subway there has two lines, called the U Bahn and S Bahn.

They don't have turnstiles like in the subway in NYC, but you must have a ticket, stamp it on the platform, and hold on to it, for if you are caught without it by the undercover train cops, you will be fined 50 euros on the spot. Also, be sure to get a subway map.
We each got a day pass for six euros and hopped on the S Bahn to the Hackescher Market stop. We walked straight over for lunch at Mr. Wong (Monsieur Vuong) on Alt Shonhauser Str.

Mr. Wong serves Vietnamese food and is usually packed, but since we went on a Sunday, it was very easy to get a table for six with no wait. On a Saturday, good luck, they do not take reservations. The meals are cheap and there are great specials and fresh fruit drinks and they have booze if you are in the mood.

We had a fresh watermelon drink and, being a vegetarian, I had tofu and veggie curry over rice noodles and a delicious Vietnamese espresso afterward, which had a bit of condensed milk in the bottom of the glass. Yum. Lunch cost about 12 euros.

In Mitte, we could only window shop because all the shops were closed, an important fact to remember if you are there on a Sunday. This made me very sad, since the same street as Mr. Wong (Alte-Schonhauser Str.) has some of the best boutique shopping in Berlin for a fashionista who can afford it, or a window-shopping fashionista who wants inspiration and might get lucky and find a sale.

Directly across the street form Mr. Wong is Herr Von Eden: gorgeous suits for men and women, both formal and informal, with impeccable tailoring. Claudia Skoda Knitwear is made in Berlin and seriously the most beautiful knitwear I have ever seen or touched with my own hands. There is also Best Shop Berlin, which features an eclectic array of clothes with interesting shapes, patterns, and colors. That's just naming a few.
Luckily, on Sunday, museums are open, so we hopped back on the subway over to the Hamburger Bahnhof museum of contemporary art. Four to eight euros for entry. We were there for two hours while we viewed Wolfgang Tillman's Lighter exhibit and looked at some of their permanent collection, including a room of Andy Warhol, which was fabulous.

Suddenly it was 6 p.m., so we were kicked out of the museum and we were pooped. Time for a drink. Continuing on the modern art vibe, we went to the Newton Bar, named after photographer Helmut Newton, which has a life-sized photo of Helmut Newton's Nudes Walking covering one wall. It's a very glamorous spot. A glass of Roederer champagne, 11 euros.

This was a costly day but well worth it.

Then we zoomed over to Friedrich Str. to see Checkpoint Charlie, even though by now it was getting dark. Checkpoint Charlie, an important part of Berlin's history, was the checkpoint by foot or by car between East and West Berlin before the Berlin Wall fell in the late 1980s. It is a symbol of freedom for East Berlin and a Cold War memorial. There are graffiti-covered pieces of the wall up as memorials all up and down Friedrich Str. Right there is the Mauer Museum, but, alas, it was closed.
After that, we went to have a bite and some of us stayed in Berlin, but a friend and I went back to the big old Berlin Bahnhof, thinking we were getting on an 11 p.m. train back to Halle, only to find we had misread the time of the train for the date and had to wait until 12:45 a.m. to get back to Halle. I tell you this so you don't make the same mistake. Still, a late train is better than no train. So to kill time, I tried about 10 different hand creams at the 24-hour apothecary in the station. I paid 80 cents to take a piss and finally got on the train, arrived back in Halle at a little after 2 a.m., and slept like a baby.

Theo Kogan is giving MOLI View readers an insider's look at her world travels. Look for her regular column, appearing Tuesdays and Thursdays in the MOLI View's Fashion & Design.