Thursday, December 24, 2009
I woke up at 8am with a headache again. At this point I was worried that I was going to have a headache every morning and in that case I was going to need some more medicine. I showered, got ready (in the dark--this would be a common occurrence throughout my trip. That’s the price you pay for sharing a room with 6 or more people), and was out the door with J-M by 8:45am. A kind man helped us figure out how to purchase a ticket for the UBahn and told us what stop to get off at. Not that I studied German or anything but i figured out what he was saying with little difficulty. I knew enough German to get by. I even taught J-M the essentials: hello, thank you, your welcome, do you speak english. We got to our destination, Hauptbahnhof fairly quickly and were on our way.
We decided to hit up the Reichstag first, get breakfast, and then explore the Brandenburg Gate before we joined up for the free walking tour of Berlin at 11am. Well since it was Christmas Eve the Berlin Parliament (Reichstag) was closed. I was sure that of all the places to be open on Christmas Eve that would be one of them since it was free to explore and the lady at the cafe we had breakfast at said it would be open. Oh well, that’s the price you pay when you visit famous cities during the holiday’s. Now that I’ve finished my trip I can say that our first day in Berlin was by far the coldest because it was windy, cold, we couldn’t go inside anywhere for approximately 3 hours, and we were walking on ice the whole day. Fortunately, I wore spandex underneath my jeans, two pairs of socks, my best sweatshirt with a hood, and a warm scarf that covered my nose down.
Well 11am rolled around and we left the Starbucks to start our free tour of Berlin. We were lucky to get Maria as our tour guide. She was half Swedish and half Japanese. She grew up in Sweden, studied in London, and then fell in love with a German musician (wouldn’t name who it was) and ended up moving to Berlin. She has been here ever since because she just fell in love with the city. She speaks 5 languages, has half pink half black hair, and an incredible spirit. She turned out to be an awesome guide. Despite the cold she kept me very interested in everything she had to say. She spoke clearly, loudly when necessary, and had wonderful stories and anecdotes to share with us.
These are the highlights I learned about Berlin and its incredible history:
Brandenburg Gate: it was a gift from the French and had the statue of Athena on top. Well The German’s defeated some country I forgot so they named the statue Victory (for victory). Napoleon came and reclaimed Berlin, liked the statue so much that he took it back to France with him. The German’s defeated the French later and reclaimed Victory. She now glares directly at the French Embassy from the top of the Gate once again in Parisplatz. Parisplatz is home to the famous Hotel Adlon where Michael Jackson dangled his child out the window.
Reichstag: German Parliament and symbol of democracy. Was never used by the Nazi’s during Hitler’s reign.
TV Tower: It was constructed during the Cold War in East Berlin. It was build to show the people of West Berlin that things were thriving over in East Berlin (false). However, when it is sunny you can see a shiny symbol of a cross illuminated on the top of the tower, something the Russians were NOT happy about, but were powerless to do anything about it.
Only 3 building left in Germany from WWII that were used by the Nazi’s. 1--The Olympic Stadium 2--old nazi building that is now home to the tax department. After WWII the Russians used the building as a HQ for the Gestapo. On the building is a painted mural of Russian propaganda. Now there is a photograph of the same length as the mural that depicts what actually happened in front of that building, a massacre of innocent people. 3-- __________________
Hitler’s Bunker (actually just a plaque now): It was the size of a Twin Tower but now there is nothing but swamp left. It is illegal to dig anywhere in this vicinity and now it is home to apartment buildings and a local spot for dog’s to do there business. Quite fitting if you ask me. The government spent as little money as possible to construct the plaque and they only put one up because tourists would come looking for it.
Holocaust Memorial: took 7 million euros to build. It doesn’t have a plaque indicating what it is because the architect wanted people to see it and interpret its significance on their own. However it is located in the center of Berlin so that everyone has to see it no matter where they want to go and therefore they can never forget what happened. Side note, it is illegal to verbally say the Holocaust never existed. If a policeman finds out you can be sent to jail or fined over 100,000 Euros.
Checkpoint Charlie: Not named after an actual person, just the alphabet (Alpha, Beta, CHARLIE).It was a popular checkpoint where people tried to smuggle people over from the East to the West and vice versa. One person ducked and was able to drive his sports car underneath the gate. Another person sowed his mother into the seat of the car and sat on her. Another person dressed up as a cow in the middle of a pack of real cows. Lastly, a skinny girl was put in the bag with a surfboard and made it across.
Apelmann: In the East all the sidewalk crossings had this interesting character called Apelmann rather than the boring man walking. When the wall fell down and the two sides were united the people of East Berlin were attached to this guy so all the sidewalks and crosswalk lights have him on them now. A lot of touristy shops carry all things Apelmann.
The Royal Palace: Amazingly was intact throughout the war but Stalin blew it up during the Cold War and build this hideous block there instead. Well the German people actually really liked the Palace so now they tore down the Russian cube and plan to rebuild the original Royal Palace. It should be done by 2015 (in five years).
The Berlin Wall: It was actually torn down by accident. Gorbachev was so nervous giving a live speech that he didn’t really have time to read all the new rules and regulations that the Russians had come up with concerning checkpoints. Well one reporter asked a bold questions about the Wall that made Gorb frantic so he skimmed the papers and said that the borders would allow anyone to pass through them (GASP!). When asked when this would be put into affect, Gorb scanned the papers for a date, any date, and when he found one he just said it. It turned out to be that exact day (immediately). Everyone rushed to the checkpoints and one guard gave in and just let everyone through and that’s what spurred the falling of the Wall. There’s more to it but that’s the abridged version hehe
The Book Burning Square: It occurred because the youth wanted to show the people of Germany that they supported Hitler so they burned the books of Humboldt University (the same university that Einstein once attended). There is this famous quote: “Burning books only leads to burning people”--this was said 100 years before WWII about the Spanish Inquisition. How scary is that? Well the university was so ashamed of their past that now every Saturday they have a old and used book sale and all the profits go to charity.
Those were just the highlights, but I learned so much about Berlin it was incredible. I felt for the first time that learning the history of the city made the city that much more remarkable to me. Even though the tour was free it was encouraged to tip and we tipped very generously.
Well by this time three or so hours had passed and we were cold, tired, and most of all hungry. We really wanted to try traditional German cuisine so we asked Maria for suggestions and she pointed us in the right direction. We ended up at this amazing little restaurant. It was so cute and the people were very nice. I had peppermint tea while the others got Gluihwein again (they got addicted). I ended up ordering gammon (ham), potato dumplings, lentils, and sauerkraut. The whole meal was DELICIOUS but SOOOO filling. Julia ordered a very traditional meal of Pork Knuckle. When it came out it had this jiggly ring of fat on top of the meat. At first it looked really disgusting, but once you got past the ring of fat the rest of the meal was great. Megan ordered her first goulash. It reminded me of the goulash me dad would make (tear, tear).I never thought I liked sauerkraut or lentils for that matter, but I’ve opened my horizons to new things and it turned out i really like both. the potato dumpling was really interesting. It had this unusual taste and texture that I can’t quite describe but it was way to filling to finish. It wasn’t my favorite but I’m glad I got to try it. This was our lunch and dinner (4-5:30p).
We needed to walk off our meal so we headed in the direction of the Christmas Markets. We were also unsure if they would be open on Christmas so we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss them. Turns out they were open for most of Christmas :) We explored the entire market. It had so many interesting foods, drinks, ornaments, figurines, and much much more.We all split some seasoned almonds, they were delightful, and J-M got a mixed bag of cookies and chocolates for a very good price. After an hour or so in the market we decided to head back to the hostel to recuperate and make plans for Christmas Eve night.
Well For me, Christmas Eve is always spent with the family at home doing traditional things rather than going out. Apparently that’s not the norm. Well we showered, napped, and ended up spending the rest of the night at our hostel drinking and hanging out with some really cool people. We made friends with the Bartender/Receptionist. He was quite a character and looked just like Goose from Top Gun. Megan and I called him that all night long (his real name was Ory) and at one point he fetched his aviators and posed for pictures for us. It was great. At first he only played this heavy metal/rock music but when I insisted that he play something more festive, like I don’t know, Christmas music?? he finally gave in and let me control the music. This turned in to a free for all where people just started playing random music and showing everyone random videos on YouTube. Most of the stuff was dumb but occasionally someone played a funny video. It was the weirdest Christmas Eve I’ve ever had, but it was a lot of fun. I met some Spanish engineers who partied all night every night, this Canadian kid who designs light up t-shirts and tried to take us to the worlds best night club held in an old bomb making factory, this British guy who dropped out of Cambridge to work on a Hostel boat (???!?!), this Dutch couple who told us where to go in Prague, and lastly Ory the Israeli Bartender who got out of serving in the military by claiming he was crazy and instead moved to Berlin and hasn’t left since. The Canadian guy was so hyped about this night club he MADE us come with him. I decided it was time to break out the leather jacket. I’d been saving it in America and had worn it a few times in Spain but I thought Germany would appreciate it. As we got ready to head out the British guy called me Lara Croft. He said all I needed was leather pants haha. I took it as a compliment. After an unsuccessful attempt to find the nightclub we came back to the hostel and just partied it up with the rest of the people for the rest of the night. It’s quite fascinating when you think about all the people you could meet in a hostel at one time. Was in bed by 4:30am.
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