Fall break is finally here! I chose to go to Berlin, the capital of Germany. I expected a fun, historically interesting week. I got that and so much more.
I arrived Sunday night after a peaceful weekend of catching up in Brussels. The airport was Berlin Schoenefeld. If you are unfamiliar with the airports in Berlin, as I was, you wouldn’t know, as I didn’t, that this airport is about a half an hour drive out of the city. Buses and trains go there, but I wasn’t sure if they would be running at 23.00 when I got in. The cab took me to my hostel and helped me get my little bag to the door.
The hostel Die Etage East was cheap, and that’s why I picked it. The staff was nice and the facilities were clean and everything, but when the front desk has to draw an arrow off the side of the huge Berlin map you know you’re in the middle of nowhere. The people in the hostel I met the first night were cordial but not terribly memorable.
The next morning I decided to walk to the center of town. Here’s a tip for iPhone users: if you plug in your desired route on Maps before you leave a wi-fi zone, you can use the GPS to follow the lines on the map even if you’re outside internet. This proved quite useful for the hour and a half, 6,9 km walk. I went to the Jewish memorial and the Brandenburg Gate, and walked back. The Jewish memorial was interesting. It is a series of different gray blocks of varying heights. The artist wanted to leave interpretation up to the viewer. I got the most out of sitting in the middle of the monument where the blocks were twice my height and I could feel trapped. I liked the memorial overall, but didn’t like the fact that people are allowed to sit and eat on the blocks. It just didn’t seem right to stand/ sit on a memorial to those who were murdered for the crime of being Jewish.
The United States embassy was right next to the Brandenburg Gate. There were people outside, protesting America and our treatment of civilians in the Middle East. It’s interesting to notice that no matter how far you get from America, you can’t escape our biggest political issues. On the way home, I found the Komische Oper, the opera house I would be attending on Thursday night.
On the walk home, there were all sorts of cute little kids dressed up for Halloween. It made me a little homesick to be honest, for both Michigan and Washington. In Michigan, Halloween is our family’s favorite holiday. In Washington, we as students get to trick or treat at the embassies, which is one of our greatest cultural experiences of the year. Watching the kids go around as little witches and vampires made the long walk home a lot easier. I got home, took care of some stuff with reception (I had to check out and check back in the next day, and the reception was going to hold my bag so I didn’t have to carry it), and heard someone in reception playing guitar. I was glad to hear music - there’s someone on my program who brings his guitar to class trips, but we don’t always have time to sit down and listen. So, sit down and listen was just what I did. I can’t really describe what music does to me, but I was relaxed and peaceful at the end of that tough day. The guitar player stopped playing soon after I sat down and introduced himself in a heavy English accent as Alex. Before long, we were talking like we’d known each other for ages. Over a couple of beers from the store (which were only 50 cents! Thank you Germany!!!) we talked about our lives, what we were doing in Berlin, and anything you can imagine. We watched our favorite YouTube videos and shared our opinions on each others’ countries. He even mimicked what he thought an American accent sounded like - one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a long time. It was some combination of New York, Boston, and a southern drawl. All of a sudden, we looked at the clock, shocked to discover it was 6 in the morning! We just went to our rooms, got dressed, and ate breakfast while he showed me where I was going for my tour, hoping to see each other later.
The tour was fantastic. I thought I was going to be late, but arrived right on time - two minutes early at that! It wasn’t free like the other Berlin tour I heard about later, but I recommend Insider Tours for whatever you want in Berlin. They do a series of tours, including one of Sachsenhausen concentration camp and one of the Potsdam area. For more information, check their website. Our guide was delighted to discover my history major, and asked me to correct her if she got anything wrong. She was fascinating and easy to talk to. It felt like a personal tour, versus being with a group. Later, I took the tram back to the hostel and prepared my bags to leave. As nice as the hostel was, I didn’t want to have to buy U-Bahn/ S-Bahn tickets every day I was in Berlin to get anywhere in town. Alex offered to take me with him to the hostel he was moving to, downtown. So there we went.
Here’s another recommendation for you: the St. Christopher’s hostel group. They have locations all over the UK, in Prague, Bruges, and Berlin. If you stay once, you get a “beds and bars” card which gives you a 10% discount at the bar in the hostel and on additional stays. I ended up paying significantly less for the hostel than I would otherwise have done thanks to that card, which I still have. The hostel is safe, clean, fun, and really accommodating. Dinner was really cheap at a place close to the hostel - now that we were in Alexanderplatz, the center of the city. That night was quiet, listening to Alex play, eating dinner, and catching up on sleep we both missed the night before.
For the rest of the week, I saw most of the important things to see in Berlin. I saw the German history museum, which traced the history of Germany from the time of the Celts to the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was fascinating to see how Germany has evolved! I spent more time around the Brandenburg Gate as there was a lot to see there. I walked around and noticed how different the two sides of the city really were. After the fall of the Wall, a lot of German money was spent restoring East Berlin. As a result, the former Communist section has better roads, buildings, and is less polluted than West Berlin. I also did a tour of Sachsenhausen that I want to talk about in a separate, detailed post. Stay tuned for that! At night, I’d listen to Alex’s guitar, we’d have dinner, and I would sit at the bar. Thursday night I saw Dialogues of the Carmelites at the opera. It was interesting, and at intermission the people sitting next to me asked me about my studies. I can tell I’m becoming more serious of a student every day, because that was one of my most exciting conversations of the week. I went back that night and sat at the bar, where I had a few drinks and talked to an older English man about living in hostels, music, and Shakespeare. Aunt Janice, if you’re reading this, I was even able to recite a few lines!!
Leaving was hard, but I found it necessary to go out with a bang! As I had to leave the hostel at about 4 in the morning, I decided there was no point in going to bed. Instead, Alex and I made a few friends and the four of us planned to stay out all night, at least until I had to leave. Here I want to give a shout out to Unity and Dan, from Canada and Australia respectively. You guys are awesome, and I was happy to have you and Alex along! We started in the hostel bar, where there was a live musician playing guitar. He offered to let everyone who knew guitar play. Several people went up, played a couple songs ranging from Wonderwall by Oasis to Britney Spears. Alex, with minor persuasion by the rest of us who knew how awesome he sounded on guitar, went up after most of the other people had gone. I didn’t think the crowd was ever going to let him off the stage! After the live music was over, the musician came over to us (as the bar was pouring us all shots of Jäger and Alex a huge beer - all on the house!) and pulled up a chair, talking to Alex about how impressed he was with his talent. I was talking to Unity, so I was only able to eavesdrop a little bit (but I did, sorry Alex!), but the performer offered Alex a shot at recording! As far as I know, they recorded this week (since I’m a bit behind on these posts, it’s November 25th. And Alex, if you’re reading this, leave a comment and let me/ my readers know how it went?). After that was said and done, we left in search of another bar.
To our delight, we found this really cool bar that was playing what I can only describe as “all the angsty music from the 90s we grew up with.” The place was packed, and everyone was on the dance floor. We were able to lose all track of time dancing the night away, screaming the lyrics to the songs at the top of our lungs. When we went back to the hostel, it was nearly impossible to say goodbye. But, armed with the memories of that week and the determination to keep in touch with my friends, I was able to walk out the door and leave that world behind.
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