Where the posh kids go to die...B E R L I N

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Berlin. Oh crap, I am writing this so late I have probably forgotten everything but I’ll do my best to remember.

Oh yeah! Well, firstly we were staying in an “Eco Lodge” hostel which was out in the woods of Berlin. Oh my gosh, it took us so long to get there. Ah, it was so confusing. However, I thought it was going to be in the middle of nowhere, an “in the wilderness” sort of thing. Well, it was in the woods but right on the edge and also next to what happened to be probably the fanciest neighbourhood in Berlin. The German president has a house there apparently so whenever we walked past we tried to pick out which one it was...we probably could’ve just asked at the hostel but it was more fun guessing.

Anyways, in order to get to the hostel we pretty much had to do a walk of shame. Hauling our two backpacks, plus a few other smaller ones, decked out in trackies and generally looking like crap through one of the richest streets in Berlin was so funny. I was scared someone was going to come out of their house and mistake us for heavy luggage couriers and make us transport things...or release their guard dogs on us...I’m sure they had guard dogs lol.

The hostel was awesome, so open and spacious - like a giant cabin, it felt like school camp! The owners lived next door too. It was a couple, their two little boys and girl and a dog. They all had long flowing hair and were so friendly. They owned a hostel in the city too. They had a pretty sweet deal going on, to be able to walk next door to work and have your kids and dog running around all day and to have woods as your backyard, I thought it was so cute! (Sam and Anneke, it’s like when we went away for drama and I thought I wanted to live on the aids farm hahaha)

We had a private room which was apparently the best room in the hostel and had 145 movies to choose from on the TV. Our plan whilst staying in the woods was to just chill out and try and save some money. We spent a lot of time watching Flight of the Concords on their TV. Love that show now. The owner told us that wild pigs live in the woods so not to be scared if we hear growling noises during the night. Apparently there were also piglets so I went to a hunt to find some in the morning but there were 100’s of dogs around the woods so I had no chance. It’s a good thing I’m getting over my dog fear or else I would never have been able to leave.

I got really brutally bored on about our third day so to Smics dismay we headed into town when I really had no idea what I actually wanted to do. Sure enough, once we got there we wandered around aimlessly under a stormy looking sky and I got really grumpy until Smic said we should just go home now and party it up tonight. YAY. We went all the back home and Googled a cheap cocktail place in Berlin. We found one in apparently the “hardcore” neighbourhood in Berlin called Kreuzberg. I’m not sure exactly what was hardcore about it; it’s pretty grungy I guess, I think it has a lot of nightlife there including a lot of punk bars and yeah, probably has a lot of underground art stuff going for it that we aren’t cool enough to know about hehe!

The bar was called “BR 101” and the cocktails were all 3 Euro (Just under 6 bucks) during happy hour and around 3.5-4 Euro normally. And far out, were they chronic. I think they had about 100 different cocktails all up with 60 being their own inventions. The bar itself was really small yet had a screen about half the size of the bar for sports lol. I could tell we’d found a place that locals go to, tucked away from main tourist hub which made me happy. The cocktails were yum; they had invented some good combinations and they tasted really fresh...like smoothies. There was only one guy working and he was going crazy with blenders and all, it was impressive and fun.

Wanting to put my tipsyness to good use I found an events magazine and searched for any clubs that were playing good music. It was a Wednesday so there wasn’t tooooo much happening but I found a club called “Kille Kill” playing some techno...surprise, surprise - it is Berlin we’re talking about here, techno is their music of choice.

So we set off to find this place using the tiny, little map I’d ripped out of the magazine. Before we knew it we had ended up in a dead quiet street lined with abandoned looking buildings. We couldn’t hear any music or see any signs of a club ahead but kept walking anyway. We found what looked like a few apartment blocks and hey, there was a club at the bottom of one. That wasn’t the club we were wanting but we found a sign saying “Kille Kill party this way” and found our mysteriously dodgy club tucked next to the first building we spotted.

**** Underground, grunge, art, passé, indie, BERLIN ****

We paid 5 Euro to get in and were greeted with a small smoke filled room and swaying Berlin youth haha. As I made my way towards the flickering red lights that lit up the bathroom I realised that we’d stumbled along one of Berlins little secrets. There was no way this place would ever become packed with tourists and it seemed to showcase how Berlins unique youth get by haha. You’d never find a club like Kille Kill in Sydney. Maybe along Oxford Street actually. We stayed there until about 5 in the morning, even after most people had left because they started playing better music and Smic went mental lol. We had to walk through the woods to get home so there we were walking through the woods in Berlin at 6am whilst everyone back in Aus was at work or uni, which sums up one weird and unexpected night. Only thing missing was a wild pig.

After spending our last day in the woods watching TV and eating greasy food we moved on to the hostel the family owned in the city so we could do some sightseeing.

We were going to do an “Alternative Berlin” tour where they show you graffiti, Berlin art, take to you bars and maybe even a “beach rave”. However, we decided maybe 6 hours was too long to endure that kinda thing and wandered through some markets we spotted from the train. They were filled with all sorts of crazy stuff. A lot of random antique items varying from cutlery, jewellery, statues. We tried on some novelty pairs of retro sunnies but resisted the temptation to buy them haha.

The next day we decided to do the “New Europe” free walking tour because there is only so many times you can see their copious amounts of red flyers EVERYWHERE and not attend the tour. The only places we ended up seeing in central Berlin besides the train station were those of this tour. One of the highlights of the tour was walking through the Holocaust Memorial because and hearing about why it was so controversial. As you walk through the memorial the path slopes up and down, which makes the memorial cast shadows upon itself and it even changes the way everything around you sounds. Apparently people said it was too “arty” rather than a memorial but it has to be the most moving memorial I’ve ever seen. One controversial fact our guide Lewis told us about it is that the paint they use to keep graffiti off it is made by the same company that produced the gas that filled the gas chambers in the concentration camps. The company didn’t intentionally make the gas for that reason though and donates the paint for free to the memorial. We went to Hitler’s Bunker which is just a car park now with nothing around to make reference of the past. Two lines run throughout the city to signify where the Berlin Wall was but you would never know what they were unless someone told you. The tour ends up at Museum Island and nearby there is a pretty park and what looks like lots of good places to go out but we decided to spend our money on a yummy Italian meal of risotto and cannelloni instead. It was worth it!

P.s: We totally saw the hotel Michael Jackson held his baby out of, woo.

I’m not sure whether I have gotten across what I wanted to say about Berlin very well, I sure am sick of writing these blogs but I know it’ll be good for us to look back on. Anyways, I loved Berlin and I think I could live there from what I saw of it. It’s a big city and it moves FAST. I doubt there is ever a dull moment there. History normally BORES me but walking through the city makes you curious of the past. Plus, party party party. Yay 😊

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Comments

[Berliner]

thumbs up for your blog, it is so different from many other blogs here. You discovered a part of the real Berlin away from the tourist spots!