The End of the Line

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Okay, so first we'll answer the obvious question: why are we in Berlin for 6 days after racing around the rest of the continent? Because we can! Seriously, our intent was to spend 4 nights here and then move onto Hamburg for another 2. However, there is some sort of conference being held in Hamburg and every hostel was fully booked more than a week in advance. Thus, we opted to spend the rest of our trip in beautiful Berlin, and luckily there has been more than enough to do here.

On our first full day here, we joined up with the free walking tour for an overview of the city and its history. We went with the same tour group that took us around in Munich and Paris, and again it was excellent. Highlights included the Jewish Holocaust memorial which is made up of hundreds of rectangular cement blocks, Hitler's bunker (now just a car park area where people let their dogs do their business), Checkpoint Charlie, the site of the book burning, and of course the big tourist draw: the hotel balcony where Michael Jackson dangled his kid. It snowed on and off throughout the day which was both pretty and COLD. That evening we hung out in the Wombats hostel bar which is on the roof level and has nice views.

The next day we took the "alternative Berlin" walking tour, put on by a different company. The idea behind this tour is to see the underground of the city. We saw impressive street art, cool second hand stores, tasty and cheap restaurants and a big decrepit building called Tacheles. From the outside if looks like an earthquake hazard. Inside many talented artists have galleries and studios! We also visited a cool indoor skate park with a climbing wall outside (converted from an old water tower). To finish up the tour we visited the Berlin set of the tv show "Westcoast Customs". Its a show on TLC that is similar to Pimp My Ride. That night we ended up playing some beer pong at the hostel bar with some friends.

On day 3 we set out to see the city by ourselves. We first went to the Reichstag building (Parliament), which is free to get into. Unfortunately, free places usually have huge lines. Sure enough, we waited almost an hour to get in, and had to go through a boring security check where they stared suspiciously at Teija's hand sanitizer. The building was really cool though because part of it is a huge glass bubble on the top that you can walk to the top of. The views of the city were pretty sweet. More interesting is that the public can look down on the German government going about their work (we saw the German leader Angela Merkel (sp?)). Next we went back to the Holocaust memorial and visited the (Free) exhibit underneath it dedicated to retelling the stories of Jewish Holocaust survivors and victims. It was very sad but well done. Following that we went to the Topography of Terror exhibit, and outdoor show on the former site of the SS building, now divided by the remains of the Berlin Wall. We briefly visited Checkpoint Charlie again but were disappointed to find that they were selling small chips of the wall for 20 Euros. We finished off the afternoon with a visit to the East Side Gallery, a section of the wall that has remained standing and been painted by different artists. A lot of the work has been graffittied over, but it was fun to see. That evening we went on a pub crawl that took us to 5 pubs/clubs around Berlin, including one at the slightly sketchy Tacheles. Seriously, it made the Cambie look hygenic.

The next day we slept in, then visited the Pergamonmuseum. It was a very cool museums with many greek and roman artifacts, including full reconstructions of buildings, pillars, altars, etc. They had just opened a new exhibit the previous day, and it showed a collection of art that had been taken by the Soviets years ago and not been shown in Europe since before the Cold War. The show focused on statues of the gods, and it was really interesting. The highlight for tj was a colossal marble foot, I dont know why but he found it amusing. After the museum, we wandered across the street into one of many Christmas markets. German seems to have these markets all over, and in Berlin we have seen at least 10. They are made up of cute little huts decorated in lights and garland, each selling gifts, ornaments or FOOD. We walked through one, buying some gifts for people at home, and then we stumbled upon a big outdoor ice rink built in the middle of Bebelplatz. We couldnt resist, so we rented skates and had a fantastic time on the ice for over an hour. Teija learned how to snow an opposing goaltender! Luckily neither of us fell on our ass. We had a nice dinner at a German restaurant and went to bed early.

On our final day in the city, we awoke to wet, sloppy snow. We braved the weather, however, and went to the Deutsch History Museum. It (obviously) recounted German history from Roman times to the present, with many interesting artifacts displayed. We visited some more Christmas markets and found another ice rink, this one a circular one built around a big fountain. This time we didnt skate, but we did find a few more gifts.

And now the second installment of German Mullet Count: 32 greasy, revolting, unfashionable, and undignified Kentucky waterfalls. So in the narrowest of margins East Germany and Munich prevail in Mullet Count '08.

(ewww)

And thus ends our time in Germany! Tomorrow we are up way too early to catch the 8 hour train back to Copenhagen, and following that we will be heading back to Vancouver. Thanks to everyone who followed along with our blog... we had lots of fun writing it!

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Comments

[Peter Wright]

Tacheles has to be one of the coolest bars out there!!!

[grampa]

very interesting
loved all your entrys BRAVO! BRAVO!