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Published: April 4th 2008
Reichstag
notice the line of people outside - they're waiting to get into the dome!Guten Tag meine Damen und Herren,
So, the first of my many planned trips around Europe this year was to Berlin on the Easter long weekend. I headed over there with an Austrian friend, although she was in Hamburg for half the time we were there.
Despite my previous disinterest in anything German, I really enjoyed being there, much more than I had expected I would. My first impression of Germany, as we were travelling from Prague to Berlin on the train, was that it looks just like a more upmarket version of the Czech Republic! The buildings and cities looked pretty much the same, but they’re just looked after much better. Although we were travelling through East Germany, apparently it’s different in West Germany.
I pretty much spent my weekend being the stereotypical tourist in Berlin and checking out all the must see sights related to the war and the east-west separation of Berlin. It was pretty amazing to think that I was actually in the place where so many significant and incredible historic events had happened. I’d learnt so much about it at school but it was completely different actually being there and being able to
see everything myself.
First stop when we arrived in Berlin was a trip to the Reichstag (parliament) and Germany’s most famous symbol, the Brandenburg Gate. Both were very impressive structures. After that we headed over to the recently created Holocaust Memorial. When we first got there I was really confused about what it was, as there are no signs or information about what it actually is. I thought it looked boring and stupid because it’s just a huge square filled with big, grey concrete blocks. However, when we actually walked through it, it was completely different. The ground is really undulating and quite steep in some places and the further you get into the square, the higher and more imposing the concrete blocks become. It was completely disorientating and unsettling because you couldn’t see anything but huge concrete blocks and it was really easy to lose people in there.
The next day I went on a tour of the city, went to some awesome places and learnt some interesting things. We were taken to the site of Hitler’s bunker, which is now a grassed area and carpark for apartment blocks. As well as that, it’s a site that
every year gets inundated with dog owners who take their dogs there to go to the toilet! Ha-ha. A nice final act of indignity. I also found out that Hitler committed suicide on my birthday! An interesting and very gratifying piece of information that I didn’t know. It’s interesting actually, that my birthday is a significant day in many countries. In Vietnam it’s Independence Day, in Sweden it’s the king’s birthday and they have bonfires for Valborg, in Denmark it’s the queen mother’s birthday, in the Czech Republic they have big bonfires to celebrate the coming of spring…
A not to be missed destination in Berlin, of course, is the Berlin Wall, or what little remains of it. There a few sections of it still left in the city, as well as a brick path that shows exactly where it once stood. The East Side Gallery is the longest section of the wall that is left and the whole thing is covered in art works that have some relation to the wall. Another fascinating thing I learnt was that the wall was never actually meant to come down when it did, it was a mistake! Travel restrictions between East
Brandenburg Gate
this one's for Dad :) and West Berlin were to be relaxed but the information wasn’t made clear and East Berliners were basically told that all travel restrictions were to be lifted. Thousands of people turned up at the wall wanting to cross it and no-one really knew what was going on so they were allowed to cross to West Berlin. Imagine being the person who made that mistake!
While I was in Berlin I spent most of my time in the eastern part of the city. I found it much more interesting and beautiful than the western side. The western side was really modern but I found it quite ugly, with glass and metal buildings, and it had no character. The eastern side may have been old and pretty run down in some areas, but I thought it was beautiful and it had a lot of character. Most of the interesting historical sites are also located in the eastern part of the city and that’s what I was most interested in seeing while I was there.
I spent Easter Sunday in the small town of Potsdam, just outside Berlin. It’s the place where all the German royalty and important people used to
Brandenburg Gate
take note of the "statue" man live, so there are a lot of palaces and impressive buildings there. I went on a tour and got shown around the town and learnt a bit of its history. We went to the building where the Potsdam conference was held after WWII to decide how Germany would be controlled and divided. There was an interesting story of how the leaders from the Soviet Union, Britain and USA each had different entrances into the building so that none of them could walk in before the others. However, at the British entrance, Stalin had red flowers planted in the shape of a star out the front, just to show them who was boss! As the river at Potsdam was the border of West Berlin and East Germany, there was a bridge there where spy exchanges happened during the Cold War. The border ran through the middle of the bridge, and the East German side was much brighter and cleaner so that they could show that they were more prosperous than West Germany because they could afford to paint and clean the bridge more often!
There were a lot of tourists in Berlin, and I noticed a huge amount of Australian
Potsdamer Platz
parts of the Berlin Wall. also notice the driver of the car! tourists! When I went on the city tour on the Saturday, there was a girl in my tour group who had been in my chemistry class at university in Melbourne! Small world, huh? And where there are tourists, there are tourist shops. Hundreds of them, all selling the same things… And in Berlin, one of the dominant souvenirs is anything with Ampelmann on it. Ampelmann is the little guy on the pedestrian traffic lights in East Berlin. Because he was so distinctive and different to normal pedestrian symbols, he became a symbol of East Berlin and East Germany. When the wall came down, there were efforts made to get rid of all the Ampelmann lights so that another reminder of East Berlin and communism could be erased. But, he triumphed and has now become a firm part of the capitalist tourist market!
Funnily enough, I actually felt more comfortable with Germany and the German language than I do here in the Czech Republic. There were a surprising amount of similarities between Swedish and German so I managed to understand quite a lot of German, which was pretty pleasing! A lot of the time when I would go into a
Rainbow Bear
I found my bear! shop or restaurant or anything like that, I would greet the people first in German but then obviously have to change to English to say what I wanted. Most people in Germany speak pretty good English so they would generally answer me in English, but from then on, after that first reply, for some strange reason, the majority of people would speak to me in German! It’s like they had the memory of a goldfish or something, that they had forgotten that I even spoke to them in English. The first time it happened I dismissed it but then it just kept on happening, it was really strange… Luckily I managed to work out what they were saying each time!
In typical Kimberley style, I nearly ended up staying in Berlin an extra day because I almost missed my train back to Prague! As much as I like Berlin and would’ve liked to have stayed longer, missing my train would not have been good. The train ended up leaving 3 minutes late and I got there 2 minutes before it left, so do the maths… But all ended well and I was safely on my way back to Prague,
Church in West Berlin
a bombed out remnant of the war in first class! We managed to get return tickets for first class cheaper than the cost of a second class return ticket, so I was travelling in style. First time I’ve ever travelled first class! Then it was back to Prague and having to adjust back to the Czech language and Czech people and face reality in the form of a huge pile of uni work…
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anonymous
non-member comment
I knew you´d like it!!!Germany isn´t that bad,huh?Apart from the fact that you had to deal with goldfish...