Berlin

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I arrived in Berlin at 10am on Wednesday. I went to the hostel, dropped my bags and walked straight to the Brandenburg gate. I had lunch and then went on a "free tour" (it's tip based) of Berlin. The tour lasted four and a half hours and I really enjoyed it. The guide was really good and he told us some German history and showed us around former communist East Berlin. I really like Berlin, it has some weird energy. It's so steeped in history. I instantly had the feeling that my four days here will not be nearly enough. We saw the gate, the holocaust memorial in the centre of town, the site of the bunker where Hitler committed suicide, a remaining section of the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie and the main sites in central Berlin like the Berliner Dome, some churches and Humboldt University, where Max Planck and Einstein both studied. That night was the semi-final of Euro 2008, Germany vs Turkey. Someone told me that Berlin has the second highest population of Turks in the world, second only to Istanbul. So it was a big deal. They blocked off a whole park and had big screens all the way through behind the Brandenburg gate. I went down there with a bunch of Americans, but unfortunately they weren't letting anyone else in because it was full. Someone said there were half a million people in there! We went to a nearby car dealership where they had a big screen and a bar set up and watched the rest of the game there. Germany snatched it right in the last minute, 3-2, and the German's were pretty excited. We went down to the gate after and saw hundreds of Germans jumping up and down with flags and singing. In the streets on the way back there were fireworks going off all over the place. It was an experience, a great first night in Berlin.

On Thursday morning I did my laundry. It was very exciting. After that, I headed to the German history museum, which held high expectations. I went in at about 2pm (after sneaking in a Bratwurst), leaving me four hours to visit the museum. I started moving my way through the exhibitions in chronological order, starting from medieval times. I was pretty impressed by all the chain mail and suits of armour, and their evolution through the middle ages. It took me a little over three hours even to reach World War I, so I had to really zip through all of the modern history, including all the Nazi history (the best stuff) and the cold war, which was a crying shame. It was a really good museum though. I have to admit, very tired from the night before, I fell asleep for about fifteen minutes sitting on a bench in front of the lead up to WWI. I woke up to an odd look from one of the curators. Thursday in Berlin has free museums from six until ten, so I thought I would take advantage of that. I went to the Egyptian antiquities museum, which was apparently good, but I have to admit that I find Egyptian vases and carved stones rather boring. I've definitely seen enough of that stuff in the British Museum in London. So I didn't stay very long. Next I went to the German National Gallery, which I quite enjoyed. I saw some Cezanne, Degas, and the sculpture "the thinker" by Rodin. I was still tired and had quite enough of walking around museums after seven straight hours, so I headed back to the hostel at about 9, and stopped for some cheap, dodgy pasta on the way back. I slept quite well that night.

On Friday morning I got up excited about taking the Third Reich walking tour at 1pm and learning about Nazism in Germany. I had breakfast at the hostel and then took the tube to Potsdamer Platz in West Berlin. I went to the Brandenburg gate and walked the 1500 metres down the main strip towards the victory column at the other end, and saw the Otto Bismarck memorial. After that I grabbed a sandwich, ate it amongst the sparrows in the park, and headed back to the Gate for the tour. My tour guide was quite a strange guy, an archaeologist from London, but he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of the period, even if maybe he didn't really like people. There is almost no physical evidence of Nazism in Berlin, most of the buildings have been destroyed. The tour was excellent, and I went away with a better understanding of the period, even if I already knew many of the facts. I was inspired to buy a book called "Night" by Elie Wiesel which was recommended to me by the tour guide. I went in search straight after the tour, but at 5:30 couldn't find an open English bookstore.

I had some dinner and then headed back to the hostel, where I met a couple of Mexican guys whose names I can't pronounce (Geraldo and Daniel - it's harder than you think) who were staying in the same dorm. I had a shower, and then the three of us headed to a pub crawl organised by the tour company. We went to a few bars and had a good night. After the final club, and a few beers, we missed the information on the flier that said the trains run all night on Friday and Saturday, and had the brainwave to walk home from the club. It turne out it was a long way from the hostel... Our hostel was right next to the TV tower, the tallest structure in Berlin, so being able to see that we followed it the whole way, waving a german flag we found and singing.

On Saturday morning I had a good sleep in, and then found a bookstore with a big english section. I found the Elie Wiesel book and decided that I would rather sit there and read it than buy it. So I sat and read and felt sorry for myself for a while due to too many beers the night before. I went back to the tour meeting place at 1pm, met the Mexicans and did a tour about the cold war in Berlin. Our tour guide was not the greatest in the world, but was born on the wrong side of the iron curtain and had some fascinating stories. The east German secret police (The Stassi) at one stage had one informer/ex informer for every 6.5 people! They were so efficient and so ridiculous. What a waste of human talent and energy. It was a great tour. We also learned about the death strip in front of the wall, to prevent the east Berliners from defecting. We learned that most of the successful escape attempts were by guards of the death strip, who had enlisted with the intent of escaping. After that, the mexicans and I and a cool Canadian girl we met on the tour went and had an awesome sushi dinner at a restaurant which was very welcome. We then went back to the centre, I bought the book which I had started reading that morning, and then we all went for beer and icecream.

On Sunday morning, the Mexicans and I went to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on the train, about 45 minutes out of the city in a town called Oranienburg. Sachsenhausen was the first camp and was a model for the ones that came after. The famous "Arbeit Macht Frei" on the gate was first used at Sachsenhausen. It was later used as a Soviet "Special camp"after WWII. It was a chilling experience. It was horrible to see the execution trenches, the gallows and the remains of the gas chamber building. We learned about the medical experiments done on inmates, and the way they were forced to march continuously to test German army boots. It was also interesting to learn about the town, and what the citizens knew about this mysterious walled and secretive place, which was not marked on maps, and the citizens were not allowed to loiter near the walls. I had to rush back to the train to catch my train to Prague. Unfortunately i had failed to take into account the fact that the final of Euro 2008 was that night, and Germany were playing. The train into Berlin was late, because it had to wait a few minutes at each station to fit everyone in, and absolutely crammed. When I finally got to the train station with no time to spare, it was also crammed and I had to fight the crowds to get to my baggage. When I got to the baggage store, there was a huge line, and I had to ask the people at the front to let me go first. They were very nice and restored some of my faith in the German people after seeing what i had that day. I made the train platform with two minutes to spare, and it was a good thing, because the next train was not for seven hours.

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Photos

Me doing my serious face
in front of the Berlin wall

The transport ministry
Which organised the transportation to concentration and extermination camps in WWII.

Hitler's marble
A tube station built from the marble from Hitler's enormous chancellory.