Berlin/ End of Croatia

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Well, I am no longer in Croatia, I am now in Berlin. So let me recap you on the end of Croatia. Basically it was some more of the same in that we had class and then the beach most every day and went into the Old Town often for dinner and nightlife. However, I think we made a large mistake in the time that we left the country. We left on Sunday but most people left on Saturday. That meant that we saw most everyone off, and that was difficult. It may have only been 5 weeks, but you get to know people a lot better there, and meet a ton of new friends. About ½ of our program was from IU and the other ½ was either Croatian students or students from other law schools in the US. I got to know a lot of these people fairly well.
It wasn’t that bad watching the IU kids leave, because you say, ‘see you in 2 weeks’ when classes start up again. It was more difficult with the people from other US universities, but some of us had made some plans to get together in the future. What was truly difficult was saying goodbye to the Croatian students, because the idea enters your brain that this may be the last time you ever see these people. Even though it was only 5 weeks, I got to know them really well and I just fell in love with the people and the country. So that’s something that is still weighing heavy on the mind and Saturday night and Sunday was a good bit depressing.
But you gotta keep moving, and we went on down to the airport at 5 am to catch our flight to Zagreb, and then to Berlin. Well, we arrive in Zagreb about 7am, but our next flight was at noon, so we sat around for quite some time. After arriving in Berlin, we got an idea for how truly big this city is, because we arrived in the Southeast corner of the city and we had to go to the far West side. The woman at the desk told us we could take about a 50 euro cab or get a 2.80 euro public transit ticket and do it that way… well seemed like a good savings, but it took us 2 hours to get to where we were going. Very exhausting when you are lugging around giant bags. But we got to the hotel and checked in. We were exhausted from the day of travel and I suppose the emotional toll that the last few days had taken on us. We decided to at least make it to 11pm though so we wouldn’t be up too early the next day. Went and had some Italian food and visited the site that we are very close to.
That site is the 1936 Olympic stadium, the site where the Nazi’s put on a show for the world to show their mite, and Jesse Owens came in and won a ton of gold. Sadly, we were not allowed inside the stadium, because it was too late, but we are going back today. We took our photos and walked around a bit, but there will be much more today. We also walked around a local trail here, there are tons of parks and trails all throughout Berlin. Then we headed back to the Italian restaurant to try the local Berliner Weise. Its frankly not very good, but its supposed to be what they are known for. Basically it is a very tart low alcohol wheat beer that they then put a sweet shot of liquor into. They had a red and a green, and both were super sweet and not that good. The waitress asked us why we were drinking these, and we said that we wanted to try the Berlin beer. She laughed and then explained that basically no one drinks the stuff, they just have it for the tourists. She then asked if we think that Berliners eat Berliner Wurst (Berlin sausage), of course our answer is yes. She laughs again… Germans love to mess with people I think because why would you name something after yourself that you refuse to consume… anywho, still worth trying just for the experience, but that will be the last one I will ever have.
We came home and passed out. However, I got an unwelcome surprise in the middle of the night. I was sick as a dog, hot and cold sweat, cramps, I was worried it was the flu. So yesterday, I felt terrible all day. But, that can’t stop me from experiencing the city. We decided to head on down to the city center, with our main goal being to see the Wall and the museum that is involved with it. So we took the train on down and got out. Berlin is easily the windiest city that I have ever seen, sorry Chicago, but you are again the second city. It was kicking up sand and dirt and trash and leaves, made it kinda hard to see and it was pelting us in the legs and arms. But, no biggie, you just soldier on. We walked by the Reichstag and got a few pics there, but our main target was the Wall and the Brandenburg gate. We spent a fair amount of time at the gate (right outside where Reagan made his famous speech about the wall… Mr. Gorbechev, open this gate… Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall.). That was when we noticed a double row of bricks going along everywhere and we figured out that was where the wall used to be. So we did what any goofy kid would do and we walked along the wall. We were heading that way to the museum at checkpoint Charlie anyway, but it would have been easier to get there directly. It was the experience again though, so we walked the long and winding road that the wall was on.
On the way, we run into the Topography of Terror, which was essentially the Nazi underground bunkers that were all throughout Berlin. It did not say if this is where the Soviets claimed that Hitler killed himself, but that is a debated issue to begin with, so I wasn’t too concerned. What is interesting though is that they dug out these bunkers (and actually discovered them) in 1986. The wall was right on top of them. When they built the wall, they had no idea that these were here, but the wall was right on top of them… it just seemed to speak a lot to me about how awful this stretch of land had been. It was very interesting to walk through the bunkers, and they aren’t quite completely dug out yet, they thought they’d have it finished by 2010, but we did see quite a bit.
Then it was on to checkpoint Charlie, which was the main American checkpoint between East and West Berlin and one of the main places where East Berliners and other people in the Communist state snuck into West Berlin, which allowed them to fly out into freedom. There was a fantastic expansive museum there, but unfortunately no pics were allowed. It showed a ton of the creative ways that people snuck out of the communist state as well as the attempts through politics to tear down this monstrosity of human existence.
After the museum, we went down to the sole remaining point of the wall (by the topography of terror), and took a few pics. We then decided that we were going to eat on the Eastern side of the wall. We really wanted to eat at a Russian restaurant, but we could not find one to save our lives. It was basically either traditional German, but much more common was Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese food. We found a steakhouse that sounded great at the time and ate there. Turns out, we were eating at an American chain steakhouse (although a small chain), and it was the best meal I’ve had in quite some time. We headed home after that since I wasn’t feeling great. I feel a bit guilty, as we haven’t been able to experience the Berlin nightlife, but there was no way I was going to be able to last much longer. We got back to the hotel around 1am, because we also did some sightseeing after the meal (Victory Column, WWII memorials, a Soviet WWII memorial on the West side (very strange to see)). A little difficult getting back because the schedule wasn’t correct, but we made it.
And that brings us up to today, we are getting ready for lunch and then to the Olympic Stadium to take a real tour. After that we are going to go back into Berlin center. I wanted to go to a Soviet nuclear bunker that a friend from Croatia emailed me about, however the logistics of getting the 20 miles out of town combined with our limited time is going to make that difficult. There is a display of life inside the iron curtain inside of the city center, which I think we are going to try to go to instead. It features a bunker as well, but the one of the northeast side is the soviet bunker that was meant for the upper echelon in case of nuclear war. Oh well, unfortunate, but there is so much to see in this city, its kinda like DC in that matter, you could spend 2 weeks here and still miss a bunch of sights.
Well, its off for the day, I’ve got some good pics that I’ll be posting probably after I get home because we don’t have internet here, and I’m not sure about our hotel in Frankfurt for the day before we fly out. Looking forward to being home, but it has been a bittersweet trip from this point, because you really start to fall for the people and the countries that you spend some time in. I’ll check back with you sometime soon,
Ryan

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