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Published: January 8th 2010
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Well folks I spent 5 days in Berlin having the most revealing history lesson on the 20th Century. To be there and to see first hand what this City went through is unbelievable.
Berlin is a city whereby the taxis are all new Mercedes Benz, the buildings seem to have been designed by Stalin’s personal architect, matter of fact I think he had a hand in Canberra to...........everything is such on a grand scale. The boulevards are massive, as too are the simple cold Stalinist looking box shaped buildings which Le Corbusier would of loved and then there is the unbelievable history of the city. Londons’ Tube map looked like spaghetti with bolognaise well Berlin S and U Bahn map looks like spaghetti with Mayonnaise!..still didn’t master it after 5 days.
Before I get started has there been a dip in the population census in Oz because there appeared to be half of Australia’s Generation X,Y and Z over here in Berlin. Don’t people spend time at home during xmas and NY’s if you’re thinking yes what about me well I’m exempt as technically Im a babyboomer)
If Berlin wasn’t blown into oblivion and into the stone age during
the wars and wasn’t run by despots, dictators or puppet regimes the country would already be one of the world’s if not the leading country on this planet by a country mile. Interesting observation and ironic that all the western worlds embassies are all located in East Berlin!
Did the walking tour and visited the Brandenburg Gate the gateway to the city and the centre of the fall of the wall ‘celebrations’. Moving onto to the Memorial to the European Jews very abstract but moving. The memorial just happens to be around the corner from a carpark which was the fuehrer bunker and last resting place of Hitler where he chickened out and suicided with his bent wife Eva Braun, and yes fittingly the locals do take their dogs there to shit all over the site. Moving onto the Luftwaffe building and another piece of the wall still intact and the Topographie of Terrors (SS headquarters) and then onto Check point Hollywood I mean Charlie very commercialised and disappointing). Waiting 2 hours in minus degrees temperature to get into the Riechstag (Parliament House) just to go around the unique and impressive dome roof which overlooks the politicians chamber...I suppose
one good thing they can’t fall asleep without been seen.
One good point at CPC was Cafe Arome without a doubt the best hot chocolate in the WORLD! Not to be missed when you in the neighbourhood.
Berlin has the unquestionably the best Christmas Markets, there is nothing it like full stop. Just loved the ski slope in the middle of the CBD in Posterdam Platz, I wish the space cadets were still with me for a ski!
The country doesn’t promote the Nazi era extensively and after being bomber to smithereens there is not much of that era around. In regard to the wall and division of the city during the cold war there is plenty to see, life must of been suffocating for the East Berliners and there are memorials to people who lost their lives trying to cross no man’s land and the wall....unbelievable.
Subsequently it was pleasant to go through the exhibition on the fall of the Wall in 1989. Those activists between 1961 and 1989 were very brave, once again we could not appreciate what the people went through. I think its quite interesting how the city has paved the path of
the wall around the city...If you want some exercise you can follow the 155km track around one afternoon.
More chilling was visiting the Sachenhausen concentration Camp. 5 hours in that place was enough for me. These Nazi’s were absolute psychos and had every known method of killing people you can think off. I went into the actual prison block (as opposed to the barracks) and it was the coldest building I have ever been in. If the inhumanity didn’t kill you the cold weather in the middle of winter would have done so no question. How man can treat and do that to another man is horrible and I agree we should never forget what man is capable off.
To put the icing on the cake the Russians used Sachenhausen camp for their political prisoners after the war, but were kind enough to set up memorials to those that lost their lives at the hands of the Nazi’s....wtf! Took plenty of depressing pics to show everyone ust to grasp the enormity of the horror.
Berlin has it own quirky things like all these bright painted bears everywhere, a world famous chocolate shop which supplies to the royal
Household and it has on display the biggest chocolate statues, buildings, even the Titanic. Also outside the Humbolt University where Einstien, Marx and Oscar Wilde studied was the underground memorial of empty bookcases depicting the burning of the books saga during the Nazi era......My favorite the DC 3 aeroplane hanging on the outside of the roof of the Science Museum...you know how big these &*%$#'s are!
I can go on and on but like everyone I have spoken to get to Berlin one day and experience the history for yourselves. I notice with all the people I mix with here at hostels they have all done Berlin, top City in a different way from Rome, Paris, Athens, Honkers etc......ooops sorry Im bragging!
To the local cuisine managed some time to have a bratwurst at one of the Christmas markets but didn’t try the ½ metre long bratwurst yes ½ metre long hotdog! (I didn’t want to look like a piggy! Now if I had a nice frauline starting at one end and me at the other that would be a different story) Also I think I have been converted to mayonnaise on everything and washed down with the
2 for 1 Carlsburg offers. Now what was in those 1 euro shots got no idea it was a Canadian thingy!...There goes the diet anyway.
Street art to some (graffiti to others) is unreal, how they get so far up those building is amazing and the East Side Gallery which is a 1.3km part of the wall which is still intact and is used by international artists to ply their talents...really nice works.
So there you have it the best history lesson I have ever had and this short blog doesn’t do the city justice and I believe Berlin is a City everyone should visit at least once in their life time.......but not in winter! Coldest I’ve ever felt...Period!
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