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Published: March 27th 2010
Berlin street art
There was lots of this. Lucy and her cat are at the top. Read on to find out what I'm on about.So, the journey began. In practice in bristol but in earnest in London, where, after my delightful mother bought me lunch and fussed over me slightly, I took a eurostar to Paris Gare du Nord. This journey was unremarkable, I was surrounded by smart English businessmen and immaculately dressed everyday French people, to be honest, I fell asleep for most of it. In Paris I just had the quick walk over to Gare de lEst. It was when I tried to ask a passerby "ou est le gare de lest" and was greeted by a blank stare that I realized my French wasn't even slightly passable. Luckily all I was doing was changing trains.
The sleeper train from Paris to Berlin was small and dark, and everyone
The Holocaust Memorial, Berlin
An entirely un-plaqued memorial to the victims of the holocaust around me seemed fluent in both French and German, which made me feel rather inadequate. I think maybe I was a bit tired and grumpy by this point but it was nice to fall asleep to the French countryside rushing by.
When I woke up I was in the the endless suburbs of Berlin (my guide book tells me that Berlin is 8 times the size of Paris). I found my hostel really easily despite the fact it is on the third floor of an entirely unmarked building. Hostel Aloha is a small colourful and friendly place. There is free breakfast until lunch time and everyone seems to speak English. I was the first to arrive but by the evening it was full, I guess for the weekend, despite the fact it was Thursday! Berlin is not a sleepy place and seems to attract a constant mass of partying people!
That first day I went on a free walking history tour with a girl from my hostel. The tour was by a company called new europe. It was good, four hours of Berlin history and sightseeing, in English with a guide about my age. Considering I knew nothing
East Berlin balcony
A balcony in one of the soviet apartment blocks visible to west Berlin, overlooking the carpark under which Hitler died. about Berlin it seemed a good place to start. We left from the brandenbourg gate, which has gone from a lonely monument in the death strip by the wall to tourist hub, surrounded by embassies and memorials and the hotel balcony from which Micheal Jackson famously dangled his child and wandered the modern streets of Berlin, past the holocaust memorial and segments of the wall. Berlin seems to have a lot of recent history. The mess of the Nazis and WWII is mainly only visible in memorials. 90% of Berlin was obliterated in the war so the city is an odd mix of 70 and 80s high-rise flats and cutting edge modern architecture. The bunker in which Hitler died is marked by a rubbish strewn car park. One of the few building to survive was the Nazi RAF building, which now functions, rather ironically, as the German tax office. There is also a slightly weird type of regeneration going on. Apparently in WWII Hitler hid most of the statues from the old buildings in underground bunkers. Now the old buildings are all being rebuilt in there original style and the statues are being reinstated. So there are lots of "historical"
Sightseeing at the wall
A portion of the wall that is still standing next to the nazi airforce building buildings looking rather new and shiny. The next plan is to rebuild the old prussian place in the lustgarten, a massive project that is due to cost billions.
The scar of the wall is interestingly apparent as although its hard to tell whether you are in east or west Berlin at any given point, there are clues in the buildings and in the monuments and the city does have a bit of a gritty, recent turmoil, feel. Yesterday I went on another free tour, this time an "alternative" Berlin tour starting from the starbucks by the famous and easily locatable TV tower. Our guides were Mark, a flip flop wearing 30 year old London film editor turned Berlin street artist, and pitou, his dog. This tour was slightly different to the one the day before and focused on Berlin since the fall of the wall in 1989. The most interesting part was probably about the street art. He pointed out specific artist (which Ive since been noticing around the city). One took his inspration from a european cartoon about a girl called lucy and her pet cat. Berlin is strewn with images of lucy killing her cat in numerous
Renovations
Berlin has a bit of a thing for these. different ways. Another I liked was the number 6 series. Apparently in german exam grading, 6 is a fail. This artist spends his time going around painting the simple slogan "6"on anything that he feels is not supposed to be there, so a bit of cardboard on the side of a wall, might have a 6 on it, a lump of concrete in a park, some rubbish, a falling down building. Berlin is a clean but rubbley city, there are sixes everywhere, literally thousands!
Mark also took us to some of the cool community projects that have arisen in the reunification process, one a bombed out train depot is now the site of a massive skate park and climbing wall as well as lots of little other projects. We also went to Yamm, a Caribbean beach on the banks of the river just behind a still standing segment of the wall and saw a particularly interesting house owned by a turkish man called Mustaff. The story goes that when the wall was torn down this guy decided to build a house for his family in the area that was the death strip, he salvaged wood and furniture from the
a pretend old building
...but the statues are original. surrounding area and built a house. At this point east and west was merging and the area around the wall was being developed. In lots of places wide boulevards were being built and that is what the authorities wanted to do where Mustaff had built his house. They tried to get him to leave but he refused and ended fencing off more land for a vegetable garden and concreting all his furniture to the floor! In the end the problem was solved by thee massive church next door, which saw Mustaffs plight and looking back at its records said the land was church land and that he could stay for as long as he liked! He is still there, the road built around him, and when we walked past was sat happily on a sofa outside his front porch at a table concreted to the pavement.
The final stop of the tour that I will mention was an art project where I spent most of the rest of the day. I still need to look on a map where it was but it was amazing, an old crumbling building in prime real estate country, which houses one of the
Empty shelves
The square is surrounded by academic buildings and iswhere the famous book burnings occurred. It is is now marked with this underground memorial- a room of empty shelves. first joint ventures between east and west German artist. Outside is a sculpture garden, but not Henry Moore. This is mainly metal work, wierd twisted animals which rise out of the shadows and shacks with walls hung with punk art. Inside, the whole place is covered in graffitti and posters and the winding stairwells lead to a maze of galleries and bars which you can literally get lost in. There were jewlers and jazz bands, a techno club, which apparently didnt kick off till about 2am, and a lot of people who looked a bit too cool! I explored this with a group of North Americans who I met on the tour and we managed to stay for most of the evening having a quick break in a French cafe down the road for food. The evening finished with a trip to another gritty bar, where a Japanese man was playing rather dull atmospheric electric guitar.
Today I am going back to old Berlin, probably with a trip to the jewish museum and maybe a visit to another bit of the wall. Tomorrow I am getting the train through Poland and Belarus to St Petersburg, hopefully arriving on the
30th to a hostel I will book today.
Its funny, Berlin is an easy place to travel in, it actually feels quite like bristol in its slightly grungy arty ambiance. Its odd to think that each time I get on a train I am going into more and more unfamiliar territory. It feels like such a long time since I left but it was only a few days ago.
Until next time.
tx
Travel info:
Trains:
London-Berlin by Eurostar, leaving London St Pancras at 15:02 arriving Paris Gare du Nord at 18:17. Paris-Berlin by the City Night Line sleeper train 'Perseus', leaving Paris Gare de l'Est (walking distance from the Gare du Nord) at 20:20 and arriving at Berlin Hauptbahnhof at 08:59 next morning.
I booked these tickets through http://www.europeanrail.com/ which worked out about 200GBP for 2nd class eurostar and 6 bunk couchette (a bed in a six bunk compartment) to Berlin.
See this website for my inspiration http://www.seat61.com/Germany.htm
Accomodation:
Hostel Aloha- More like staying in someone's flat than staying in a hostel, this was a friendly place with a decent free breakfast and cooking facilities. Near Rosa-Luxembourg platz metro station, it was nice and accessible. Hostel Aloha
The not very well labelled door of the lovely Hostel Aloha, at number 60 Torstrasse. Dorms from 9 Euro.
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Mummy
non-member comment
It has changed a bit since '69!
like magic to get your comments hot off the press - mine took weeks to get home but I did see the first moonwalk (on TV) and went to an anniversary reunion of relatives of those involved in plot to assassinate Hitler - I must see how many of my old letters survive..I feel like I am redoing my trip, very strange! lots of love,your delightfully fussy mummy xx