The Berlin Experience!

Hi everyone! I am writing to you from somewhere in the middle of Germany! I am currently on a train headed back to Lux from Berlin. It is about a 7-8 hour train ride, so I figured I would be productive and start working on this (I could also study for my test that is tomorrow, but blogging sounds far more fun…)

I just want to start by saying that Berlin is very hard to characterize or compare to other cities. I can honestly say it is unlike anyplace I have ever been. It is not romantic like Paris, or beautiful like Rome, or charming like Luxembourg city. It is actually really ugly and a little dirty. But it is also incredibly interesting, and very very alive. I know that is a kind of stange word to describe a city, but that is the vibe I got. Berlin felt like it was emerging, and just full of people and craziness. Although it wasn’t my favorite city that I have seen yet (Paris and Rome are pretty darn hard to top), I am so glad I went and experienced it. It was just so different, and refreshing really. It wasn’t my favorite city, but it was one of my favorite weekends of traveling if that makes sense.

But to start off the story, we begin on Friday. After classes we ate a quick lunch at the Chateau and caught the 1 o’clock train to Lux City. I just want to mention that we rode the train with Peggy, my museums teacher who is awesome, and she complimented my packing skills- she couldn’t believe all my weekend stuff was in my one small backpack. When I told her I used it for an entire week at carnival, she was even more impressed. I can’t believe I have become so efficient! I swear, it is the backpack, which has earned the well deserved name “the magic backpack” from my friends (kind of like the magic school bus). Anyway, we arrived in the city and caught the 2:24 train to Berlin. We only had to transfer once (in Cologne) and it was really easy. I spent the train ride talking to my friends, doing some studying, listening to music, and watching part of a movie (The Prince and Me, a really random movie that happened to be in my computer on accident- I watched it on Tuesday when I was sick). Overall, the ride really wasn’t bad. I was with Kelly, Margaret, and Allie- the three girls I went to Italy with and have been traveling with- as well as my roommate Ali, who we had invited along. There was actually a whole group of other Miami students going to Berlin this weekend, so we hung out with them some too. Towards the end of our train ride, we had some wine, in anticipation of going out and joining Berlin’s supposedly crazy nightlife when we arrived. In the end though, by the time we found and checked into our hostel, it was close to 11:30 and the wine and long day of travel had made us exhausted. We decided to go to bed so we could wake up early and have a full day and be able to go out the next night! Before bed we had some funny talks about old PBS shows (I think because the magic backpack got us thinking) and I told my friends a funny bedtime story about a porcupine named Bertha. I promise I had not drank too much, I was just in a loopy, tired, silly mood.

The next morning, we stuck to our word and woke up EARLY! No joke, we got up at 6! We really wanted to visit the top of Reichstag building, and we had heard the line was really long all day, so we wanted to arrive right when it opened at 8am. We were a little tired still, but thankfully we had decided to rest up the night before. We made our goal though, and after a quick breakfast stop at Dunkin Donuts (Germans really like American stuff and there are tons of DD’s, Starbucks, McDonalds and Burger Kings all over Berlin), we made it to the Reichstag at about 8:15. We only had to wait in a 10 minute or so line and go through security, and then we went up in an elevator to the glass dome structure at the top. Just some history for you, the Reichstag building houses the German Parliament or the Bundenstag. The outside of the building looks as it did during the Weimar Republic (the democratic state in Germany after WWI until Jan 1933 when Hitler came to power), but has recently been recreated inside and with this really cool glass dome thing but the architect Norman Foster. The original Reichstag burnt down (there is suspicion that it was done by Nazis) right after Hilter came to power and he blamed it on a Communist conspiracy that he then manipulated to gain unlimited dictatorial powers from the aging President Hindenburg. Hitler hated the Reichstag’s liberal and democratic spirit, and actually never set foot in the building. After WWII when Germany was divided, the building was not used because the Western Republic had their capital city in Bonn and parliament operated from there. With unification, the capital was moved back to Berlin and in 1999 the Reichstag, with the help of Norman Foster’s amazing architecture, was reopened for business. It really is a neat building and the architecture is symbolic of this long and difficult history as well as a bright, hopeful future. There is a walkway in the dome that curves around up several levels and we walked along that with the free audio guides. The man on the recorder guided your tour, and told you where to stop in order to get the best views of the city. He pointed out what a ton of buildings were, and it was really useful to help understand and get oriented in the city. At the top, you could see all the city, and even though it was freezing, we stayed up and enjoyed the view for a few minutes before heading back down. We were so glad we got up early and were able to visit the Reichstag, it was a really cool building and I loved learning all the history. I feel like I am doing a bad job explaining the architecture, so google a picture so you can know what I am talking about!

We had planned on going on a free tour of the city that was offered at 11 after the Reichstag and we were so on top of things that we were early! We had about an hour to kill and spent it walking down the main road that runs through the Brandenburg Gate and is modeled after the Champs D’Elysee in Paris (it is nice but nothing can top Champs D’Elysee for me J). We did a little bit of shopping, which included a visit to my new favorite store Zara and also a souvenir shop where I bought an extra pair of socks because my feet were frozen and I knew they wouldn’t last on the 3+ hour walking tour haha! At eleven, we met the tour which was run by New Europe, the same company who had run our tours in Paris, and was really great. We got in a group led by an Irishman named Brian who was very knowledgeable about the city and also funny. In a random twist, while we were waiting to be sorted into groups I saw a guy wearing a UVA beenie hat, and I decided to ask him if he went to Virginia! Turns out he- and his friend do- and are in my grade! They ended up being in our same group and so I talked to them a little bit about good old Charlottesville! What a small world! They were a little awk so didn’t become best pals, but it was cool to talk to someone from UVA nonetheless! But anyway, the walking tour was really informative and we were able to see all the main sites in the city. We started with the Brandenburg Gate, the main symbol of Berlin and one of the only buildings not destroyed in WWII- 90% of the city has been rebuilt since 1945, how crazy is that?! The gate was built in 1791 before German unification as a symbol of Prussia, the militarily strong state that Berlin was the capital of for hundreds of years. We stopped by the Reichstag’s exterior- which at this point had a huge line outside- and heard Brian’s take of the history. Then we saw the Memorial to the Victims of Holocaust which is right near by. It is very modernist and open to interpretation, essentially it is just a huge maze of concrete columns of varying heights. You can walk in between, and you almost get lost wandering through. We had some time to go off by ourselves, and it was pretty emotional. I really like this kind of monument that is thought provoking and engaging rather than just a traditional statue or something that tells you exactly what and how to remember. The museum we went to later was a lot like this as well, but more on that later. Then we walked over what used to be the Bunker where Hitler hid out for the last months of the war and committed suicide in. It is just a regular parking lot now, but it felt so strange to be in a place where Hitler lived and died. Then we saw the only remaining Nazi building in Berlin, which housed the flight department. The architecture was very intimidating, and tried to present a strong, threatening image. There was a communist mural on the building that had been put up in the 1960s which was also interesting (we were in East Berlin). It portrayed communisim in the best possible light, celebrating equality and hard work in a very simple way. I don’t think communism was really like this obviously, but it was cool to see.

Ok- running out of battery on this train, but Ill finish tomorrow!

Hi! I am back. To resume…. From the Nazi building, we walked more throughout East Berlin. We saw another segment of the wall and our tour guide told us stories about people who tried to cross the wall and escape to the West. My favorite one was about a pair of lovers, the man had an very clever plan to sneak his girlfriend back and it worked temporarily, but in the end he got caught and had to spend 2 years in jail. Most of the stories ended with people being caught, it was very, very hard to get away with trespassing to the other side. I cannot imagine living in a city that was so split in half, and it is so amazing to me that it was in my lifetime (or just before it). Berlin is full of such interesting and recent history, it is mind boggling. After a pit stop for a really good lunch in what we described as a German panera (a salad with tuna and olives may have made an apperance), we walked on to the biggest square in East Berlin which had two enormous churches- one Catholic, one Protestant- and then ended our tour on museum island- which houses 5 very well known art and history galleries. Overall, the tour was great and I feel like I learned a ton. The only downside was that it was freezing, Kelly called Berlin “Brrrlin” and man was she right! By the end we all needed to go inside, so we warmed up with some hot tea in a little café. Then we headed to another neighborhood to go the Jewish History Museum.

Ever since last semester I had been wanting to go to this place. I wrote a paper last semester for my DMP class comparing different historical treatments of Holocaust Memory, and one focused on modern and postmodern monuments and museums devoted to the topic. I read a whole chapter about the Jewish museum in Berlin to which an additional wing was added on in 2005 by architect Daniel Libeskin. It was quite controversial when first built and really challenges visitors. None of the walls in the building, except for one outdoor room- the garden of exile- has straight or parallel walls. I was quite intrigued when I read about it, and when I planned to go to Berlin I knew I wanted to head there. Luckily, my friends were great sports and said they would come along to so we spent a few hours there in the afternoon. It is hard to describe what it was like, part of it was a pretty “regular” museum (although it was quite interactive and very well done) while the new portion was very odd and thought provoking. I really liked the way it presented the information though, the section on the Holocaust left you feeling both overwhelmed and extremely sad, but also made you question a lot of things and really wonder what it was like to be there. One part, the Holocaust tower, was just a huge outdoor space with enormous concrete walls and only a tiny slit for narrow light. It was quiet and made you reflect and think. The combination of my museums class, my history class, and my paper last semester made the museum especially relevant for me, and I really enjoyed going.

I know above sounds depressing, but after the museum we did something that was really fun and cheered us up a great deal! My friend Allie had a friend who lives in Berlin and we met her for dinner! She suggested her favorite Mexican restaurant that was in the center of the city and we had a ton of fun talking to her and enjoying delicious food. She was an exchange student at Allie’s high school for a year back in the day, and they hadn’t seen each other for 4 years! I know Allie loved seeing her, and it was really fun to talk to a local. She is actually studying to be a vet in Munich, but had a little break and was home in Berlin. I know Mexican in Berlin sounds random, but the food was great and the atmosphere as well- it was packed with locals.

After dinner and a margarita, we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night out. At this point, we met our 6^th roommate in the hostel, a guy named Mark, who funnily enough was from Ohio (where all my friends go to school). He kind of walked in at an awkward moment, I had literally just begun changing and had said I really hope our random roommate does not walk in when the door handle began to turn! I bolted to the bathroom just in time, and he was greeted with a room of 4 girls laughing hysterically. He was really nice and had just graduated from Ohio State and was doing some traveling. After quick naps and getting ready (Mark left so the room was clear), we headed up to the Hostel Bar to get our free drink that we received for staying there. We had heard that Berlin had wild and crazy nightlife, and we were not disappointed! That night was a blast. We met some boys at the bar who went to Virginia Tech (crazy how many people we met from our homes that weekend), and went to a club with them later on. It was a huge place called Club Soda (get it?) that was in an old converted factory and had about 6 dance floors, each with a different type of music! We literally danced all night and had so much fun. We stayed out very, very late, but it was worth it. My guidebook said “Berlin is bigger than Paris, up later than New York, and wilder than Amsterdamn” and I would have to agree with that statement! Berliners know how to party!

The next morning, we slept in a little later and enjoyed breakfast at the hotel after we slooowly getting our selves moving and packed. Our train was at 1:48 so we didn’t have a ton of time, but decided to hit up a flea market that had gotten rave reviews in a few of our guidebooks. It was really cool and a great way to spend the couple of hours we had. There were booths selling everything from handmade jewelry to vintage clothes, to random knickknacks, and we just browsed. I picked up a really unique scarf for only a few euro and also bought a thing of hummus (woo hoo!!) from a homemade food stand (sidenote- I just ate a hummus and cheese and veggie sandwich for dinner and it was awesome!) I also got a piece of apple steuseul from a vendor that was delicious. We got to see the bohemian, alternative side of Berlin which makes it really edgy so that was cool. The market actually reminded me of a similar thing I went to in Portland, Oregon a few years ago with my friend- Portland is the only place I have been with a vibe sort of like Berlins!

We caught our train back at 1:48 and after many, many hours we made it back to Lux around 11. There were some problems and we had to switch more than expected, but it was ok. It was most definitely a long train ride and I would not recommend such a far distance every weekend, but it was doable once and I am so glad I got to visit Berlin. On the train, I studied some for my midterm that was today and got a few more hours of sleep. Today, (Monday) was a pretty good day and my test went well I think. I am trying to figure out some travel plans which is a little stressful- turns out all the Parisians go to the South of France for Easter and train tickets are booked and pricey, but otherwise I am doing good. I got to skype the BF Kyle for a good amount of time today, and it was nice to see his face since we hadn’t in awhile. Upcoming events for this week include a Harry Potter night at the chateau (so excited), a cooking class Thursday night in Lux City, and flying to Dublin on Friday! I am so excited, I am meeting my friend Clare from UVA there and it will be great to see her! I am slightly nervous to travel alone to get there, but I know it will be fine. I will keep you all updated!! Hope everyone is having a good week.
Thanks for reading!

Care