WHAT. A. CITY. BERLIN I LOVE YOU. Tied with Copenhagen, Berlin is my favorite city I've been to this semester!!
Getting here was not easy though, let me tell you. On Thursday morning, Marion got a text saying our direct flight was cancelled. The first day in WEEKS it wasn't raining and was beautiful out...and our flight is cancelled. So Marion's on the phone with someone trying to find another flight while I'm looking up another option (bus, train, another flight, going the next day). Luckily we figure something out: fly to Frankfort, have a short layover, then fly to Berlin. WELL. Our flight to Frankfort gets delayed, we miss our connecting flight, we wait in line forever to get a new flight. Get a new ticket, sprint to the gate, and are some of the last people boarding. Yet throughout all that, I was so calm and just knew everything was going to work out. And it did! We landed much later than we had planned, but we made it!
That night, Marion and I got dinner and walked around a little and saw Checkpoint Charlie. It was pretty lit up at night, but otherwise not that exciting. A funny hostel story though: the 2 of us stayed in an 8-person room, and one of the guys slept in an actual speedo. Like a freaking banana hammock. Also this same guy walked around in just a towel for quite a while...so that was interesting.
On Friday, Marion and I ate at a really good breakfast cafe called Vintage Steel Bikes. Seriously, Marion is a master at finding good breakfast spots. Mackenzie joined us at breakfast to get my room key so she could sleep some (she took a 10.5 hour night bus and got here around 9:45am, bless her soul). So it was mostly Marion and I on our own for the day. We decided renting bikes would be the easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to get around the city - and with is being between 60-65 degrees during our whole visit, it wasn't a bad decision. We rode to the city center first, which is where the TV tower, Alexander Platz, the Jewish Memorial, and the Brandenburg Gate all are. We also ate a bratwurst which was soo good.
Then we rode over to the East Side Gallery. It's a good chunk of the original Berlin Wall (like just under a mile long), but artists have painted over it on the east side. Representing hope for a better future, it's honestly beautiful! But also slightly eerie and crazy to think about - especially in today's time where our president wants to put up a wall between two countries. Kind of a different idea than a wall in one city, but it's still the same general idea and effect.
Afterwards, we went to the Jewish Museum, which was so good. It talked about the past - like during the Holocaust and had artifacts from people - but also talked about how Berlin and Germany and European Jews are affected, even today in the present, and how it's all impacted the city/country/continent. I thought it was super cool how they talked about how the Holocaust still impacts the Jewish community in both Germany and the rest of Europe; sometimes I think it's easy to forget that it happened less than 100 years ago and that it's impact is still playing out in the world today. The 2 exhibits that stood out to me the most were one honoring the Holocaust (see below for a picture), where you could walk across the hall. The sound of walking across metal in a big, echoy area was horrifying - but proved its point. The other exhibit was outside where you walked through a maze on super tilted land - you were constantly bumping into the stone wall - which was suppose to represent how Jewish people felt before, during, and after World War II with everything going on and trying to get a hold on their life.
Also, we saw these pedestrian lights all over the place (pictured below). I had to look it up, but the pedestrian lights that look like this meant we were on the east side of Berlin while the "normal"/usual pedestrian lights meant we were on the west side of the city. This is because the east side had to go through rebuilding after the wall was torn down, including the traffic lights also being replaced. The west side didn't have to go through that much rebuilding, so they left it as is. I thought they were so cute, and a cool way to know what side of the city we were in.
Then Marion and I met back up with Mackenzie for dinner. We went to a really good Vietnam restaurant near our hostel. From there, we walked almost 50 minutes to a bar. The bar was pretty cool with lots of people and outdoor seating and good drinks. It was a nice change from Belgium beer. Then Theresa had flown in around 10pm, so we met up with her a bit later back at the hostel and just hung out in the lobby talking until 1am.
On Saturday, we got breakfast at a cute little pastry type place before going to Altes Museum for a free tour. Our tour guide, Artie, was so cool! He was super into all the history of everything, especially the Cold War, and was able to keep the tour super interesting. Also I got to try currywurst while on the tour, and it was super good.
Some history I learned about Berlin and the Cold War that I remember and thought was super interesting:
The Berlin Wall had "stages" of being built. It started off as kind of barb wire (so it was really easy to escape) before being built into an actual wall with guards everywhere. You'd be instantly killed if you were caught going over the wall. There are some instances of escape though - including one guy flying from one side to the other and back, and one simply using a ladder to get over. But when the wall eventually came down, some East Berliners are actually nostalgic for "the old days" of communism because they were guaranteed a job and a home back then.
During the Berlin Airlift, when the Soviet Union blocked all the entrances into West Berlin, the British and Americans were forced to parachute supplies to their side of the city. The blockade back fired because the west side of the city's living standards actually got better because of the determination of the British and Americans instead of worsening them, which eventually forced Stalin to back down and end the blockade.
Hitler actually didn't like Berlin that much. He didn't spend that much time here. But he had a bunker here and lived here with a full apartment underground and living quarters for a cook and some chosen Nazis. Rumor has it that he married Eva Braun after 8 years of dating to avoid questions of his sexuality (some think he might have been gay). It's still unknown if he and Eva had a child (specifically a daughter) together, but there are also rumors that she exists/existed. His bunker is completely destroyed; it's now a parking lot. Pictured below was the Soviet Union headquarters after the war.
Checkpoint Charlie isn't actually that exciting. It has nothing to do with anyone named Charlie. It's really nicknamed Checkpoint C, but was nicknamed Charlie. It's really an army checkpoint station where the US and Soviet Union sides met up. The 2 guys pictured are the last guards who left once the wall was torn down - one from Britain and one from the Soviet Union. Everything about this 'attraction' is fake and has been rebuilt.
The Jewish Memorial was a super cool concept. It was like a maze with different sized towers/stone and uneven ground. It was kinda similar to the one at the Jewish Museum, but much bigger and more prettier to look at (it wasn't just stone; it was blocks/art).
After the tour we sat down at a Dunkin Donuts and just chilled out after walking around the city for almost 4 hours. Then we stopped to look at a local market selling all sorts of unique touristy things, and local art, jewlery, clothes, etc. It was so cool seeing it all and talking with some locals. Afterwards we got dinner at a home-style German restaurant where we mostly got bratwurst or roast beef and mash potatoes. For dessert, we went to an ice cream/pastry place. The food here is so good!!
Our flight left at 6:30am Sunday morning, so we had a semi-early night so we could get up at the crack of 3:30am to get ready and go to the airport. I really wish we had a few more days in Berlin - there's so much I still wanted to see and do. This is definitely a city that I think is hard to get bored in; there's just so much!! This is definitely a city I'd love to come back to one day and explore some more!
