As Led Zeppelin would say in Bron-Y-Aur-Stomp, "My my, Lordy lord." That is all I can think of as I try to start this post. I suppose I should start at the beginning, and when I get to the end... stop.
Friday: We took a tour bus instead of invading the Marburg Hauptbahnhof. It was slower, but we got to see a lot of the countryside surrounding Marburg and Berlin. It's so funny how quickly the landscape changes. Marburg is surrounded by hills and tall dark forests, but as you slowly move north eastward, the landscape changes from a fairytale facade to a pop-up book. Soft and shallow hills with small clusters of trees here and there with castles on every hill top completely surround you. I barely looked away from the window the whole 5 hour bus ride. Being a landscape-junky, it's hard to NOT look out at the incredible German countryside. As we neared Berlin, I could see the landscape gradually becoming flat with clouds of industry popping up all over the place.
The ride into Berlin was strange. And when I say strange, I mean it looked NOTHING like I thought it would. Honestly, I don't know what I was expecting, but going from somewhere like Marburg to Berlin... you may be able to understand why I didn't feel like I was in Germany any more. I suppose it was because everything is so entirely new. I also realized that this was the first time I was visiting a city that was so profoundly impacted by WWII as well as the Soviets.
Our hostel was situated right in the centre of the city on Johannisstrasse between Friedrichstrasse and Universitaetstrasse. The first night was open for us to do whatever we'd like. Erin has a friend who was born and raised in Berlin named Nina. With her, Erin, Nicole, Spencer, Niki, Emily, and myself all headed out to hunt for food and beer. We ate at this place called, Asia Gourmet at one of the stations because it was cheap and actually not that bad. Then we went to a place called, The Pub where Nina used to work. It was a do-it-yourself kind of place. It was here that I discovered I am AWFUL at pouring beer. Absolutely... awful. I can't seem to grasp the 45 degree thing. Goddamn you, Geometry. Anyway, went there and then road the train back to the hostel where we had a few beers. There I met a group of Irish guys, an Australian, two French guys, and a group of pot-smoking Austrians. Twas a great introduction to Berlin and to hostels.
Saturday: Bright and early in the morning we left for the "Classical Tour" of Berlin in 3 hours. During that drive we saw Potsdamer Platz, the Regierungsviertel, Unter den Linden, the Brandenburg Gate, Kurfuerstendamm, Checkpoint Charlie, Galarie Lafayette, the Gendarmenmarkt, the Berlin Wall, and about 500 other awesome places. The next couple days we would get to explore these places more in depth on foot.
Lunch break consisted of us spending 45 minutes trying to find a bathroom. Then we remembered that Nina told us the night before to just use hotel bathrooms. Duh. So we chose the first hotel we saw and went in. You know a hotel is mighty expensive when its staircases are named after classical composers. After we waddled up the Rossini staircase to go to the Leonardo restroom, we found the Puccini toilets and pranced down the Beethoven staircase to exit through the Tchaikovsky doors.
Then we found a Vietnamese Restaurant that was cheap and seemed to fit us a bit better (i.e. no named doors or anything). As we sat and ate, the restaurant started playing Hawaiian music.
Erin: Dudes, why are they playing Hawaiian music?
Me: I don't know, maybe because we're at a Vietnamese restaurant in Berlin.
After that we took a two and a half hour walk through of "Jewish Berlin." We walked down the Spandauer Vorstadt and got to see the famous Hackesche Hoefe. It was incredible to see some of the buildings that were still standing that had bullet holes from WWII covering them. What I thought was quite sad was that outside every Jewish building, the Polizei stood there. Apparently they HAD to because of neo-nazi idiots. There were tons and tons and tons of memorials.
My initial impression of Berlin as a city: it is a city of memorials.
Emily brought up an interesting point that all of these memorials had something to do with absence. And she was right, all of the memorials we ran into had something to do with absence.
Later that night (after a long nap), Erin, Spencer, Niki, Nicole, Katie, and I left to go to an old school Bavarian restaurant. We realized that most of the food we had in Berlin was... Asian. We decided that was blasphemous and searched for German food. Went to a place called Maximillions. Jesus. Christ. The restaurant is set up like a Bavarian Oktoberfest tent with long tables and blue and white decorations littering the entire building, with a live band and all. Turns out they were celebrating the beginning of Oktoberfest. We sat our asses down and ate all the Bratwurst and Sauerkraut that we could. The whole time watching a crowd of people in their 40's and 50's mosh in front of the band. Needless to say, we were the only ones there under the age of 35, but we definitely had a great time. I never thought that when I learned the German song, Ein Prosit, that i'd ever use it. I sang it a good 15 times with the crowd that night. We left that night completely satisfied. I don't know if i've ever felt that kind of satisfaction from an evening before.
Sunday: Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. So. Much. RAIN. We began the day at a soggy Checkpoint Charlie, we then made our way to Brandenburg Gate, Bernauer Strasse, Eastside Gallery, and the Potsdamer Platz. Our awesome tour guide, Wolfgang, lived in East Berlin during the Soviet occupation. He told us a story of when he found out the Berlin wall had been knocked open. That night in November he had a soccer practice and he and his teammates had just finished and got in a car to drive home when the radio turned on and said, "The Wall is open." He said it was nothing but disbelief until they got there. Personally, I can't imagine what kind of emotions would be flooding through a person's body when they see that giant hole in that 155km wall.
At lunchbreak Erin, Spencer, Galen, Nicole, Niki, and I went back to Friedrichstrasse to find Currywurst. It. Is. Amazing. I don't care if it is just meat with curry powder and ketchup. Good LAWDY. After that we headed to the Berlin Hohenschönhausen. It is the site of the main remand prison for people detained by the former East German Ministry of State Security (aka Stasi). It's been a memorial since 1994 and, from 2000 on, has been an independent foundation under public law. Given that it has only been 20 years since this prison was in use, everything is definitely intact. It was almost like it had been (just cleaner). I thought it remarkable that I was standing somewhere that I had read thoroughly about months before. It was surreal to say the least and reminded me a lot of my visit to Dachau.
Later that evening we wanted to go all out seeing as how it was our last night in Berlin. We met up with Nina and took the S-Bahn to Southern Berlin where we went to a cheap Sushi place and then to bar. I had an enormous pina colada that must have been made by the Gods or something. Then we saw this flyer that said we could win a Jack Daniels t-shirt if we drank 2 of these lemonade-type drinks. We had to do it in 30 minutes seeing as how that's when the bar was closing. And we did. Oh... we did.
We hopped back on the S-Bahn and decided to change into our shirts while on the train. That was an experience. Falling over each other and hitting each side of the train and spinning off who knows what way. We got back to the hostel and decided to have a couple more beers. I ended up talking to this guy from France who asked me where in the US I was from and I told him Salt Lake City, Utah. He had a confused look and I told him the 2002 Olympics were there (that usually seems to be the best way for Europeans to know where I'm from). He didn't get it and asked me, "What major city is it near?" Uuuuuh.... I had never been asked that question before. Then I just decided to tell him that it was about 5-7 hours north of Las Vegas. "Ooooh, Vegas! I know, okay this is good!"
Then it was crash time.
Monday: The drive back was full of endless exhaustion. There was absolutely NO way of sleeping on that bus. It just wasn't made for that. So, I reverted back to the landscape. I sat there for hours watching little medieval kingdoms get closer and then pass away. Over and over and over again. Then the trees grew taller and the underbrush became more gnarled and dense: Aaah... we're close to Marburg. In fact we were just 24km's from Marburg at that time. It definitely has a distinct look to it. I found myself elated to be sleeping in my own bed again.
There are so many things from Berlin I wish I could express, but it's really impossible and this was my best shot.
Tschuess from Marburg!
No comments:
Post a Comment