As soon as I arrived, I suspected that I was going to love the city. People actually spoke English (well), and everyone I interacted with in the first couple of hours were super nice. I got to my hostel too early so I went to this restaurant right beside it and ate there, and not only was the waitress super friendly, the food was delicious! And then I checked in to my hostel, and the owner (it's a tiny hostel, and really just operated by one person) was extra friendly too. So I had a great first impression of Berlin which carried over to the rest of my time there.
I spent all of Thursday wandering around Berlin. I probably should have paced myself a bit, but I just wanted to see as much as I could. Which meant that I did as much in one day in Berlin as normal people would probably do in about three days. But it was totally worth it, and I was okay with not being able to walk the next day. :)
I started my day by eating breakfast at a little coffee shop a block away from my hostel called 'Coffee Corner.' I liked it so much, I ate there again the next morning. Then I walked from there to the East Side Gallery. The owner of the hostel had warned me that it was a long walk, but I figured I was up at 8am anyway, so a long walk wouldn't be so bad. I didn't quite realize how silly that was until the next day. I think I walked about 3 miles to get to the East Side Gallery, but at least that gave me a chance to see some really cool street art and a bit of the residential side of Berlin.
The East Side Gallery, for those of you who may not know, is a roughly 3.5km chunk of the Berlin Wall that is still intact. The eastern side has been turned into this art gallery of sorts, with different chunks of it being painted by different artists. The vast majority of art on the wall is dedicated to warning about something like the Wall happening again, or freedom, or changing the world. I really quite liked it. Occassionally there's a bit of graffiti on top of the art, but in general people are respectful of the art and leave it be. The western side of the wall is another story though. When I got to the end of the gallery, I peeked at the other side and took a picture of it.
Then I discovered I was at Berlin Ostbahnhoff, the same train station I had arrived in the night before. I had a donut at Dunkin Donuts (another reason why I loved Berlin, haha!). Then I hopped on the S-Bahn (the above-ground transport system, sister to the U-Bahn, or underground train) and made my way to Brandenburg Tor (a.k.a. Brandenburg Gate). It was there where I decided once and for all that I loved Berlin and have to go back there.
Seriously. I've read about it, I've seen pictures of it, but it wasn't until I stepped out of the S-Bahn station and saw it for the first time that I was struck by how awesome the Brandenburg Gate is. Not because it's huge and imposing and quite beautiful, not because the American Embassy is conveniently situated just to the left of it. I think it's awesome because of the history that's there, from being built as a one of the entrances to the city of Berlin in the late 1700s to its damage in World War II to being a landmark while the Berlin Wall was up. The very first thing that popped into my head when I got there - and, yes, I am probably the biggest Political Science/History/Ronald Reagan nerd you'll ever meet - was that, 'Holy man, Ronald Reagan was here once. This is where he said those immortal words: 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'
After I spent a good long while marvelling at the gate, taking pictures, and popping into the souvenier shop that's located just beside it, I decided to continue on and find the Holocaust Memorial. Joe, one of the teachers at my school who lived in Berlin for a while and persuaded me to go visit it, told me that the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin is probably one of the best memorials he's seen. And after having been there, I have to agree.
This is what it looks like when you walk from the Brandenburg Gate to the memorial. Even though there isn't any sign saying it's the Holocaust Memorial, I could tell at first glance. First of all, it's huge - about one city block squared. Second of all, I was immediately reminded of thousands of caskets, the higher columns almost like they were stacks of caskets. I wandered around the entire memorial until I found the entrance to the below-ground portion, and went inside. While the above-ground portion is a lot of art, the below-ground museum is the true memorial.
It's separated into about 6 or 7 rooms. The first room is a general timeline of events of the Holocaust. The next room has glass panels on the floor, mirroring the ceiling, which itself mirrors the columns above ground. The glass panels in the second room have farewell letters written by Jewish victims of the Holocaust. They are haunting and impactful, written by people who knew that they'd never see their loved one again. After spending some time sitting in there and reading as many of them as I could, I wandered to the next room. In that third room is the story of about 10 different Jewish families who were victims and survivors of the Holocaust. The next room is the Room of Names, where you can sit and see a victim's name projected onto the walls and listen to a short biography. This room is continuous, and they said that if they were able (which they don't believe they ever will be) to get short biographies like this of every single victim of the Holocaust, it would take over 6 years to listen to them all. After I listened to a few of the biographies, I went to the next room which highlights a bunch of the sites of the biggest executions of victims in the Holocaust, such as Auschwitz. After that, you enter a room which is about 'the Holocaust remembered today' where you can find out information about other memorials throughout the world, and look up information about survivors.
After I spent about an hour inside, I went back outside and wandered through the memorial, or 'Field of Stelae' some more. And took more pictures, of course.
After the Holocaust Memorial, I walked (again with the walking, despite being advised against it!) to the Topography of Terror, then Checkpoint Charlie. The Topography of Terror is another remaining section of the Wall, as well as the destroyed remains of some Nazi SS buildings. The remains of the buildings were closed - apparently, usually you can go down and see it closer - so that was kind of disappointing. But the wall was, yet again, pretty cool. This one didn't have much graffiti on it, but was partially destroyed, as if it was about to be torn down until someone stopped the destruction half-way through.
I was already calling my half-term holiday my 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' tour, because the book (which I've been reading with my year 7 English class) starts in Berlin and ends in Auschwitz. The Berlin Wall reminds me of the book, though of course the wall was constructed well after WWII. Really, it reminds me of a quote from the author, John Boyne, who said (on the back of the book): 'Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one.' Isn't it fascinating how people don't learn from the past? Perhaps that's why I'm such an ardent fan of history, because it both fascinates and horrifies me that we humans continue to be divided by such innane things as political ideologies or religious divides. Of course, they aren't innane to those extremists who trigger such divisions.
Checkpoint Charlie was exactly what everyone who's been to Berlin had told me it was: a tourist trap. It's not even the original structure that was there in the height of the Cold War. But it's worth going to see just the one time, and seeing the (re-creation) of the world-famous sign (above). Glad I went, but definitely not the highlight of my trip! Though, I will admit that I like the fact that I can now say, 'Yeah, you know, I had lunch at Checkpoint Charlie while I was in Berlin...' No big deal, I'm just this little world traveller. :)
So then, after lunch, I headed back to the Brandenburg Gate and walked to the Bundestag, Germany's parliamentary building. You can't see it well on this photo, but (a) the building was HUGE, (b) it says 'Dem Deutschen Volke' (The German People) above the entrance, and (c) there's this MASSIVE glass dome above it. You can't go inside unless you've reserved tickets, so that's something I'll have to do when I go back to Berlin in the future. But it was rad to go see the building, because not only do I love the history of the building, but I also love architecture... and this was a sweet building.
So that's about half of my trip to Berlin. It only covers up to about 1pm my first day, but I haven't finished editing my photos from the rest of the trip, and I've already written a ton here. So I'll leave you with that, and hopefully I'll be able to tell you about the rest of my trip soon enough. If only my laptop would stop freezing ever half hour...
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