Berlin, Day 2: I walked across the entire city.....twice

Hallo!  Apparently that's how you say hi in German. Of course it's totally adorable-sounding.

Berlin, man. Today I took this 6-hour walking tour of the city, and I have so many fascinating facts and history tidbits that I'm going to try my hardest to keep my "fun facts" and "cliffnotes" sections a manageable length.


Cliffnotes of the Day:

• 6-hour walking tour, obvs. We visited all the Berlin highlights, which included the Brandenburg gate, Reichstag building, Museum Island, Checkpoint Charlie, Hitler's Bunker, etc. Berlin history is cray.  It's especially insane because so much of its history was so recent (i.e. the World Wars, the Cold War, the Berlin Wall), and therefore some topics are still a little bit touchy.

• This is the Berliner Dom, an incredibly pretty Cathedral. It was super damaged after WWII as the entire thing was set on fire and they had to do massive restorations to the dome. Even still, you can see the facade is still black from all the fires.

Charred towers

• You can also see all the bullet holes around numerous monuments/pillars around the city from the war

Cement like swiss cheese

• Brandenburg Gate, below, is a symbolic part of Berlin. It was originally constructed as the gate that led to the royal palaces way back when Germany was Prussia, and during the Cold War/Berlin Wall era, it was right on the border between the two sections and inaccessible to East Berlin-ers. Huge. That is all I have to say.

Lis, a hostel friend, and I at the Brandenburg Gate

• Checkpoint Charlie - the most famous checkpoint between East and West Berlin. They have all these crazy stories of people trying to sneak across the border, as East Berliners (the Soviet side) were constantly trying to flee into West Berlin (the Allied side - US, France, and Britain) after the Berlin Wall was constructed.  Does everyone else find it crazy that we were alive when the wall was torn down??

The checkpoint. With people dressed up as American soldiers to charge $ from tourists for photo ops, obvs

From East Berlin, you see the photo of an American soldier (who's watching you) and a warning sign

From West Berlin, you see a photo of a Soviet soldier, who is also always watching you

• The Jewish Monument, whose official name is the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe." No confusion as to what that's commemorating. It involves all these stone slabs of various shapes and height and there's thousands of them that ebb and flow randomly.  The idea is to wander through them and reflect as you zig and zag through the passageways.

Huuuge stones in the middle

• One of the girls on the tour invited me to have dinner with her and some other hostel friends, so we went to this Thai place down the street. I think one of my favorite things is getting to meet all these wildly different people and getting to hear all their stories about their lives and why they’re traveling. It's a big world out there.

Dinner crew! I may or may not have been singing the praises of my selfie stick...

Fun Facts of the Day:

• Berlin has, hands down, the craziest history of rises and falls ever. First it was this super cosmopolitan, sexy, progressive city in the 1920’s.  Then WWII, which was obviously terrible and resulted in the city being completely ravaged and most of the buildings destroyed. Then came the construction of the Berlin Wall (I can't believe this ever happened in history. Seriously. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction).  Then after the wall came down and East/West Berlin were reunified, the Eastern side was super run-down, but all the artists, young people, etc. started moving into the East side because the rent was so much cheaper, resulting in a super happening, cool, hip scene. 

• Now both sides of Berlin are incredibly vibrant (in fact, one could argue that East Berlin is almost more hip), and you can barely tell what side you’re on half the time, except for some small differences including a different crossing man at the stoplights (he wears a super-fly hat on the East side!), as well as only the East side having trams, etc.



Crossing men in Berlin. I LOVE THE HAT, EAST SIDE

• We got caught in a torrential downpour on the tour. It was only like, 15 minutes but it was the fattest, most aggressive rain I’ve ever been in. People were totally soaked through in like, a minute.

Aggressive downpour

• They started putting these small gold memorial cobblestones in the streets outside the former homes of Jews that were sent to concentration camps - each one has the occupant’s name, and date they were sent away.  There are thousands and thousands of these around the city: small enough that they aren’t immediately evident, but there for those paying attention.

Gold cobblestones

Anyway, Auf Wiedersehen to Berlin! You were the best.

Berlin: Ich bin hier!

What does the title say? I don't know, but according to google translate, it means "I'm here"!  This is technically my 2nd night here, but...details.

So typically, I do a ton of research before I go anywhere, but clearly didn't happen here.  I am literally in Berlin because my friend Drew went, "You should go to Berlin." So I did.  After I landed at the airport, I think I just froze there for a couple minutes.


What It's All About:
Bikes, foreigners, history, artsy things. It's such a cool city; it's the kind of place that gives off kind of a Brooklyn-y vibe but in a more metropolis sort of way. I was worried about not being able to speak a word of German (self-assessed literacy level = tragic), but people here speak English better than I do. Everyone rides bikes. The food is delicious. There's a huge expat community. And the history is fascinating.


Cliffnotes of the Day:

• Last night, I arrived to my hostel around dinnertime (after navigating the public transport system, which is super amazing/easy to use/convenient, except that German is really hard to read and why are the words so long with so many consonants?). One of my new roommates invited me to dinner with him and another guy at a burrito place down the road. It was amazing, especially because I asked for guacamole and my bowl was like 90% guac, 10% everything else. Suck on that, Chipotle and your stingy guac portions.
• After dinner, my friend Kate had put me in touch with her friend Ella, who (who? whom? What is this rule?) she had met in Cambodia years ago, is from Australia, but recently moved to Berlin with her bf.  Anyhoo, Ella and her boyfriend Ben met me at my hostel, then we walked to this adorable biergarten nearby called Prater Garden for some beers. It was seriously the most beautiful night, and such a great atmosphere with tons of happy beer-drinking Germans. And probably foreigners. Ella and Ben were both so great, and I loved getting to hang with them.

Thank you for indulging me in this terrible quality photo, Ella and Ben

Um how cute are you, outdoor hanging lights

• This morning, I slept in, then trekked over to West Berlin to meet up with another friend-of-a-friend for lunch (Berlin is so awesome that a ton of people move here??). Pat took me to a secret biergarten near his work that's in the park - you walk a ways into the park near the zoo, then boom! There's a biergarten right next to a river.  He was also great. Friends-of-friends are my new favorite.

Biergarten...Schloooosen...Kroog?

Thanks to Pat for indulging me in a not-as-terrible-quality photo

• I went to go see the East Side Gallery, which is a long section of the Berlin Wall where famous artists have painted murals and paintings. There's been a lot of graffiti and vandalism over time, but they've managed to restore a lot of it. 

Berlin Wall + art

I only took a photo with this one because it's the most famous

• I then went to the Topography of Terror, this awesome open-air museum about the history of the Nazi regime, located on the former site of the SS/Gestapo headquarters. Above the museum is also a restored portion of the Berlin Wall. 

Topographie des Terrors

The Berlin Wall had bars going through it

Fun Facts of the Day:

• Everyone here rides bikes. Bikes are literally everywhere. And don't stand in the bike lane, because they will run you over and kill you, and it will be purposeful
• I had a bratwurst for lunch today and a currywurst for dinner because I am a champion. The hostel had recommended "the best currywurst" at this place nearby, and even though I didn't know what currywurst was, I just heard "the best" and wanted it. There was also a long line; double proof. As far as I can tell, currywurst is a brat with ketchup and curry powder, though I also sacreligiously dunked mine in mayo.

Currywurst!

• So, so many international people here. Just riding the train or wandering the streets, you will hear so many different languages. There seem to be a ton of Brits and Americans as well. I don't think I could feel out of place if I tried

The Hostel:
EastSeven Berlin Hostel - granted, my first hostel experience, but it seems great and the lounge room is great (I've met the most interesting people!). The hostel is close to the subway (location win!), the front desk is incredibly helpful, there's a cute outdoor area, and this morning I got free toast because the water in our bathroom was out. FREE. TOAST. nom. Win in my book.

I turned down a hostel where the door was part of a lion's open roaring mouth for this place. So you know it's good.

I arrived last to a room with 3 dudes. Also, guess which bed I got stuck with