So we finally arrived in Berlin at 11:00 at night, just enough time to take the U-bahn (Berlin's version of the metro/underground) half way to our destination. Tragic. At midnight we got kicked off the U-bahn. Luckily we figured out how to catch a cab to our hostel, St. Christopher's (which is a really good one, if you ever are looking for a place to stay in Berlin).
In the morning, we had the hostel-provided breakfast and went to hunt for a free walking tour (these tours are ACTUALLY free and can be found is most major tourist-attracting cities; the guides are trained and very passionate historians and are paid by tips collected at the end of the tour). We stopped at the Brandenburg gate to scope out the tour.
There were quite a few people waiting for the tour so they split us up among several tourguides, some that spoke in Spanish others in French, others in German, etc... I was really impressed that they were so well prepared and organised for a free service!
The free tour was incredibly extensive and lasted a good couple hours. Not only that, it was incredibly well-led and interesting! Our tourguide, George, took us all over the main city (be warned, a lot of walking is done, but it's worth it!)
One of our first stops was this stunning memorial:
The tour also takes you to part of the remains of the Berlin wall, Hotel Adlon (where many presidents have stayed and where Michael Jackson held his baby out of a window), Checkpoint Charlie, the university, various monuments and memorials, the old Nazi headquarters, where Hitler is actually buried (what a surprise!) and other pieces of history. The stops are brief, but the tourguides are thorough and well-educated to tell you what you need.
Hotel Adlon (and our guide, George, with crazy-cool facial hair!)
Checkpoint Charlie, the most well-known crossing point through the Berlin Wall
Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral)
Nazi Headquarters
Nazi Party mural: crazy stuff, eh?
Everything you need to know about the city was basically covered on the tour; it's an excellent way to whet your appetite if you're a history nerd like me. After getting a dose of the city's past while looking at the places where these things actually occurred, even the map started to look different to me.
Trying to understand the history of WWII in relation to the city and the German people was something I'd also wondered about and even that was covered in the tour. It wasn't just the Jews and the Roma people that lived in fear of the Nazi regime; normal German civilians did too! They were forced to join or become the enemy of the party. It was amazing to see the city become a symbol of good's triumph over evil (even though the good comes with kitschy gift shops and parades of fat tourists, it's still a much better step forward that what could have been). Little did I know that a few months later I would be stepping into Austria's Auschwitz, an area of Europe that received tenfold the amount of collateral damage from the holocaust. The free tour was a priceless introduction to the tour I took in the concentration camp at Auschwitz and Birkenau. So much emotional and spiritual dimension was added to my study abroad experience thanks to a few hours lent to history. It made my trip to Europe worth much more.
Oh... you were probably wondering what that last picture was... let's have a look at it again:
Hitler is buried there... yes, underneath a parking lot. George, our guide, told us that nazi-loyalists have tried to recover his remains; the UN knew this would be happening, so they decided to rest Hitler in an inconspicuous and rather unglorified area. Speaking of unglorified, locals walk their dogs to this lot to let their canines do their business.
Following our tour, we hit the city for some foodventures! I'll let my fellow foodies have a look at my documentation here, and spare everyone else the delicious details. ;)
Berlin, like other major cities, is home to tons of awesome museums! I got my fix of Sandro Botticelli and really eclectic musical instruments in the museum districts. There's even an "island" in the middle of the city called "Museum Island," home to the Pergamon, Bode-Museum and Altes Museum.
I was a fan of the Gemäldegalerie because they had this and other Botticellis:
The Musikinstrumenten was quite the interesting place. Filled with crazy pianos, guitars, see-through violins, it's an Eden for the musical nerd.
How would you even begin to play that?!
In a more obscure part of the main city is another great museum, the Jüdisches Museum. This one's about Jewish culture and the people; there are details about the holocaust, but the exhibits choose to focus on the entire history of Jewish people as well as what life is like today for them. Observe one of my favourite parts of the museum: the assorted yarmulkes!
Yes, they have a Friends yarmulke... WIN.
Now, no trip to Germany is complete without sampling some of the country's beer, right?
This wheat beer is frequently mixed with lemonade (or what we in the U.S. would call lemon Minute Maid) and that's probably why I liked it so much. (Want more about German food?) It was light in body, but had an excellent wheat taste, not too heavily tasting of alcohol either.
And of course, what is a visit to a European city without hitting up their chocolate shops?
Fassbender and Rauch was the main chocolatier in Berlin, claiming to be the "World's Largest Chocolate House." For the scoop on the different wursts/sausages, you'll have to hit my food blog. :)
Stay tuned for more Europe!
