Berlin FTW

The next stop on the list was Germany. We took a train from Amsterdam to Berlin in the morning. I don't know if I mentioned this, but the three of us had to turn in our RealCom phones at the end of the program in Valencia, so we were all cell phone-less for this whole trip. We got a lecture about how dumb that was from each of our couchsurfing hosts, especially in Berlin. Something was wrong with the train or something, so at some random little stop in Germany they made everyone get off and sit in the station for an hour until a new train could come and we could continue on to Berlin. We had an epic card game of war while we waited, but it made us an hour behind schedule. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but we had arranged to meet our couchsurfing host at a certain time in the train station, and we didn't have phones to call him and tell him we'd be late. So we got into the station and it was night, and our host obviously wasn't there. First I used my ipod to pick up on some wifi to send him a message, but he didn't respond. Then we found a payphone and tried calling him, but when I dialed the number he had given me, an irate German woman kept answering and she didn't know anything about anyone named Martin, our CS host. We didn't know what to do, so, first things first, we found a Doner Kebab to get dinner. So that was our big joke (we made jokes to keep from getting hysterical at our situation), that we were stranded in Berlin at 10pm, a typical Tuesday night. The other valuable lesson to be learned here is that when in doubt slash when lost in a big city at night with no place to stay, you can ALWAYS go to a Doner Kebab and unwind over some turkish pizzas. So that's exactly what we did. Then we decided to go try and find our CS host's apartment, because he had given us his address. We knew it wasn't supposed to be very far from the tram stop, so we took the tram and then tried walking around looking for it, but we were lugging our suitcases around and it was late and sketchy and we weren't getting any closer. We asked a random woman biking by if she knew where the address was, and she tried to show us on our map, but apparently it was out of range of the map. She kept pointing to the air to the right of the map, which was very unhelpful. So although she was very nice, we weren't any closer. We decided to get a cab, but there were very few driving around in the area we were. A few passed by and I tried to flag them down, but none would stop. Which is odd because I don't think we could've looked more desperate if we TRIED. Finally we got one and he took us to the apartment, which, HILARIOUSLY enough was about a 3 minute cab ride away. Isn't that funny.

So we made it, and although our host was a little surprised to see us on his doorstep hours after we said we were going to get in, he welcomed us right in. His name, coincidentally, was also Martin, and he was also super nice. We hung out for a little bit and then went to bed. It sounds so dumb to say that traveling is exhausting- whenever I say that to someone at home, they say "aww, poor baby, it must be so tough to be forced to gallivant around Europe," or something with a similar degree of sarcasm. But it's true, even though we sat on a train mostly all day, the stress of it all really gets to you. Making reservations, catching trains, being delayed, getting lost, meeting new people, sleeping in a new place every other night...it takes a lot out of you, so we all pretty much passed out. The next morning we got up to go see the city. We took a train to the center and were given a flyer for a walking tour. It seemed like a good idea because Berlin is so big and there's so much history, so we decided it'd be good to have someone there to explain it. Our walking tour was four hours, and we stayed mostly in East Berlin. Our tour guide was so fantatsic- she was super knowledgable and we learned SO much, and she wasn't bending over backwards to make dumb jokes like walking tour guides always do to try to get tips, which was lovely. We saw so much - the Berlin Cathedral, Museum Island, the river, the Berlin wall, the Holocaust Victims Memorial, the TV/radio tower, Checkpoint Charlie, yeah. It was all so interesting!

At one point in the walk, our guide stopped us in this little area of gravel and dead grass next to an apartment parking lot. She told us to get our cameras out because we were going to want a picture of that area. We pulled our best confused faces but did it anyways, so she would tell us what it was.

Confused?? We were too. Until....

That area next to the parking lot was the former site of Hitler's bunker, as it was destroyed after the war. This little sign is the only thing to show that that little patch of gravel is different from any other. Our tour guide said they don't want to make a big deal out of it because they don't want it to become a mecca for neo-nazi crazies, because it's also where Hitler's body was burned by his followers at his request after he and his wife swallowed cyanide pills. She said some things still happen there though - she mentioned that sometimes, like on Hitler's birthday, some neo-nazis come and put flowers on this site. But our guide told us that whenever she sees that, she takes the flowers and moves them to the Holocaust Victims Memorial which is just a block or two away.

So here are some pictures of a few of the things we saw on the tour and some other pictures of Berlin, it'll be easier to do it this way and just explain what they are in the captions.

The Amplemannchen, the little guy on all of the crosswalk signs but ONLY in East Berlin, one of the few surviving symbols of the former communist east Berlin and now can be found on everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs to lunchboxes to underwear...? Yeah, we saw it all in the tourist shops. 

The Berlin Cathedral.

The Berlin radio/TV tower, erected by the socialists in east Berlin as a symbol of their power. However, they didn't foresee that when the sun hit the silver globe, it would form the shape of a cross, which is so incredibly ironic. That's why some people now refer to it as "The Pope's Revenge."

"Mother With Her Dead Son" sculpture in theh Neue Wache. The building was originally a guardhouse for the troops of the Crown Prince of Prussia, but then it was converted into a memorial. It's been rededicated a million times to be a memorial  for lots of different things, but now it's the "Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny." There's a circular skylight just above the statue so it's exposed to the rain, snow and cold, which is a symbol of the suffering of the people it memorializes.

This is a bad picture, but it's a little memorial in a plaza for the book burnings that used to happen there. Under the glass are a bunch of empty shelves to symbolize all the books that were burned. I thought it was so cool to see because one of my favorite books ever is The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, and it's about the book burnings in Germany. Pick it up if you get thte chance.

A memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It's a plaza with hundreds of gray concrete blocks of different sizes. It was designed to evoke the same feelings Jews in concentration camps must have felt while detained - fear, intimdation, not knowing if the ones you entered with will be there when you turn around. The blocks are painted with something that makes it so people can't deface them with grafitti, but after it had been done it came out that the company that provided that specific type of paint was the same company that manufactured the chemical used to gas victims in concentration camps during the war, so the memorial is obviously controversial for that reason.

An former Nazi administration building. Now it's a financial institution, but it must be weird to work there. Our guide told us that these circular parts on the gates are where the swastikas used to go.

The Berlin Wall.

Brandenberg Gate

The hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby out the window.

Checkpoint Charlie

Turns out Reno is also a shoe store in a mall in Berlin!

Currywurst, the only food Berlin is known for creating, according to our tour guide.
We went back multiple times - SO GOOD.

We went out for a night of German house music with our couchsurfing host. My shoes, regrettably, didn't make it through the night.

The second day in Berlin, we went to a concentration camp about an hour outside of the city, called Sachsenhausen. We spent the whole day there - there's so much information to take in, it's overwhelming. We had audioguides, but then in every building there are tons of plaques and books and videos and things to look at too. It was an exhausting day in every sense. It was so unreal to be there where such horrifying things took place, it was just impossible to wrap my head around the cruelty and the suffering. If you're interested in hearing more about what I thought, feel free to email me, but that's all I'll say about the subject here because it's a really intense and personal experience to post about.

So that was Berlin! Next is Munich, and then a little something about Portugal, and THEN I'll finally get to how my month-long program in Salamanca, Spain is coming along.