Archives for September 2010

[Sing it like you’re in Hairspray]

My first morning in Berlin I joined a free walking tour to cover all of the main sites. While it’s nice to explore a city on your own, I really love learning the nerdy bits of information attached the buildings and monuments that make a place unique.

Our guide, Barry, lead us around town for about 3 and a half hours. The majority of the tour took place in East Berlin… you know, the part that was Soviet controlled. You can tell what part of the city you’re in by checking out the pedestrian signals. If you see these guys below, you’re in the East.

The most striking site on the tour was by far the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The title was purposely so specific. Walking through the monument was eerie and peaceful at the same time. The inside is much more complicated than it looks due to dramatic rises in the concrete you walk on.

The next stop on the tour was the location of Hitler’s bunker. Of course, you can’t see it… it’s deep underground and filled in with rubble. On the surface level the area is a car park. In order to avoid the bunker becoming a shrine, Berlin wisely decided to keep spot a bit hushed. Only recently did the city mark the site with a simple bulletin board type display due to the influx of tourists from the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Much of the tour related to the Cold War era when East Berlin was under Soviet rule. Like this happy little mural done in the socialist realism style. The depiction of communism made me chuckle a bit… I mean, do you ever see children getting along like that?

In certain areas of the city you can still see remains of the wall that once divided Berlin.

Here’s the famous check point Checkpoint Charlie. This is the checkpoint that foreigners in the city used to move between the East and the West. Now it’s a super cheesy tourist spot.

Gendarmenmarkt is a pretty little square.

Here is the site of the famous Nazi book burnings. Any and all works that did not comply with the party were burned. Now the site features a memorial of empty bookcases below ground level.

The tour brought us closer to Alexanderplatz and the big tv tower.

Crossing the street we visited Neue Wache, a tribute to all victims of war and tyranny.

The tour ended in the grass at Museum Island where our tour guide told us an amusing version of how the wall came to fall.

It was a good first morning.

xo, jill

… was the only battle.

Feeling a bit anxious and my internal clock still a bit wonky, the night before my departure to Berlin I slept a grand total of 45 minutes. This made for a very sleepy passenger on my first flight to London. My second experience at Heathrow went much smoother than my first (13 hours of waiting for my host mom’s arrival), despite a short flight delay. After just another hour in the sky, I landed in Berlin.

The part of my trip I was most nervous for was figuring out my transportation from the airport to my hostel. I found the proper bus, bought a ticket, and stepped off at the proper stop. All I had to do now was board the proper train… which I did. Unfortunately, the train passed two stops and then abruptly changed directions taking me back to my starting place.

Turns out I needed to ride to a different stop, get on a connector bus, transfer to a different line, and then rejoin the original train. All of this to bypass the construction on the line. It took me nearly two hours (including the initial bus ride), but I did it!

I arrived at my hostel pretty knackered. I knew the hostel wasn’t going to be the best atmosphere for me when I booked it, but a sudden itinerary change necessitated the location. Needless to say, I checked in around midnight and checked out around 7:00am, ready for my first day in Berlin!

xo, jill