Exploring Berlin

For once we made it to our hotel without much difficulty. We not only found the lift at the station but we also didn’t have to scour the streets for our hotel. The hotel was uber nice but I was slightly disgusted by the urinal in the bathroom – mum thought it was something quite different (something a little embarrassing to write here for all the world to see). The weather was a little gloomy but we decided to check out the Reichstag – Parliament House – upon which they have now built a huge dome roof – I am told it has many purposes but the greatest of which is the double helix walkways where tourists are allowed up to wander and check out the panoramic views of Berlin. It was a great introduction to the city even though we had to wait in a queue for an hour and a half (amid wind and rain)!


Now we had been hearing a bit about these fat tire bike tours so we decided to see if they lived up to their reputation. It was freezing, it went for 5½ hours and I forgot my gloves but we honestly had the BEST time! Here’s a list of everything we saw - Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin Wall, Hitler’s Bunker, Topography of Terror, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Tiergarten, Brandenburg Gate, Luftwaffe Ministry, Bebelplatz, Museum Island, Reichstag, Potsdamer Platz, Soviet War Memorial, Victory Column. The Jewish Memorial was impacting; the maze structure of 2711 blocks of various heights is intended to make you feel a sense of the isolation and solitude the Jews felt as they were being taken to concentration camps. Bebelplatz was quite an impacting site, however nothing much remains today. It lies directly in front of the Germany’s most prestigious university and is the location where the infamous Nazi book-burning took place on May 10, 1993. Heinrich Heine famously said, “Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.” Guess he knew what he was talking about. Checkpoint Charlie has an outdoor exhibit detailing the Cold War and stories about those who attempted to escape. We heard an amazing success story of a man who worked in the Nazi Luftwaffe Ministry building located about ten metres back from the wall. One night he “worked late” and went to the roof and attached a huge hook on the end of a long rope. A following day he got to work early with his wife and child and put them in a broom closet for the day. Once everyone had gone home, he took them up to the roof, threw the hook over both sides of the wall (a huge feat in itself) and had his friends on the west side of the wall fasten it firmly. The whole family then used the rope as a flying fox and got across the wall completely unnoticed. Crazy but many would attempt anything to escape. The frustration of Checkpoint Charlie was how tacky it was! There were people dressed up as soldiers and girls posing with them for a euro a photo – lame. I could go on but that would make this post illegally long. Lunch was yum – alpenwurst – sausage sizzle taken to a whole ‘nother level. Mum and I battled greatly on the bikes, overtaking each other, pushing each other, yelling at each other but I feel this really added to the enjoyment of the day – we laughed a great deal, particularly at each other’s misfortunes. For dinner we went to the Lowenbrau (which is actually pronounced correctly as Loovenbrau) and although quite different to Sydney (no one wore traditional dress) we had a great dinner and the beer was just as good.

We spent our final day racing back to things we wanted to see more of or had missed altogether. This is included the East Side Gallery where my camera battery unfortunately died, back to Checkpoint Charlie, shopping at Galeries Lafayette and an attempt to see the Topography of Terror. The former headquarters of the infamous Nazi ‘Gestapo’ and SS, it is being constructed into a museum, however in the meantime it is being exhibited in the open air but we couldn’t work out why we couldn’t get in. I was pretty set on seeing the exhibition so we snuck through the construction entry. About 10 minutes later a woman comes over asking how we got in and what we were doing there. Apparently it is closed until mid May while heavy construction is in progress – I was pretty devo. Mum cheered me up with the suggestion of ice-cream – it went down an absolute treat. Best 2 euro spent all day! I also talked mum into the purchase of sunglasses - we both got a pair and walked home in the dark with them on. We ended up having thai for dinner (absolutely delicious) as we were pretty buggered and had to awaken at 4 to catch a plane to Belgium.

So everything went smoothly this morning – a train, a plane, a train and currently on train 3 to Bruges (Brugge). One bus and we will be there. Can’t wait!