Berlin - Part I

Sunday 20th - Tuesday 22nd Dec 2009

I will try to be as brief as possible, but I do have a bad habit of getting carried away, so sorry!!

After meeting up with Matt and Jodie at Victoria station for a quick bite, we successfully managed to find the bus, which would take us to Stansted airport. I nodded off during the 1.5-hour journey, but woke up just as we arrived at the airport to hearing John Farnham - You're the Voice being played on the radio. Weird. Anyway, being the festive season we'd planned to get to the airport fairly early (3 hours before flight) and we were lucky that we did. The queue for the Ryanair bag drop extended the entire length of the Stansted terminal, and snaked around for many meters. By the time we dropped bags off we were just going to have enough time to clear security and make it to the gate. When we got the security though our boarding passes wouldn't scan for some reason and we were told that we'd have to go back to the Ryanair check-in desks to get new ones printed then re-join the security queue. After seeing the horrified looks on our faces a nice gentleman (Who obviously worked at the airport) escorted us straight to the front of the ridiculous queue, then put us straight into the express/VIP security area; Straight through within about 5 minutes.

Standing at the gate ready to go, the plane turned up, and we still stood waiting for quite a long time. Apparently there was no pilots or cabin crew and we had to wait until a standby crew arrived. The flight ended up being delayed by about 90 minutes.

When the plane did finally touch down in Berlin, it was onto a snow covered runway, and the pilot happily announced that it was currently snowing and -11 outside. After some initial confusion about the train schedule (there was some engineering works going on) we eventually arrived at our hostel a little past midnight. We checked in then enjoyed our complimentary mulled wine (Gluhwine in German). It was pretty quickly to sleep for us that night.

Our first day in Berlin, the temperature at the hostel read a max. of -9 degrees, so we rugged up and set out in search of some of Berlin's forty Christmas markets. I had compiled a small list before we left London, which proved to be quite handy as they were mostly hidden in secluded pockets all over the city. The first one we visited was at Schloss Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg Castle), but when we arrived it was very much closed. We learned later that they didn't to open until 12. Dan spent far too long playing in the snow, and thought it was amusing to throw heaps of snowballs at me.

So we ended up back on the metro and made our way to Potsdamer Platz. We ever enjoyed watching a lady in a motorized wheelchair make her way off the train. It basically involved her starting a meter back from the door, revving it up then letting the brakes off until she skidded and bounced her way off the train (It was quite a gap between the train and the platform that she cleared)!! This market was open so we strolled through all the nice little stalls selling everything from decorations, beanies and wood carving things through to metal sculptures and candles! The Potsdamer Platz market even had a massive toboggan run set up - apparently it's the longest in Europe.. I didn't think it was too big. We devoured our first bratwursts for lunch and then continued to have a look around the area.

We had our first sighting of 'The Wall', although we think it had been cut up and transported to the area for some arty reason (The signs were in German), and we looked inside The Sony Centre (Berlin's equivalent of Leciester Square). It's a big structure with a few restaurants, many cinemas and even a movie museum. We'd also seen signs that there was a legoland discovery centre in there somewhere, but even after following the signs it took us about 45 minutes to find. (The massive Lego giraffe out the front made its location quite obvious when we found it). We decided not to pay the hefty entrance fee, as it was aimed at children 3-12 years of age, but we just browsed the merchandise shop instead.

After we left Potsdamer Platz we made our way up to the Brandenburg Gate and the home of the German Parliament, The Reichstag. The gate was quite impressive so we took our obligatory photos and moved onto the Reichstag (Which Hitler burnt down a few years ago) and its big glass dome (Also designed by the same guy that design 'The Gherkin' in London) After a bit of a wait to get into the Reichstag (Dan had again spent the time playing in the snow) we made our way in through security and took a lift up to the dome on the roof. We weren't able to climb up the dome because of the poor weather but we were able to have a look at the photos of the history of the building. If we were able to climb up in the dome we would've been able to look straight down into the parliament rooms, but there was no one in there anyway!

From here we walked along the Under Den Linden - Berlin's 'pretty' street apparently, used in a few movies. We came across a set of car dealerships, and Dan couldn't resist having his photo taken with the Bugatti Veyron and the old VW combi on display. We found a few more markets at the end of the street and Dan enjoyed a freshly baked pretzel, while I purchased a hat to cover up my cold head, and some 80's Flash dance style, leg warmers. Dan was also searching for a beanie, but couldn't find any that either fit his head, or looked good. At one point a market stall owner even assisted him in trying one on!!

By the end of the afternoon I'd decided that I was sick of having wet and cold feet and I needed to go back to the hostel to put some dry socks on. When we got back though, we decided we couldn't be bothered going into the city again, so we just grabbed a quite bite of Italian up the road from the hostel. Deciphering the menu was fun it was written in both German and Italian - after 5 weeks in Italy we'd gotten pretty good at the food words, so we were mostly able to figure out what we were ordering. It was quite windy outside while we were eating and something outside blew over and made a big banging noise. Dan couldn't help but tell me that I shouldn't worry and that it was probably just another air raid.

We were all tuckered out after our big day of markets so it was asleep by 9pm.

The next morning we enjoyed our buffet breakfast at the hostel then were picked up by the walking tour group and taken by train to the meeting point at Brandenburg Gate. We had originally planned to do the free walking tour but as the weather was ordinary we thought we'd change plans and pay 15 Euros to go and do a tour to a concentration camp out of the city.

The train journey to Orianenburg took about 45 minutes, then it was a 15 minute walk in the slush from the city centre to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. The tour lasted about 2.5 hours at the camp and was lead by a really nice kiwi girl. It was not an extermination camp, but a work camp, yet still over 200,000 people died there whilst it was open. After the Nazi's running it the Soviets took it over and kept killing people there for another 10 or so years. Some parts nearby are still used by the Police as a training ground.

The big black gates at the entrance had the words "Arbeit Mach Frei" - or 'Work will set you free', inscribed on them; a little deceitful if you ask me. We saw lots of interesting things, and learnt heaps about what it would've been like. Although not much of it is still standing, it was still a pretty eerie place. The fact that it was completely covered in snow and the grey clouds that filled the sky helped with the feelings too.

We managed to see one of the remaining Jewish barracks, the jail, the boot-testing track (used solely for incredibly amounts of physical torture), the kitchen (which is now a museum), and the execution tunnel. The place that was the most moving though was 'Station Z', aptly named because prisoners entered through "Gate A" and nearly all left through Station Z. All that remains of the station are the foundations and they are partly covered by a roof, and a monument stands close to the space remembering the victims. Station Z, to the prisoners was were they would be taken to have some 'routine' health checks taken. They would be taken in by a truck and then they would be measured, weighed etc. They would then be taken into a room where they would have to back up to the wall to have their height measured, but through a concealed slit in the wall they would instead be shot in the back on the neck. Some prisoners were also gassed at Station Z, but the rooms were not that large and they were unable to do large numbers of people at a time, so they found the executions in the back of the neck more efficient. They also had the remains of the ovens/incinerators, which were used to dispose of the bodies.

From Station Z we saw the Infirmary (They looked surprising like any classroom blocks in any school in Victoria built in the 1960s). This is where many prisoners would be exposed to many different painful and unsuccessful medical trials. The morgue was also nearby, where in the early days autopsies were carried out on everyone who died at the camp. Nearly all were ruled as 'heart failures', they left out the fact that the heart failed generally due to the immense physical labour and poor conditions that they were exposed to. There was also a large area in the basement where bodies were stored until they could be relocated to mass graves in the area.

Although it was a very morbid and grim place to visit, I would highly recommend it. Our tour guide was excellent and also told a lot of the history and stories which really helped ignorant me know a bit more about what actually happened. (Before this, my knowledge pretty much consisted of "Hitler didn't like Jews and killed lots of people").

Anyway, we made the 45 minute train trip back to Berlin, grabbed a really late lunch then headed back to the hostel for a little rest.

We decided to take advantage of the ½ price drinks on offer during happy hour at the hostel. 2 Pints for 2 Euros was quite a nice deal, so Dan and I downed quite a few. I'd had enough drinks by 7.30 to decided that we wanted to do a pub crawl that a few people had recommended to me.

**DISCLAIMER** Grandparents, parents and anyone who still believes that I still have any shred of innocence should stop reading now. We're good kids. We went straight to bed after dinner. The end.

We jumped on the metro which took us to the starting bar, but we were far too early so we went in search of dinner. We found a nice little pizza place just up the road, which among on the famour band's signatures on the walls we managed to spot The Living End. After possibly the slowest service in the history of Italian restaurants we eventually made it out and back to the bar just in time for the 'Anti-Pub Crawl' to begin.

The starting bar was called "Yesterday Bar" and was decked out with lots of velvet curtains, lava lamps, mushrooms hanging from the ceilingand anything from the 60's or 70's. It was very cool. We paid out 10 Euros each and enjoyed another beer and a shot of vodka from a test tube.

The first stop was a bar just up the road where the most well known German band ever, Rammstein, apparently hang out a bit. It had a definite dungeon/gothic theme and it was pretty cool. We got chatting to a few other 'crawlers', mainly dickhead Americans (One even gave us his 'card', some engineering student who wanted the world to be green). I got chatting to the DJ at the bar who also told me that Rammstein hardly ever make it there anymore, but once upon a time were there nearly every night. After another vodka shot we were off.

Second stop, may or may not have been a train ride away, or we may have walked, but it was an Absinthe bar. We bought some of the drinks, and were shown how to melt the cube and set in on fire and all that. The drink tasted like s***, but Dan managed to go for seconds. I settled for more beer. I again, got chatting to some more people. These ones were locals, not the crawl, and I impressed them with my limited knowledge of the German language (Anything the Herr Schroeder taught me in a semester at GSSC). By the time we were due to leave I hadn't finished my beer, so I decided to take the pint with me.. The glass is quite nice actually!

From here details on transportation got a little sketchy. We stopped in at a kebab shop which was closed, but we the shop keeper brought out a bottle of vodka, which the 15 of us polished off very quickly.

Next pub was a "Ping Pong Bar". Basically from the outside, it just appeared to be a derelict building, and inside wasn't much more. Inside had a table tennis table, and a very small bar. Everyone paid a 5 euro deposit to get themselves a bat and a massive game of round the world table tennis ensued. Dan who claims to be a Champion table tennis player was booted out in the first couple of goes of nearly every round he played. I was happy to sit and watch and enjoy a few more beers and conversations. I managed to find a group of Aussies and befriended them, much more fun than the dickhead Americans!

From here we boarded a tram to our final stop. There were a group of feral youths on the train who were enjoying a big bottle of Jim Beam, and had a icy cold bottle of Coke as a chaser. Of course I made friends with them and in no time was helping them polish off their bourbon. I become such a social being after a few drinks. We took some photos, apparently I wanted to salute Hitler - and we were luckily off the tram, before someone shot me.

The final place was out in the middle of nowhere, and a bit of a walk from the tram stop. The ice on the footpath was a few inches thick, and Dan just couldn't manage to stay on his feet. After 2 decent falls he claimed to have broken his hip, and needed to go home. We didn't actually manage to get inside the last place, which was an old bombed out train station, instead we both decided if it was wise that we went home. After walking back up to the tram stop we were both sure that we needed to go left (As we'd heard our stop about 2 stops earlier on the way out there), but then we were told to go right. Out of nowhere, one of the friends I made at the Absinthe bar appeared (Remember she wasn't on our tour!) and directed us right. We walked with her until she was home, and then she showed us where to catch a tram from. We managed to decipher that as it was now after 3am, there'd be no trams coming along and as it was only 2 stops from our hostel we'd walk. It was a bad decision. I had to put up with Dan whinging about his broken hip, and I needed to go to the toilet a few times. With the aid of a nice Mercedes I managed to pop a squat on the side of the road. Bare bum against a frozen car is not fun.

Anywho after about an hour or so walking, and picking up a kebab near the hostel we managed to be in bed by about 4am. 'Twas a great night, met some really great people- highly recommend the tour to anyone.