Berlin, Germany
By: Matt Batty
Tags: Backpacking, Europe, Berlin, Travel

July 21st, 2010

If Amsterdam is considered the most liberal city in Europe, then I’m pretty sure Berlin stuffs that notion into its bong and takes a big rip. This place is a liberal Mecca, and accordingly, I LOVE IT! For the entirety of my stay, I didn’t meet a single local who didn’t exude positive vibes, and it was the perfect final destination of this trip.

I took the S-Bahn to meet up with my couchsurfing host, Naz, a youthful and fun Turkish girl from Istanbul who is currently interning in Berlin. I dropped off my bags, and we headed for a part of town called Prenzlauer Berg. She explained to me that the trendy/hip part of the city is constantly shifting from one area to another, and usually depends on where the artists, musicians, and broke-ass college kids move. When the Berlin wall came down, there was a huge influx of people moving to the cheap housing in the east, and this neighborhood became the cool place to live. As a result, all of the young people that migrated here 20 years ago all started hooking up, and now this neighborhood has the highest birth rate in Europe! A Berlin wall-induced baby boom! As you walk around, there are babies everywhere, and the parents (still trying to be the trendiest in town) deck their kids out in designer clothes in expensive carriages.

We headed to a spot called Mauer park, which means “wall park”. You see, the Berlin wall was actually two parallel walls with a field in the middle. If you were able to make it over one wall, you would have to run across this “killing field” which was full of mines, guard dogs, and expert snipers that would take you out in a heartbeat. This park is actually the remnants of one of those fields! It is so wild to think, as you walk around and see people laughing, dancing, playing Frisbee, drinking beers and being joyous, that people were murdered here for just trying to escape the Soviet regime to be with their loved ones again.

We descended down into a large stone amphitheater at the center of the park where loud music could be heard. Naz’s friend explained that two years ago, an Irishmen who didn’t speak a lick of German showed up on this spot with his bike-powered karaoke machine and just started having fun on Sunday afternoons. Now it’s a huge spectacle, with hundreds showing up each Sunday, and anyone in the crowd is allowed to come down and sing. This was so much fun I can’t even explain it. You are surrounded by all of these happy, young Germans, drinking beer in the sun while watching people get up on stage and belt out some great tunes. The Swedish guy singing ‘Piano man’, the American girl writhing around to ‘Baby Hit Me One More Time’, and best of all, the German duo singing Michael Jackson’s “We are the World” (it’s funny because Berlin is probably the one city in the world where you can sing that song unironically and actually mean it), in which the entire crowd began to sing along. However, the highlight was when three little girls, maybe seven years old, hopped on stage and asked if they could sing a song. They hadn’t yet signed up, but the Irishmen sure as shit wasn’t going to turn these little princesses down. They ended up killing it, and the entire crowd went nuts! I’ll get labeled as a massive hippie for loving such a peace-fest, but it was simply happy people, having good clean fun, without having to shell out any money for it. If I lived in Berlin, I’d be there every Sunday.

After the show, Naz and I headed to a cozy little outdoor café with mismatched furniture and funny patio tables. We met up with her roommate Liza, grabbed some Thai food, and headed to a lounge called Madame Claude’s, but not before seeing a raving lunatic on the metro screaming at the top of her lungs at some guy. A profanity-laced tirade in broken English. Not sure what the issue was, but the entire train was stupefied.

We finally arrived at the lounge, which I’m confident was someone’s basement at one point. Nevertheless, this lounge was incredibly unique because they glue all of the furniture to the ceiling. The chairs, tables, lamps… everything is suspended over you! We had a few drinks here, but wanted to go somewhere more social. We walked to another club called Club der Visionaere, which reminded me of a Florida bar: placed next to the rambling Spree river with tiki torches aflame and Jager flowing heavily. We hung here until late in the night, meeting a bunch of cool Brits and downing shots, before ultimately catching the bus home.

Over the next two days, I did a ton of solo sightseeing. Berlin is utterly gigantic, so trying to fit it all in on one day is impossible. The first day, I visited the Brandenburg Gate, walked along the former Berlin wall (they have stone inlays in the streets so you can follow its former path), and the Jewish memorial (haunting, beautiful, incredible). It is 1000+ massive blocks of granite that are all varying heights. Looking at it from the outside, the blocks may only appear to be a few inches high, but as you walk through the memorial, they get larger and larger, until they are towering 20 feet above you at the center. It’s a furiously disorientating place, and makes some people extremely claustrophobic. This memorial does a very good job at making you ponder its existence, which is what the artist wanted to convey: the enormity of the Holocaust.

From there I went in search of Hitler’s bunker, which is hilarious because it’s a parking lot now. The Germans refuse to put any placard or indication that it was once located there, because they are intent on leaving all of those memories in the past. You are standing on a tuft of grass, but fifty feet below your feet is where Hitler spent his last days hiding from the bombs. History states that it is on that plot where they burned his and Eva Braun’s bodies, before burying them in a shallow grave hastily before the Soviets arrived. Other historians believe he may have actually escaped by plane to a waiting U-boat and made his way to South America, specifically Argentina. We may never know.

Hitler’s bunker fifty feet below me

I headed off to find the building that was once the headquarters for the Luftwaffe, Hitler’s air force. After WWII, it became the headquarters of the East Berlin Soviet regime, and as such, continued to be a place to fear. On it, the Soviets painted a massive mural of happy Germans living a great life in the Communist East. It shows people going to work in suits, women and children celebrating in the streets, and happy farmers growing abundant crops. However, this life couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

Just a year after the occupation, a few thousand demonstrators marched on the building to protest working conditions, and Soviet tanks mowed down 250 of them. There is now an enormous mural to these people on the ground outside of the building depicting these demonstrators walking arm in arm towards the Soviet bullets. This building is also famous for being in the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie, when all the soldiers are running through the courtyard with the long flowing red Nazi flags.

As I continued my exploration of the city, another thing became very evident to me. Even without a map, or any sense of direction since this city is just a huge mishmash of streets, you can instantly tell whether you are in the former East or West sides. The buildings in the West have that capitalistic flair to them that we are used to in the states. However, the buildings in the East are hideous, built solely for function, throwing any aesthetics out the window. The Soviet architects were apparently horrid, especially considering their crowning achievement, the East TV Tower (the largest structure in Berlin which was supposed to impress the West), started to fall over immediately after being erected! They had to smuggle in Swedish engineers to fix it!

Also, many people in the city will tell you that divisions still exist between the two sides. A 20-something year old who spent the first part of their life either on the East or West side of the wall was raised accordingly to the limitations of their respective governments. The people in the West enjoyed much of the privileges we had in the states. However, those in the East were brutally suppressed, like those that I encountered in Budapest and Prague. But when the wall suddenly came crashing down, it wasn’t as simple as unifying a city. The people in the East weren’t prepared for these new civil liberties, and the people in the West had to shoulder much of the costs of the rebuilding that the Soviets had neglected to do. As such, many in Berlin, even today, wish the wall was brought back. While I walked, I saw some spray painting in a field heavily protected by barbed wire that read “Baut die Mauer wieder!!” (build the wall again) This person felt strongly enough about this subject that they hurled themselves over barbed wire to write this message. This division that the two sides struggle with is called “Mauer im Kopf” (wall in the head), which refers to how there are still many problems with the unification of this great city. But if anyone is capable of doing so, it is the resilient Berliners who are quickly forging a new identity for themselves.

I finished out the day by checking out Bebelplatsz, the site where in 1933, Nazi students burned 20,000 books. Today there is now a monument below ground that you view from a glass walkway: a sealed off white room with huge, empty bookshelves that would be able to hold all of the burned manuscripts. Next to it is a plaque with the words of Heinrich Heine’s 1820 epigram: “Wherever they burn books, eventually they will burn people too.” He was referring to the Spanish Inquisition, but how bizarre that the Nazis first burned his books, then later, his Jewish descendants.

My last stops were Check Point Charlie, which I learned isn’t even the real checkpoint (and had way too many tourists) and the Berliner Dom, a gorgeous church that had to be heavily repaired after being destroyed by a US firebomb. I was exhausted so I headed back to the hostel, made some friends, drank at the bar, and prepared for bed.

My experience in this hostel, Baxpax Downtown, was of a particular curiosity. I booked it forever ago, because it was highly rated online, but didn’t remember what type of room I booked. I believe I chose the option for “dorm” as this is usually the cheapest option, but is never more than 12 or so beds. What I saw when I walked into my room was absolutely disturbing; 62 fucking beds in a massive room that looked like a prison cell! I could not believe I would be trying to sleep in the same room as 61 other people! What was worse was that the only people I could see already in beds were a shit ton of dudes! Fantastic… 61 other dudes snoring the night away (it is common knowledge that the more girls in your room, the better you will sleep… they snore less). Well, I didn’t have a choice at this point, so I got in bed and started reading my book. What happened around 4 am is hard to explain, and I wouldn’t have believed it had I not witnessed it. I’m assuming these 15 or so girls had just finished the pub crawl, since 4 am is usually when they let out, and they were also completely destroyed. They wandered into the room and I thought to myself “oh lovely, maybe I will actually get a bit of sleep.” But then without a word, all of these girls started to disrobe… completely! A few stopped at bras and thongs, but the majority just completely stripped naked and attempted to climb into their beds! I sat there slack-jawed, not realizing if anyone else in the room was awake witnessing this! Where the fuck where these girls from?! And did they not realize there were like 40 other people in the room?! I swear if this is what you women do in all-girl dorms in the hostels, us guys have been severely missing out. And like that, they were all blacked out, naked in their beds, and I was left completely dumbfounded. Berlin does interesting things to people…

I awoke the next morning, but somehow the hammered naked girls had beat me to the punch and most had already left. I grabbed a quick breakfast and headed out to finish my tour of Berlin. I stopped at the Reichstag, which anyone who has ever played a WWII shooter will instantly recognize a million times over. The government building was the final showdown between the Nazis and Soviets, where the Soviets prevailed and flew their flag over the top to proclaim final victory in Berlin. Today, it is adorned with a gorgeous glass dome that you can walk up into and get a great view of the city. But when I arrived, a hundred or so Berlin and military police were evacuating the building. It only got more bizarre after that.

I strolled down to the Unter Den Linden, the Champs Elysees of Berlin that connects the Brandenburg Gate to the towering Victory Column. However, again, the police had closed the entire street down and weren’t allowing anyone past. So I chose to cut through the Tiergarten (the king’s old hunting grounds) to try to get the Victory Column, but just then, I heard a loud explosion, followed with billowing smoke on the horizon! I still don’t know what happened since I have been cut off from the news, but did I just witness a terrorist attack?

When I finally arrived at the Victory Column, I was disappointed to see that it was covered in scaffolding as they were restoring the golden angel.

I decided to grab the S-Bahn to the Eastside Gallery, the largest remaining stretch of the Berlin wall that they have turned into the world’s largest outdoor art gallery. I walked the whole stretch awed at the amazing work created by local street artists, even so much so, that you forget that the art is actually on the freaking BERLIN WALL… this wall that represented not only countless deaths, but the true division between the east and west during the cold war.

I had just a bit of energy left, so I rode the bus to Museumsinsel (museum island), where five national museums reside. I went to the Pergamonmuseum, one of the best ancient history museums in the world. Inside, they have literally reconstructed a portion of an ancient Turkish city, the Pergamon Altar from 170 BC. They also have the reconstructed Ishtar Gate from the 6th century BC, one of the original seven wonders of the world. I continued to explore until I could no longer walk, and meandered back to the hostel. I grabbed two bottles of wine at the corner store, and joined a group of Scots playing Kings. It was a nice night to finish out Berlin.

All in all, I absolutely loved Berlin. It is a city steeped in rich (but controversial) history, and the people are as vibrant as they come. I wish I had indulged more in the insane nightlife, but my knee cannot take anymore dancing, and my bank account is in tatters. Besides, I think I did enough clubbing in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Florence, Rome, Athens, Corfu, Budapest, Prague… you get the point. But Berlin was definitely a top five city for me, if not top three. I cannot wait to return. And thanks again Naz for letting me surf! But for now, I’m on the train, headed back to where this whole odyssey began: Amsterdam. I think it is going to be bizarre walking those same streets where I arrived over two months ago, completely wide-eyed, confused, yet so incredibly excited for the unexpected. Things are far different now; I have just completed the trip of a lifetime, and did things I never thought I’d ever get a chance to do. So I’m not going to get too emo just yet. I have one final blog that I intend to post as soon as I get home… my final thoughts and feelings regarding this trip which I intend to author on the plane ride over the Atlantic. But in case you miss it, thanks for reading these blogs, and I hope you learned something! Auf wiedersehen!

-Batty

UPDATE: my last night in Amsterdam was awesome! I met up with Maggie from Florence and her friends, we drank a ton of beers, smoked some hookah, ate a handful of truffles, and wandered around the city in awe. I forgot how much I loved Amsterdam. The highlight of the night was watching some local who looked like Gandalf attempting to overload his bike with stolen scrap metal from a construction site, and watching his bike continually fall over and over again. But I’m on the flight back now!

Back in Amsterdam

Sad face… time to go home :(