Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Berlin: "Poor but Sexy"

Once again I'm blogging late about this past weekend.  So after spending our first night in our barracks Emily and I were awoken at 5:30 am by the yelling of sargeants and other people.  Apparently the army thinks it a swell idea to wake up before the crack of dawn, organize themselves, and shout orders in the field outside of our window.  Not cool army!

After possibly a couple more hours of sleep we (Emily and I) decided to get up and meet Sarah at the train station to head to Berlin!  Berlin is 4.5-5 hour journey, including a train stop in Bamberg.  We arrived in Berlin in the early afternoon, dropped our bags at the hotel, and headed down to Alexanderplatz.  As I recall (which for the record I may be wrong on any of this), Alexanderplatz was the main "square" (aka "platz") for East Berlin back in the day.  Now it has the TV tower which people like to go up in and it's overrun with tourists, gypsies, and people who like to wear fishnets and combat boots.  We were headed there to meet our bike tour.

I had done a Fat Tire Bike Tour in Paris 3 years ago and loved it, so we decided to go with the same company in Berlin.  We road about 6 miles seeing the sights around the city.  It was awesome and a great way to cover some ground in this very large and diverse city!  We saw part of the Berlin wall, the sight where Hitler's bunker was, other Nazi era stuff, beautiful modern achitecture built since the wall fell, had a snack in a beer garden, Checkpoint Charlie, and Brandenburg Gate, just to name a few.  After that we were really tired and decided to take advantage of the free WiFi at our hotel and call it a night (I know, LAME, given Berlin is a huge party city!).

The next day we had a lesuirely morning sleeping in a bit.  Then we got out to see some more of the things that had caught our interest the day before.  First we headed back over to the Checkpoint Charlie area to go to a free museum called the Topography of Terror.  It's all about the rise of Nazism, with an emphasis on Berlin 1933-1945.  Ironically, this is located adjacent to the Berlin wall, which was from the Communism era.  It was sometimes difficult to remember to differentiate these two times as you saw things throughout the city.  I have a great picture on here taken from there which I call "Nazism, Communism, and Capitalism", because it shows the Berlin Wall, an old Nazi headquarters building (which only survived the war because it was a good reference point for Allied bombers), and a huge Ben & Jerry's billboard all on one street corner.  Just to avoid confusion, the Ben & Jerry's poster does not represent Communism in this instance, haha, kidding!

We ended up walking around a lot, even though it was quite warm and sunny it still felt better than Houston in August!  We went to check out the Currywurst Museum (Currywurst is like a signiture food of Berlin), however it cost 8.50 euro and decided we weren't willing to pay that just for something that we thought would be more of a joke.  So bust there!

We then took the city train further into the old east Berlin to see the East Side Gallery, which is the largest area in which the wall was still standing and artists have painted it.  Very cool!

That night we checked out a place called Winerei which our preceptor doctor told us about.  It's kinda off the beaten path in a non-touristy area (a lot of half empty stores and apartments because Berlin is somewhat of any empty city).  The basic idea is you pay 2 euros for "membership" (a wine glass and entrance).  There are several kinds of wines out and a large bowl.  You drink as much as you would like and then pay what you deem "appropriate" for the amount you drink at the end of the night.  However, we were told it was important not to abuse the system since Americans have a reputation for doing so.  We were the only Americans in there and it a somewhat local/underground feel to it, which was pretty cool.

On Sunday morning Sarah headed back to the U.S., and Emily and I headed back to Schweinfurt.  All and all a great weekend trip!!!

Berlin was probably the weirdest city I've ever been to, but it was awesome.  Virtually everything in the city was built or rebuilt since the 1950s since it was pretty much leveled in WW2.  Then you throw in very strong reminders of the division of the city and Communist rule by seeing the wall, or the stones on the wall representing its former location, and in some areas you see the older very bleak Communist era buildings (not a good look, may I add).  It's amazing to think how much has happened in this city in only my short lifetime!  However, from this history of oppression it's obvious that they have totally done an 180 and are all about acceptance and freedom.  I mean it's a place where you see the funkiest dressed and weirdest looking people you can imagine, a very artsy/underground scene, and you also have wine bars where you have the FREEDOM to pay as you feel.  They had none of this just 20 years ago!  I'm not a very liberal person at all, but I somehow found it amazing that they were able to create a free spirited place from a place with virtual no freedom in a very short time.  There is also so much new growth and amazing architecture that has come about in the last 20 years, I don't know how they did it so fast!  So that's my take on Berlin, and that's why they call it "Poor but Sexy".

No comments:

Post a Comment