Berlin: Undefinable

A few days ago Kevin, Heather, Marissa (a friend of Heather's visiting from home) and I embarked on one last Hurrah: Berlin.

Whatever happened to Paris? You may be wondering. As it happened we discovered a snag in our rail pass that suddenly turned Paris into a very expensive option. I had so been looking forward to going to Paris, but my disappointment was quickly tempered. I've been dying to go to Berlin since I've been in Freiburg and heard all sorts of fantastic things about it from the famous Susie, but the closer we got to August the more it looked like that wasn't going to happen. We were able to get a fantastic deal through Gleisnost on a train ticket/hotel combo, which was almost as good as eating a buttery croissant at a sidewalk cafe. So Berlin it was!

Early Sunday morning the four of us got on an ICE train to Berlin. After a long but pleasant 7 hour journey we arrived at the gargantuan modern and shiny Berlin Hauptbahnhof. We took the S-bahn to our hotel in Charlottenburg, a scenic and tree-filled neighborhood in west Berlin lined with restaurants and cafes. After sitting for seven hours we needed to get out and explore a bit. We walked over to Charlottenburg Palace and took a walk through the garden.

For dinner I had the most delicious Pizza I've had in Europe yet.

Berlin is truly one of the most incredible cities I've been to. I'd always heard that it is not at all a typical German city. Whatever that meant, but now I see it. You'll find old classical architecture there but it's not the overall distinctive style. To me Berlin is the opposite of grand classical European cities like Vienna and Prague. And it's about as far from Freiburg (a perfect little quintessential German mid-sized city of 220,000) as you can get. In some ways the city reminded me of D.C. with it's low-slung (mostly) buildings and open spaces. Other bustling and busy streets looked like NYC. And then some of the neighborhoods reminded me of Paris. And of course there was a lot of GDR-tastic communist architecture. I heard just as much English and other languages spoken as German. Berlin is truly an international city.

The next day we got up early and headed to Alexanderplatz, a large city square in east Berlin named for a visiting Russian Czar.

The Fernsehturm, or T.V. tower, is located here. It was build by the GDR in the 60's to demonstrate East Germany's economic prowess. The thing is HUUUUUGE and looks like something out of Star Wars. Kevin and I decided to go up to the viewing platform of the tower while Heather and Marissa checked out some of the shopping in the area. We had to wait in line for a while but the views made it worth it!

 

The viewing platform

View from above

Alexanderplatz from up high

Afterwards we sauntered up Unter den Linden, Berlin's famous avenue, into Mitte. We eventually hit the Bradenburger Tor, where Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner." Except I don't think he meant he was a jelly doughnut. Along the day we got a Döner, which Berlin is famed for. It was delicious! I had at least two more during the trip.

Holocaust Memorial

Heather and Marissa decided to walk through the Tiergarten and Ku'damm, shopping street, while Kevin and I decided to check out some of the sites in the area. We headed to Potsdamerplatz and Sony Center, which is a super cool looking complex full of offices and some shops and cafes.

 

We then walked over the the famous Checkpoint Charlie, the former diplomatic military checkpoint between East and West Berlin. It was overrun with tourists (just like I'd heard), but still cool to see a place I'd seen plenty of pictures of in my history textbooks. 

 

If there is one thing I miss about home, it's good Mexican food. We had gone out for Mexican in Freiburg before but it always ended up tasting more like German food with Mexican influences. Tacos is mayonnaise sauce, anyone? I had read an article about a recent deluge of Mexican food in Berlin. We took the U-bahn to the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood in east Berlin, which was chock full of ethnic food and restaurants. The food was fantastic! In typical Berlin fashion everyone at Maria Bonita, our hole-in-the-wall-restaurant was chatting in English.

After dinner we wandered around for a while before taking the U to meet up with a friend of Susie's. We went out for a few drinks and called it a night. It was in the wee hours of the morning when we finally got back to the hotel after navigating Berlin's Nachtverkehr. At 3 a.m. the bus was as packed and hopin as at any other time of day.

The next day after an extended sleep in we went to the Berlin Zoo. By the time we left it was close to 5 p.m. One thing I love about Northern European summers is that it stays light out until at least 10 p.m.  As we were going back to the hotel at about 8 p.m. it felt like 4 or 5. This extended daylight schedule is extremely conducive for night owls and party animals.  

We had made it our mission to find these gigantic see-saws that Heather had heard about. We found them at a park only to see that they were bolted down. Oh well, doesn't stop us from having a good time!

Crazy cool cityscape by the see-saws

After resting up for a bit we headed back out at midnight for a night out on the town. Berlin nightlife starts suuuuper late, it's pretty normal to head out to the club beginning at 3 a.m. We went to Cake, which Susie had recommended to us and had a smashing good time. 

Want to know a bit about German dance floors? German's don't grind (which is more than fine with me). They are pretty awkward dancers (heck even I look like Beyonce compared to what I've seen here). But it was still a smashing good time and pretty full for a Tuesday night.  By the time we left that night (well technically morning) it was broad daylight outside. 

We had to be up earlier next morning to checkout of our hotel, a slightly painful experience. Everyone else went to Ritter Sport Chocolate World while I headed over to the Deutsches Historisches Museum, since the thought of chocolate was enough to make my stomach churn that morning...

After meeting at the station it was time to get on the train home. 

So that concludes my Berlin weekend! It was amazing and I can't wait to go back!