When I told my mum I was planning on going to Berlin, she said "Why?!?"
As a person stuck on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain for the majority of her life, she had visited East Germany a few times and didn't find it to be a particularly nice place.
I am happy to report, however, that since the fall of Communism and the reunification of East and West Germany, Berlin is a brilliant, lively place, with a stack of fascinating history behind it.
I have been to Germany three times before on short trips (Munich, Dresden and the Rhine Valley). Each time I really loved it, and I have always heard many good things about Berlin, so I wanted to check it out. I found a package 3-day trip out of London which included a flight, transfers, hotel and tour, from a tour company I'd used before and enjoyed so I decided to give it a go. My Aussie friend M, who has also moved to London recently, agreed to come along for the ride.
The holiday was interesting from the start. It started at 5am on a Friday morning, when M and I caught a taxi to Stansted airport. Stansted is one of London's five airports, and is one of the most remote ones, and services the budget airlines around Europe. We pulled into the airport twenty minutes early from the designated meeting time with the rest of the group; and as I we were about to get out of the taxi, I decided to make some conversation:
"So, got your passport?" I asked.
"Uh..." she slowly answered, "no!"
"What do you MEAN, no?"
"I don't have it. It's at home!"
And so started the frantic emergency effort to somehow get the passport in time for check-in.
I'd often seen people do this on the TV show Airport, but never thought we'd be in the same situation. Luckily, M's an organised personal assistant, and before I even realised what was going on, she had another taxi driver on her way to the airport with her passport after picking it up from her housemate at home.
We made check in and even had some time to eat Croissants at the airport lounge!
The flight with Air Berlin was great. They are a budget airline but with all the service you'd expect from a full service domestic carrier.
Upon landing in Berlin I was disappointed to find it raining, after seeing that the weather had been sunny and in the 30's in the days leading up to our arrival. I was looking forward for some decent summer weather, given that London is just too mild.
A coach picked us up at the airport and took us on a coach tour around Berlin. We had an American tour guide who has been a Berlin local for many years, and he gave us a great run down of the history of the region, from the time it was a swamp settled by Gypsies, to the Prussian Empire, The World Wars, and the rise and fall of Soviet communism and beyond.
By the time the coach had gotten us to our hotel in the afternoon, Em and I were feeling absolutely exhausted. We knew we wanted a big night out in Berlin, so we retired for an afternoon nap.
Upon awaking, it was time for dinner, and finding a decent meal was surprisingly difficult in the hotel area. It was a part of Berlin-Mitte (central Berlin) which had a high proportion of Turkish residents, and the only thing on offer were Doner Kebab shops, which I just wasn't in the mood for. Eventually, we found an Italian restaurant in a big shopping centre near the hotel, which was interesting in itself. The German take on Italian food is quite different to what I'm used to.
That night we met up with some English guys in the tour group, and decided to all hit the town together. We caught a taxi to a lively area of the city and went out to a bar recommended by one of the hotel workers. One of the English guys had done some research as to some of the clubs he wanted to visit, so we made our way to one of them, only to not be let in. In the end we decided to put our fate in the hands of our cab driver, who recommended a club for us to go to, in which we partied the night away with local Berliners and cheap drinks.
Berlin was a surprisingly cheap city, given that it's such a big place (about 4 million people). But maybe it just seems cheap because I am used to living in London and paying in Pounds.
On Saturday morning we reconvened with our camp American tour guide (he had spent most of his pre-Berlin life living in San Francisco) and headed off on a massive walking tour of the city, taking in the sights and the history. By this time the rain had stopped, and it was a glorious 26 degree day, perfect for trekking the streets.
Like the rest of Germany, the area that Berlin is in, Brandenburg, started off as an independent state. Apparently, it had grown by offering things such as audited taxes and freedom of religion and soon boomed with people from all over Europe. It acquired lands in Poland and other places, and became known as Prussia. But the region had always had its share of conflict and hardship. It eventually became part of Germany, only to struggle with World War 1 and serious depression, eventually leading to the rise of Nazism and Hitler. You know the story from there. Berlin got absolutely flattened, and East Germany got divided into administrative parts, some controlled by the Western allies, and a part, in the East (encompassing Berlin) by the Russians. Berlin was, of course, the capital, so it too was administered in part by the Western allies. This part became West Berlin, the only part in East Germany, away from the oppression of the Soviet Regime. In the sixties the Soviets built the Berlin Wall to make sure citizens of the East couldn't escape as they committed atrocities against the people within.
The East Germans have had it tough, having endured the Hitler and the Brunt of World War II, only to be followed up by the oppression of Soviet Communism. Seeing the efforts people went to try to escape, risking, and most often losing their lives for the attempts made me remember how bad it really was, and how thankful I am that my parents went to the same trouble to get us out of then-Communist Czechoslovakia when I was little.
Present day Berlin, however, is an interesting mix of delightful architecture and sobering memories.
The architecture is fascinating. There wasn't much left after World War II, so a lot of the really old buildings (mainly in West Berlin) have been rebuilt with modern materials but replicating the way the buildings looked previously. In East Germany, restoration wasn't a priority, but since reunification, Germans have been filling empty spaces (and replacing hideous concrete blocks) with cool modern architecture. A great example is the new hauptbahnhof (main train station). Because the city was split into East and West, there were 2 main train stations. Now they have built one massive one, a huge and ingenious glass design that funnels natural light through pipes down to the lower underground platforms.
The new Parliamentary office is another amazing modern design, which actually crosses the river which formed a part of the border between east and West, to symbolise reunification. The old Parliament building, the Reichstag is rebuilt to its original form but with a massive futuristic glass dome on top.
Almost all of the Berlin Wall is now gone. Its path around West Berlin is barked by a line of double brick markers, you can still see where it stood. There are a couple of areas where the wall is still standing, where you can be reminded of how East Berliners lived and how much they wanted to get out. The tallest Eastern block style apartment buildings are next to the wall where the East German government was trying to block the views of West Berlin monuments so that the East Berliners couldn't tell how well the West Berliners were living.
There is very little to remind you of the NAZI regime. The Germans have put a big effort to put all this behind them, and there are only a few historic things around describing what it was like during WW2 and Hitler. But where there are descriptions, it is truly horrendous. Looking at the photos of the pits of dead bodies is depressing and the hordes of German soldiers under huge Swastika banners is quite scary.
By Saturday night I was again tired and another nap was in order. That was followed by dinner and more bars at the lively Oranienburgerstrasse. It was really easy to get around Berlin on the U-Bahn (underground transit) and S-Bahn (surface transit). And best of all, on the weekend, most services run all night!
Sunday was another glorious day, so after checking out, M and I headed out into the sun again. We checked out remains of the wall, and Checkpoint Charlie (a checkpoint where a big dispute between Americans on the West and Soviets on the East in the sixties almost started World War 3). Then, after being all historied-out for the weekend, headed to the Tiergarten park (a park which encompasses Berlin’s Zoo), where there was a great beer garden next to a lake. We got pizza and booze, and took in our final rays in the sun before we knew we'd have to head back to London.
The Germans were very friendly in the most part, often happy to have long conversations in English, and sounding genuinely interested in our stories and telling us about Berlin.
They spoke English very well, but always amused us with some of their word selection. One example is that in German, "bitte" means "please" as well as "you're welcome." It made me smile when I was talking to a German in English and I would say thank you, and they would respond with "please." I did, however, try to speak a bit in German where I could string a few words together, and it worked in the main part. Sometimes they would just answer me in English, which was slightly embarrassing. :)
Despite being very friendly people, the Germans could also be particularly blunt sometimes. As we were walking through the Tiergarten park, M saw some Germans throwing a frisbee. She hadn't thrown a frisbee in a while, and excitedly ran over to them and asked if she could play. In all seriousness, the two German blokes looked at each other and one answered sternly, "Er, no! Not at the moment." A cold rejection; how could they resist the Aussie charm? She also got told off by a random drunk German woman on the S-Bahn for talking too loud in English late on Saturday night.
Our tour group reconvened back in our hotel on Sunday afternoon, and headed to the airport. Upon getting out of the Air Berlin 737 back at Stansted Airport in my shorts I was suddenly hit by cool wind and rain. Ah, back in good old London.
