A couple of weeks ago Kat and I had our half-term break. Since it was the middle of February, we thought it was be a great idea to go somewhere colder than here — Berlin, Germany and Stockholm, Sweden. Not that it’s particularly cold here, it’s just that when people take vacations, they generally go to warmer places. But we are a special breed of traveller – stupid.
I am, of course, exaggerating. Both cities (I’ll cover Stockholm in a separate post) were pretty awesome and a lot of fun.
But it was still cold.
The map doesn’t quite accurately reflect our journey: Google Maps doesn’t have an airplane option. You get the idea though.
We got up stupidly early on February 23rd to get a bus to the airport. Like, one a.m. early. The bus left at two and it’s about a two-hour ride from Milton Keynes to Stansted Airport. We got there and got through security with little hassle, and at about six our flight to Berlin took off. I have mentioned my lack of faith in air travel before but on this flight I may have found a way to alleviate some of my fears — sit at the very front of the plane. We did this for all three of our flights during this trip, and I was much calmer than normal. Aside from the fact that less turbulence is felt closer to the front, there’s also more leg room! So I’m not crammed in and claustrophobic for the entire flight.
So after a pleasant flight, we landed at Berlin Schonefeld Airport and made our way to the Eastener Hostel in central Berlin. Shit was dicey. We went inside and the place was an absolutely wreck. We found our way to the check-in desk, which was unoccupied and piled high with junk, and waited for someone to come so we could check in. Dude finally showed up and explained that they were in the middle of renovations, hence the mess. We were then informed that we couldn’t check in yet, so the guy ushered us outside and across the street to a shitty little café with a pathetic looking breakfast buffet and said for us to wait 15 minutes, then come back.
He left, then we did too. We walked up the street a bit, found a place that looked like it served half-decent food (we both got a schnitzel and fries), and pondered what the hell we’d gotten ourselves into. After deciding finding a new place to stay would be too much hassle, we swallowed our pride (and schnitzel) and headed back to check in. We were shown to our room (which was private, with a double bed) and it was actually kind of nice. Spartan to be sure, but clean, and in part of the hostel that seemed to have had its renovations already completed. So we breathed a sigh of relief and settled down for a quick nap.
The rest of our first day in Berlin was fairly uneventful. We mainly wandered the streets a little and got ourselves used to the layout of the section of the city we were in. I had a mug of hot glühwein (the same mulled red wine I had in Scotland), we had some pizza for supper, then we went to bed early to prepare for the next day.
When we checked in we were given a map, hastily marked by the hostel owner with the locations of the city’s landmarks. Also on there was an ad for a free walking tour of the city. So that’s what we decided to do the next day. Our guide was Nickolai — he was Bulgarian by birth and American by upbringing, but he knew his Berlin history. The tour hit up the major sights. Such as…
The Brandenburg Gate, one of the few real landmarks in Berlin to survive World War II.
The Hotel Adlon (just across the plaza from the Brandenburg Gate), where in 2003 Micheal Jackson hung his infant son from a third storey window.
The German parliament, called the Reichstag. People can walk up the dome on the top and look down onto the actual parliament in session. It apparently reminds the government that they work for the people.
The recently erected Holocaust memorial. It’s grey stone slabs of varying size and at varying angles — apparently the artist meant it to be ambiguous and open to interpretation.
This parking lot, under which used to be the bunker where Hitler and Eva Braun killed themselves. The tour guide made a good point here — the city has chosen not to turn it into a museum or tourist attraction because it wants to remember the victims, not glorify the perpetrators. Also, he told us that that people bring their dogs here specifically to defecate. And drunk people stop by to puke on their way home from the bar. I probably would do the same.
The Berlin Wall. Souvenir vendors have apparently been chipping off parts of the wall and selling them, so that fence was put up to protect it. I think my irony meter just exploded.
It was a very interesting tour, all in all. At about the halfway point we were given vouchers for one euro off the admission price to a pub crawl the tour company runs every night. We were planning on going anyway, so that just sweetened the deal.
It started at a sketchy looking place called Zapata. We were ushered into a back room containing a keg of beer, a large pot of mulled wine, and a ping-pong table. The walls were covered in graffiti and smoke hung in the air. That last part was a little shocking — I hadn’t been in a bar where smoking was allowed since 2005. I guess Germany hasn’t caught up with the rest of the civilized world on that particular issue. After draining the keg, we were off to the next bar.
I don’t remember the name of the next bar, but that’s probably because this is when the free shots of Jagermeister started. It was part of the pub crawl — with every drink we bought, at every bar, we got a free shot of Jagermeister.
I’m actually proud of how well I was able to keep things from getting too out of hand.
My favourite incident of the night happened on the way to the next bar. We were walking along, and there was a woman up ahead — not an unlikely thing to see. As we passed by her though, I’m fairly certain she propositioned me for sex in German. Also, I bumped into her pretty hard. Yes, I bodychecked a hooker in Berlin. Confused as to what had just happened, I kept moving and didn’t look back.
After a couple more bars, some completely necessary street meat (with sauerkraut), we illegally hopped on a street car (which is FAR too easy to do in Germany) and made our way back to the hostel.
Our last day in Berlin consisted of hungoverly wandering though the Berlin Zoo. I’ll only post two pictures from here — it’s a zoo, there are animals, you know what they look like. First up:
That, my friends, is an eleven-day-old rhinoceros.
These lions are having sex.
Next: Stockholm, Sweden.
