City Post: Berlin

Four in the morning comes early when you're traveling, but that's how we were getting to Berlin. Well, Nuremburg, actually, because that flight was cheaper. From there we went to the main Nuremburg train station and hopped a train to Berlin. When you're on a fixed budget with no income, you have to take what you can get at the cheapest price. Luckily, our hostel was right next to the train station / metro stop we would be using, so that made everything easier. It was also right next to the longest stretch of the Berlin wall still remaining! It was odd to think that just 33 years ago, that small barrier separated East from West, communism from democracy, freedom from oppression.

We kicked off our time in Berlin at a restaurant called Volkskammer. It advertises itself as East German cuisine, so we had to give it a try. It was good food, especially after a long day of travel (we were both really hungry!). We were amazed that the Germans charge for tap water. We were even more amazed at how much tap water cost. It was cheaper in some places to get soft drinks! Neither of us were big fans of this. After this meal, and after hearing how much breakfast would cost at the hostel, we knew that Berlin was going to challenge our budget on food alone. Luckily, we'd been eating two meals in the hostel the past several cities, so we could offset some of this cost.

Our first day, as has become our habit, we did an audio tour of Berlin. It started off at the Bundestag, walked us down to the Brandenburg Gate, around US embassy, down Under den Linden street, and finished off crossing museum island and seeing the old Soviet TV spire. The Bundestag was impressive, especially given how much that building has been through over the past 100+ years. Next to is was a memorial to the 96 politicians who stood up to Hitler during his rise to power. We also saw the massive Berlin Cathedral. At 7 euros a person, we didn't go in, but it was such a beautiful building on the outside, that Jack just had to take a lot of pictures of it.

Along the tour, we stopped at two locations which impressed on us the importance of 1) remembering history and 2) not doing so selectively. At the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, we saw an eerie first admission from the German government that the Holocaust was a crime. It's an open air labyrinth of simulated tombstones rising from the Earth, so we could get lost walking through it. Nearby is the location of Hitler's former bunker. It is now a parking lot for an apartment complex. The only reminder that it was ever there is an information board. The Germans didn't want it to become a gathering place for neo-Nazis, so they cleared it out and filled it in with dirt.

The second location was the Marx-Engels Forum. This park hosts statues and sculptures dedicated to communism and the workers' struggles across the world. In Berlin. We struck by how sensitive the Germans are about the Holocaust, but how open and borderline accepting of communism they seemed to be. Someone had even spray painted a hammer and sickle on the Berlin Wall near our hostel. How they could commemorate Marx, Engels, and communism with a park after being subjected to the Soviet regime for 50+ years baffled us. Selective history at its finest.

Along the walk, we stopped for lunch and had some traditional German food. We were thoroughly underwhelmed, and decided that would consider that block checked and eat better food from here on out. We weren't exactly overly impressed the night before or in Vienna, so for the cost we wanted more enjoyment out of our meals.

From there, we headed over to the The Wall Museum - East Side Gallery. The Wall Museum is a collection of museums across Berlin dedicated to remembering the Berlin Wall. This one covered a detailed history of the wall in just one floor (which happened to be above a pirate bar of all things). There are videos of authorities cementing in peoples' windows, stories of those who attempted to escape (some made it, others did not), and exhibitions which cover the steady-then-rapid fall of the Iron Curtain. It was an excellent museum, especially for 25 euros for the two of us. If you really want to get a sense of what it was like to live life under the wall, you absolutely have to check it out. Outside stands the East Side Gallery, the largest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall. It is covered in paintings from 1990, when the last East German government permitted artists from around the world to paint their impressions of the wall, politics and more on the expansive symbol of former Soviet oppression. The wall was restored in 2008 by the original artists. There are a few blank spots now, because the artist didn't participate in the restoration.

The next day, we started off with the Neues Museum. Jo wanted to see the bust of Nefertiti, an amazingly well-preserved Egyptian artifact of one of the queens of Egypt. This museum was massive, larger than either of us expected. Essentially, it is an archaeological museum which focuses, in our observation, on Greek, Roman, and Egyptian history, along with the history of the local area. We only had a short time here, because we had other things we wanted to see and do, but it was a really cool space to spend out morning. While we initially wished we had gotten the audio guide, we were glad we didn't, because there is no way we would have made it out of there!

For lunch, we had Tex-Mex. Yeah, Tex-Mex in Berlin. What could go wrong? We passed this place on the way to the museum and decided to check it out. It wasn't bad! The enchiladas had the rice in them, and chips and queso weren't on the menu, but, hey, it's Berlin, not San Antonio.

We made our way from Tex-Mex to the Topography of Terror. This is a free exhibit which memorialises the story of the SS and Reich Main Security Office (RHSA) in the Holocaust. It sits on the sie once occupied by the RSHA. It starts with Hitler's rise to power, flows through the organisation and re-organisation of the SS and RSHA, peaks with the deportation operations and concentration camps, and finishes with the prosecutions (and lack thereof) of Nazi war criminals. This exhibit was breathtakingly well done. It comes with a free audio guide, which you can listen to at home (click here). The audio guide is an hour long, but we spent about three hours here once it was all said and done, and we could have stayed even longer. There is also a temporary exhibit about the Prison House, where the Gestapo imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured prisoners that we breezed through (we were limited on time).

That night, we grabbed dinner from the market in the train station and posted up in the hostel's common area. We had an important appointment with Onetoro.tv to watch a bullfight in Las Ventas. You can take the aficionados out of Spain, but you can't take Spain out of the aficionados!

Our last full day in Berlin, we hit up the German Spy Museum and Checkpoint Charlie. Jo found the Spy Museum on a flyer in the hostel. We're both fans of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, s we decided to give the German version a go. It was much like ours, with artifacts, spy stories, and a few interactive exhibits. It also had a section dedicated to spy movies. Naturally, Jack gravitated towards the James Bond section (to say he's a huge 007 fanatic would be an understatement).

From there, we headed towards Checkpoint Charlie. It's pretty close, so we decided to hit them at the same time. But first, lunch. Probably our favourite meal in Berlin was this lunch, because Jack found a tapas place on Google maps! In actuality, we had both seen it the day before, and we both commented on how the lighted signs out front made it look not very appetizing. Boy were we wrong! It was a great taste of Spain! Croquettes, peppers, jamon serano, and in appropriately sized portions. We had only been out of Spain a few days, and we were already figuring out how eat like we were still there. Definitely our highlight meal of Berlin.

Checkpoint Charlie was not what we expected. There is a road which flows past it, so the it's literally just the guard shack that remains. It is cool to see, but it was a lot less than we thought it would be. There was a street hustler playing find the lady, though. We had a good laugh trying to figure out which of the crowd were his compatriots. We're fairly certain we identified two of them, but one of them for sure.

The next day, we were off to Warsaw! All in all, we liked Berlin, but we both agreed that is probably because we had a general theme to the visit. Berlin was more expensive than we anticipated, especially when it comes to food. We couldn't believe we were paying three or more euros for tap water at restaurants, or that the various wursts cost so much for so little. But that's the case when you're sitting in what has been the de facto capital of Europe for the past few years.

Where we stayed:

Jo's Favourite: Ampelmann

Jack's Favourite: Wall Museum - East Side Gallery

Top Lesson Learned: Theme your visit if you can. It helps make it more enjoyable and immersive.

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