Berlin is yet another remarkable and unique city, full of contradictions. It is ugly and bullet-torn and yet has breathtaking architecture. The city is ancient, and yet 90% of it was decimated during WWII, so many of the buildings are new. Berlin’s history is full of darkness and oppression and horror, but also is also a city of progression and equality.
I arrived here a couple of days ago at about 8am via a 12 hour overnight bus. After a cold and uncomfortable walk to the train station and a confusing ride that I only screwed up a little, I arrived at my hostel. I’m staying at a place that is a little outside the city center, but it was recommended to me by several people and has like a 9.something rating on hostelworld so I figured I’d give it a go. Even though I didn’t sleep very well on the bus, there was a walking tour starting in about half an hour, so I grabbed a quick breakfast from the grocery store, dropped of my luggage in the storage room, and went downtown with a group from the hostel.
On the walk I met a trio of cool people: two American guys that were traveling together, and a Canadian girl. We quickly bonded and actually ended up spending the rest of the day together.
Walking tours can get old and tiring sometimes, but I also think that they are the best way to understand and appreciate a city and its history. There are buildings and monuments that you would never even notice otherwise, or places that look beautiful that you would take a picture with them, not knowing their dark and bloody history. We saw the balcony where Michael Jackson dangled the baby. We walked through the Brandenburg Gate, something that would have been impossible to do when it was built because it was reserved for the royalty. The bottom portion of the gate was covered in bullet holes and is one of the only structures in the square remaining from before the war.
We saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which was one of the most moving monuments I’ve ever seen. It is huge – about a square block, maybe bigger, and consists of slabs of different sizes of grey stone and hilly walkway that actually leads you below street level. It is disorienting and ugly and beautiful, and there are many interpretations of what it could possibly mean. Either way, I think that it’s an important monument for Berlin to have: Germany is facing the darkest parts of her history in order to remind people what happened and make sure it never happens again. Every country has done shameful things, but most don’t own up to it and directly face the uncomfortable truths like Germany has.
I also learned a lot about de-Nazification during the tour. We stopped in a run-down parking lot; it turns out that we were standing directly above Hitler’s bunker where he killed himself. All around us would have been government buildings of the Nazi regime, but they had all been torn down to prevent people from glorifying them. And that’s the whole idea of de-Nazification; Hitler doesn’t deserve a memorial or something commemorating him; they made this area as ugly and as average looking as possible not to forget the Holocaust, but to fight anyone’s temptation to glorify or honor the evil that occurred there.
We saw the book burning memorial, the Staatsoper, Checkpoint Charlie, parts of the still-standing Berlin Wall, and cathedrals, and walked the city for 2.5 hours – pretty standard for a walking tour. One cool thing about Berlin: there is a double brick line through the entire city, showing exactly where the Berlin Wall used to stand. It’s crazy to see how it would have divided the city.
Afterwards, my new friends and I decided to head to the DDR Museum: it’s an interactive museum where you can touch things and go into recreations of rooms and stuff, all about life before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was super interesting to learn about, and it was a reminder that no matter how oppressive a government and how hard life is, people will still find ways to find joy and live their lives fully. We got some Gluhwein (pronounced GLUE-vine, meaning hot wine!) and snacks at a Christmas Market, and then headed back to the hostel for dinner and to get ready for the PUB CRAWL because apparently I don’t drink enough without doing one of those.
The pub crawl was a blast for the most part. I got to hang out with my friends, meet lots of cool people, and played around the world ping pong which is stressful and scary but something I’ve never actually done before.
The only shitty thing that happened took place in an absinthe bar. A German guy sat down with my group of people – which is totally fine, I’m always down for meeting people. I started talking to him right away, and conversation turned eventually to Trump, as it always does because for some reason everyone in the world knows way too much about our shit American politics. I’ve never met a European who didn’t hate Trump, and I like to make it pretty clear that I hate him and don’t agree with anything he represents or does. Usually this goes over fine. But this guys started talking about how much he likes Trump. Which, whatever, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but you also know a hell of a lot less about my politics than I do. And I was basically saying okay, well he’s actually pretty terrible and here’s why, and the guy wasn’t taking me seriously at all. Again, whatever, not my problem. The moment I started to get REALLY pissed off was when he started making fun of me. Like he actually started imitating me like an eight year old would do. I told him to fuck off and not to talk to us anymore and that OH BY THE WAY all the people you’re sitting with right now like me a hell of a lot more than they like you, so you’re not going to make anyone laugh with that. The guys I was sitting with were great; they all were totally backing me up, several of them offered to basically get rid of him for me, but I kind of just wanted to handle it myself and not make a big deal out of it. It was a little upsetting in the moment, but it was also nice to realize that I had already made some solid friends that weren’t going to let people talk shit about me.
The rest of the night passed without incident, minus me getting pretty drunk because pub crawl. I spent the end of the evening with an American guy we had been hanging out with, ended up making out when we were at the club, and eventually went back to the hostel together. I’m pretty sure it was at this club that I left my sweater and scarf, but I can’t be sure which place it was because alcohol. I was a little annoyed that I lost them, mostly because that’s my only cardigan and that I already ripped my jeans the day before. So yeah, my clothes supply is quickly depleting. But also I don’t care. I’m learning that I can get by with less and less. Sometimes I lose something or run out of something and I’m like…meh. Do I really need this or want to use the effort to replace it? BUT at the same time I’m like running on one pair of pants SO…we’ll see.
Me and American Guy got pretty lucky because even though he was in a four bed dorm there was NOBODY ELSE THERE. So we hung out there for the rest of the night and for the second night in a row, I barely slept.
I had no plans the next day at all. Me and the American got breakfast (well, really lunch at that point), and got to talking for awhile. We visited the East Side Gallery, which is a long stretch of the Berlin Wall that is still standing and completely covered in artwork. We very nearly froze to death, so we found a pub so we could hang out and have a couple of drinks not outside. We stayed for hours talking about books and relationships. In the end we ate dinner there, got some Gluhwein to go because you can alcohol on the street with you, and headed back home for a new experience for me: the sauna.
Yeah, that’s right. I’ve never been in a sauna. Also my fancy shmancy hostel has a sauna and it’s only like $13 a night. Apparently sauna-ing is a pretty normal thing to do, but I guess I just never got the hype, and then I didn’t really know what you’re supposed to do so I just never did it. It was so strange and I’m not sure why people like it but I also kind of get it? We came directly from outside and I was too lazy to go all the way up to my room and change into a swimsuit, so underwear it was. I sweated through it in approximately four minutes. It’s just SO HOT. And breathing hurts. And DON’T WEAR METAL JEWELRY because it will BURN YOU. Anyway, aside from all that it was interesting…but it felt really good to leave and lie down on the chairs by the pool. So that was my first sauna experience.
We hadn’t been planning on spending the day together, but me and the American were still hanging out and having a great time. We decided to go out for some drinks, went to a couple bars, and tried not to fall asleep because we were both pretty damn tired. But as usual, as it got later and we got to drinking more, we were really hoping for someplace to do some things. Unfortunately, when we got back home, it turned out that we had roommates at this point. What does that mean in hostel world? Time to go exploring!
This hostel is giant. We kept finding hallways we didn’t know existed, trying doors that all turned out to be locked, and finding alcoves that had cameras pointing right at them. V v unfortunate. UNTIL. I tried one of the many doors that said “private: employees only” and it actually opened. It was the boiler room.
It was dark, big, and camera-less. Plus, furnaces are conveniently loud. The only problem was that it was freezing. We didn’t stay there long but it was LONG ENOUGH, and it took over my number one spot of “strangest place.”
Anyway. I actually slept last night, which was necessary, and this morning woke up plan-less, again. I knew I was going to stay tonight, one more night than I booked, so at around check-out time I went downstairs to be like yo, can I stay in my room?
The next few minutes got me extremely pissed off at this hostel.
I asked them if they could see if my room was available for tonight: sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t, but it’s a Monday so I knew that they would at least have a room available, even if I would have to switch to a different one. I went to up the desk and asked if they could see if my room was still available. They responded with “no extensions.” I was like…”okay, I understand. Can I just book another room for tonight?” “No.” “So you have absolutely nothing available for tonight?” “Only privates.” “Um…okay?”
I go onto hostelworld, and there is literally a bed available for tonight on there. I go back up to the desk and I’m like…well, it says there’s rooms on hostelworld…and she goes “okay, get that then.” I was like…OKAY, but you said you had NO ROOMS AVAILABLE. Like what the hell. And then another girl comes over, says the system is weird, and that they can check to see if the same room is available after I book it through hostelworld. Which I understand, but like why didn’t they SAY THAT. I AM TRYING TO GIVE YOU MONEY. And I wasn’t even trying to do an extension, literally book another room for tonight when you HAVE ROOMS AVAILABLE. I was so pissed off. As it turned out, I still needed to switch to a different room, and naturally when I got back upstairs to pack up my stuff, my keycard didn’t work because it was technically after checkout time, and they had conveniently not bothered to tell me that would happen. Anyway, none of this is a big deal and certainly not a day ruiner. It’s just frustrating when I’m nice to people – which I literally always am, at least when it comes to customer service people – and they act like I’m being difficult or a burden when I’m just politely asking them to do something that is their JOB, and is literally TRYING TO GIVE THE HOSTEL MONEY. Okay, rant over.
Today I’ve just been wandering around downtown, stopped in some Christmas markets, and I’ve been sitting in a cafe and writing for quite awhile now. No idea what I’m doing tonight. Although I’m pretty sure it won’t be another pub crawl.