Bikes, Beer Gardens, and the Berlin Wall
In lieu of actually working on the final project for studio, I’ve decided that now would be a wonderful time to tell you the story of Berlin, Germany. Rolling in at five in the morning, we stumbled around the train station in a nearly-futile attempt to find a line that would get us to our hostel. In a strange exchange of German and utter confusion, we managed to make our way to the tram station and wander to our hostel. Also, there was Dr. Pepper.
Upon arriving at our hostel, we (being everyone but myself; someone had to watch the luggage) crashed on couches in the lobby. At about seven in the AM, the room became inundated with middle and highschoolers speaking an awkward combination of English, German, and what I thought might have been Italian or Spanish; it was early, hard to tell. Then it struck me: the hostel we booked was designed for a younger crowd. Blue neon lights covered a swath of bright-green wall, stainless steel and black tile lined the floors, and the bar was lit with blacklights. Great, it’s like the Chuck-E-Cheese’s of Berlin.
We rolled out of “bed” at ten and made our way into Berlin. The tram system, God bless it, was not particularly well-monitored or user-friendly. That said, we didn’t spend a lot of money on public transportation, but it was definitely the quickest way around the city. I am not sure why it hasn’t caught on as strongly in the US, but I would invest in an Austin metro pass if it worked anything like the passes in Prague, Berlin, Milan, or Paris; Brilliant.
We arrived at the base of the TV Tower in East Berlin for the Fat Tire Bike Tour. After a particularly awesome speech by an Irishman, we split into groups. Unfortunately, the Irish guy’s popularity proved to be a burden; no one wanted to join the other guides’ groups. It came down to four of us, being the adults, moving to another group; we were now five and four. But that was okay; it was a bike tour and damn it, I was going to enjoy myself.
Fat Tire Bike Tour
We spent the next four hours doing the full tour: our guide made sure that we saw everything and learned everything we could in a single afternoon. Berlin on a bike is gorgeous; between the restored architecture of East Berlin and the modern buildings of West Berlin, it was a wonderful refresh of what we had experienced up until that point in Italy. We stopped at a beer garden in the massive public park in East Berlin and I had the best beer and stuffed pepper that I had ever had. We ended up in front of the Reichstag and our guide suggested that we take group pictures there. Unfortunately, something about our group kept us from seizing the moment, a decision which I regret. The bike tour, despite being completed under a veil of sleeplessness and uncoordinated frustration, was the best thing we could have done on the first day.
After a little shopping around the TV Tower, we headed to a nearby beer garden for dinner. As you can see, there was a consistent theme to our diet in Germany. I took part in the schnitzel, which between Bolzano and Berlin had started to become a staple of my nourishment, and a dark beer that I and a friend decided tasted like Christmas. Yes, the beer tasted like opening presents and sitting by the fireplace while watching Frosty the Snowman; it was that good.
That night we discovered just how “kiddy” our hostel was. At karaoke night, we found ourselves surrounded by German students, possibly middle-schoolers, all smashed and wearing school-sponsored shirts that read “I’m in Berlin BITCH”. Needless to say, the combination of Germans singing American pop songs and drunkenly stumbling all over the bar was enough to drive us out. It wasn’t until the teachers got up on stage, however, that we decided that it was a good idea to bail. They screamed some song in German, with an English chorus of course, and the entire school seemed to join in. Annoying, that’s the best way to describe it.
The next day we were on our own. We decided to try and hit up the Reichstag and move up into the dome early in the morning. Unfortunately, the line was several hours long. We decided to wander around the buildings nearby and make our way to a modern art museum. Along the way we took what is probably my favorite picture (shown below) for the entire trip. It took quite a bit of coordination, but it was totally worth it. At the museum, I was pretty much just along for the ride. I don’t do modern art very well; it all comes across as either incredibly pretentious or incomprehensible, and I can’t understand why an artist would ever want to be perceived as either. To put things into perspective, the exhibit that sticks out in my mind is one of a grown woman imitating baby noises and expressions… on a giant video screen… for eleven minutes. Why? Not sure, probably something about feminism or childhood or repressed memories or something irrelevant to the lives of anyone except those who would like a ridiculous sculpture of genitalia in their New York Loft (this is a recurring joke, be prepared to hear it a lot).
Best Picture Ever
After the gallery, we wandered over to revisit the Holocaust memorial, the most somber place I have been in my random travels throughout Europe. Designed by Peter Eisenman, the site consists of 2,711 concrete slabs on a structured grid. Eisenman claims that the slabs don’t represent anything in and of themselves, but that the space is designed to create confusion and a sense of a loss of place once you’re inside, contrasting the clear organization of the grid when viewed from the outside. Pretty successful, it allowed me to get lost in thought in the middle of crowded East Berlin. Think of it as being in a forest, totally separated from the outside world save for the occasional fellow wanderer; you have all the time in the world to think.
Holocaust Memorial
But we didn’t. We made our way over to the Topography of Terror exhibit, then to the Jewish Museum. Another wonderful piece of architecture, the Jewish Museum was designed by Daniel Libeskind. I will let the reader look into the building itself; it is a fantastic building (though a bit post-modern for my tastes) with many subtle nuances derived from Jewish history. It has to be experienced… mere explanation cannot do it justice (at least, not a month after having seen it).
The Jewish Museum
It was another weird night; it seemed as though everyone was getting a bit burned out on each other. We wandered into the train station and picked up some fast food. Despite the recommendation from the Irishman, Currywurst is not as awesome as predicted; think bratwurst covered in paprika-laced ketchup. Heading back to the hostel, we all pretty much did our own thing. I took advantage of the space outside the bar to avoid the drunk youngins, but there’s really only so much you can do when the hostel is packed with them.
Berliner Graffiti. Look in the upper-right corner. That just happened.
Our final morning in Berlin was a bit hectic. We wanted to hit a few sights before our flight to Ireland, so we hopped onto the metro before nine. Our first stop was East Side Gallery, a restored portion of the Berlin Wall complete with murals from many famous artists. I’ll have a few pictures from the wall up on my flickr and I promise it’s worth checking out. When we finally finished running along the wall, we needed to make our way to the airport to catch our flight. One of our team members, however, wanted to check out a final modern art gallery before heading out of Berlin. Despite the better judgment of this individual, she went with two of the other people. We made it to the airport and chilled for about an hour. We made it to the gate, started boarding, and did not see our companions.
They missed the flight to Ireland.
Up next, what we did in Ireland for the first day without our abandoned friends!
The View from a Train 