Thursday night my friends Kiersten and Emily and I took an overnight train to Berlin. We booked a sleeper car, in hopes of getting a little rest that night. Unfortunately, sleeper cars aren't particularly comfortable. Not only that, but three of the beds were already taken when we got there, which meant we couldn't be up and talking. Not like we could sit up, anyway.
We got to Berlin before 7 in the morning, which was fairly disorienting because we're college students and barely ever wake up in time to see the sun rise. Our first impression of Berlin was the mean lady at the bakery, which set the tone for the rest of the day - Berliners are stereotypically unfriendly and "cheeky," and we got to experience both. We found our hostel with little difficulty, but couldn't check in yet. Our hostel was a boat in the middle of the river Spree, next to the Schlesisches Tor (which is a bridge). It also happened to be right next to the East Side Gallery, which is part of the Berlin Wall.
Staying on a hostel boat was pretty cool. It was bizarre, though, to have it rock us to sleep at night. The boat itself was anchored, but that didn't change the fact that we were on water. I'm proud to say that I didn't get sea sick once. Our room was a little small; I'm glad we all knew each other, because it would have been very awkward otherwise. I slept on the top bunk, too, which was very close to the ceiling. But the beds were incredibly comfortable, and the location couldn't be beat.
So after putting our stuff down in the hostel, we changed in the bathroom (where the door to one of the bathroom stalls fell in on us...oops), and went for a walk along the wall. We followed the Berlin wall into the city, where we grabbed a snack (with another unfriendly Berliner as our waitress) and found the Fehrnsehturm, which is a giant space needle thing. We didn't go to the top because the line was unbelievable. Instead we kept going, and ended up in the DDR museum. The museum is tiny but interesting. It's unbelievable to me that a city, a whole country for that matter, could exist with a wall down the middle. Not only that, but that while this wall was up extreme injustices were happening on the other side. People were literally trapped, with inadequate materials. Life was by no means terrible, at least it didn't seem to be, but I would have been pretty upset to be on the other side of that wall.
After the DDR museum, we took a taxi bike to the closest U-Bahn stop, and found a Döner place that my roommate reccommended. Döner is a Turkish food, kind of like gyro, that was invented in Berlin. And since my roommate is from Berlin, we figured she knew what she was talking about. And she did.
With food in our stomachs, we continued our grand tour, stopping at Checkpoint Charlie on the way back, and exploring the Holocaust memorial, the Berliner Tor, and Potsdamer Platz. We ended our day with a giant hamburger (ohh how I've missed American food), and returned to our boat just as a giant thunderstorm rolled in. We went to bed early to save up energy for the next day.
Bar/Resteraunt in the train where we spent our time, since we couldn't sit in our sleeper car.
Our sleeper car. It was much smaller than it appears in this picture.
Berlin Hauptbahnhof is the cleanest public place I've ever been in my life.
East Side Gallery
Kiersten and our broken door
Our hostel!
Trabis, the cars of the East, are funny.
"Informations to restoration of the world largest open air gallery." Hehe.
Graffiti on the wall
More graffiti on the wall.
Bombed out church
Fehrnsehturm
This was a hair salon. "Unisex" is probably the last word I want to describe any haircut I have.
Emily and me with pinnocchio in front of a wood shop
The Dom
Checkpoint Charlie
Kiersten and me with the fake Checkpoint Charlie guards
The new Holocaust Memorial, my new favorite memorial. I met the architect when he came to Bowdoin, which made it that much better.
Emily in the Holocaust Memorial
More Trabis
Brandenburger Tor
