Keri Goes Abroad: berlin

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Berlin part 2

On our second day in Berlin we slept in (until 9) to counteract the effects of not sleeping on our sleeper train. We started our day with Berliners - jelly-filled donuts, of the 'ich bin ein Berliner' variety. We then explored an art show in the streets on our way to the Pergamon Museum. The Pergamon Museum is promoted as being the one museum you go to in Berlin, if you can only get to one of them. Inside they have deconstructed, moved, and rebuilt the entire facade of a Greek temple that once stood in Turkey. Cool, huh?

We then wandered the city, looking for nothing in particular. We found the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Wests), which is a giant mall (as it turns out) that symbolized everythig the East couldn't have. Near the KaDeWe, we stopped for ice cream, and accidentally stubled upon the Gedenknis Kirche, a church that was bombed out in WWII and remains open to this day.

We went out to dinner that night, searching for a restaurant that had ben recommended to us. Instead, we found another restaurant as well as prostitutes and a Jewish cemetary. Don't worry, the area was not unsafe. It was just an interesting experience - prostitution is legal in Germany, but it is still a little surprising to me.

We left the next day, undestanding a little more about the Cold War and a divided Germany. Our train was in daylight this time, so we got to see what we were passing; much of the middle of Germany resembles the middle of the US. Interesting.

Mother's Day cakes

Berliners for breakfast

Pergamon Museum

Athena in battle

Floaties that we found in the museum store. You never know when you might drown in the art museum.

Humboldt University's enterance. The missing bricks have been replaced by legos.

My favorite.

KaDeWe

Gedenknis Kirche

The bells in the tower of the church were made in Sin(n). This is ironic.

Our room in the hostelboat. I'm on the top bunk, which was unfortunately close to the ceiling.

Our hostel is the boat on the left, with Berlin in the background

Jewish Cemetery

Berliner Bier

Monday, May 18, 2009

Berlin part 1

Berlin is the most modern city I have ever been to! It's so cool how recent the history is, and how visibly present, too.

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.