Berlin is amazing in many ways. Berlin is the cradle of history for the past 100 years and there are so many important, pivotal, and tragic events that occurred here it's hard to know where to start once you arrive in the city.
My first day in Berlin was interesting. It was raining pretty hard outside, so I decided to do laundry rather than go out in the elements. While doing laundry, I met a girl from San Jose, California named Judith. We chatted for a while and ate dinner together. While eating dinner, we met another guy named Daniel (who as it turns out I have a mutual friend with who lives in Tulsa) who is from New York and has traveled all over the world. It was fun hearing about all the places they've been and talking about all of my stops along my journey. It's always interesting to compare notes when you've been to the same places to see what you may have missed. Anyway, after talking for a bit we headed upstairs to the hostel bar to get a beer during happy hour and we ran into a group of 33 Danes traveling together on a school trip, a Lithuanian, 2 girls on fall break from a tiny island called Sylt in Germany, a handful of Australians, and more. It was cool to meet people from so many different places. It was like our own mini United Nations.
My second day in Berlin I met up with Judith and Daniel again and we went to the Olympic Stadium where the 1936 Olympics were held. The 1936 Olympics were highly controversial because of Hitler's outward aggression towards "inferior" races. Many countries considered boycotting the Olympics, but in the end only the Soviet Union did not participate. Jesse Owens won 5 gold medals which infuriated Hitler. The stadium was very cool. Hitler wanted to use the stadium to showcase Germany to the world. Originally it seated 110,000 spectators and the design was very innovative for its time. After the Olympic Stadium, Daniel and I went to the Berlin Zoo. The zoo is world renowned for it's diversity of species, large number of animals, and it's giant panda named Bao Bao which is the longest living giant panda in captivity. The zoo was fun but I wish the weather had been better because many of the animals stayed inside. After the zoo, we met back up with Judith, grabbed some dinner, and walked to the Brandenburg gate and the Reichstag. Every year in Berlin, the city puts on an event called the Festival of Lights where the major sights all around town are lit up at night. It's dumb luck that I happened to be here while it is going on but it's really pretty cool. One of the funnier moments of my trip so dar occurred when Daniel, who had bought a pizza to go from our dinner stop, was contemplating with Judith and I how to sneak the pizza through security at the Reichstag. Well it ended up not being a big deal, but instead of worrying about security we should have been worried about the 20 or so hungry Italians who were on the elevator with us. As soon as they smelled the pizza they started chanting, "pizza, pizza" but we defended our turf with a few dirty looks. To finish the night, we met back up with our Danish friends from the night before and chatted.
For my third day in Berlin, Judith and I (more so me than her) decided to go to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was a very eery feeling being in a place where thousands of people were exterminated with disturbing precision and planning. I won't go into details since I can't really explain the feeling without being graphic, but it really makes you think about life and how some people can be so evil. After Sachsenhausen, Judith and I went our separate ways. One of my Danish friends was celebrating his 19th birthday so I decide to go out with him and his school. I don't know if it's because they were 19 or because they were Danish (probably both) but they really like to party and they really like for everyone else to know that they like to party. One of the Danish birthday songs involves playing fake drums using the table. I don't think the rest of the bar thoroughly enjoyed this song as much as we did.
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
I woke up the next day and decided that after 3 days it was finally time to hit the major sights I had really come to Berlin for. First, I went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Checkpoint Charlie was the most famous crossing point from East Berlin to West Berlin when the country was divided. Furthermore, Checkpoint Charlie was also a focal point of tension between the Russians and Americans during the height of the Cold War. The museum itself was very impressive. Started by a Berliner after World War 2, one man essentially built the entire museum into what it is today; which is very large. My favorite parts of the museum were the exhibits dedicated to the escape attempts of many East Berliners and the Ronald Reagan exhibit. Ronald Reagan had an unbelievable ability to communicate (without a TelePrompter)! After Checkpoint Charlie, I headed to an exhibit/museum called Topography of Terror. Topography of Terror resides at the former spot of the Nazi headquarters and the museum is dedicated to reminding the world of the tragedies that occurred under Nazi leadership. It was an excellent exhibit. The most shocking thing to me about the Nazi regime was that a large portion of Nazi leadership was never brought to justice. After authorizing the murder of 10 million people, a lot of these people walked away free with no accountability for their actions. It's sickening. After the Topography of Terror museum I went to see the Berlin wall which is conveniently located right next door. There's only a few large sections of the wall remaining in the city so it was cool to see it.
Checkpoint Charlie
I decided to make my final day in Berlin relaxing. I started the morning early and went to a big street market called Wintergartenplatz. Tons of food, warm clothes, flowers, and some junk. Next I walked through Tiergarten; Berlin's famous park. The park is the old imperial hunting grounds for the various royal families who controlled Berlin over the years. It turned out to be a great park. Not as cool as the English Gardens in Munich but close. After the gardens I walked around an area known as Potsdammer Platz which is a big shopping area in Berlin. Berlin malls are interesting, because they have a distinct American feel to them. In the mall I finally found an English section in a bookstore. I finished reading the book I brought with me a few weeks ago and have been craving new reading material ever since. I purchased Andrew Ross Sorkin's book Too Big To Fail for those who are curious. Upon leaving the mall I walked to the Holocaust Memorial. The memorial is a bunch of free standing pillars of varying heights that is allegedly (when you shown up there is no explanation on what you are looking at) supposed to represent the persecution of Jews throughout history culminating with the events of the Holocaust. I hate to be critical of it, but by leaving the memorial up to interpretation, it honestly was more like a giant playground for kids than a memorial dedicated to the killing of 6 million innocent. On my way back to the hostel I walked by the US embassy. Later that night, I found a bar that I thought might have the OSU-Nebraska game on, but they were showing the LSU-Auburn game instead. In retrospect, that's probably a good thing.
If you made it through all of that, good work! Berlin was amazing and a must see especially for Americans visiting Germany. Stay thirsty my friends.
Sköål!
