after 48 lovely days in spain, this past weekend we finally ventured out of the country to meet our friends in berlin. NEWSFLASH: in berlin, the official language is neither english nor spanish. this is very common information to the average knowledgeable person, but that common knowledge was absent from lauren and i when we arrived on thursday in berlin. when the _______ (fill in the blank: cab driver, person at airport ticket counter, waiter, etc) didn't speak english, we automatically reverted into speaking spanish. the good news: our cultural immersion in spain seems to be working. the bad news: no one cares about spanish in germany. danke for that, spain. we quickly learned that any word can be made german by adding some combination of "haupt", "haus", "bahn", "iess", "flugen", etc. for example, water bottle becomes waterflugen bottlebahnhaus (not exactly - but it certainly provided for an entertaining weekend). what made this weekend really exciting was the fact that we were meeting nearly all of our washu friends in germany (there were 12 of us in total). lauren and i were the first to arrive at our hostel, the meininger central station (side note: for anyone planning on going to berlin, this hostel was amazing). we were taken aback by how nice, clean, and new the hostel was, and the fact that it was more like a hotel. i emailed a picture to my parents and of course my dad said that it was "10^6 times better" than the ones he stayed in during his eurotrip before law school (see previous post about his amazing ability to live on 10 USD a day). we quickly sent the all clear report to our friends who were arriving from paris, rome, florence, and venice for our washu weekend of fun. that night, we went to a bar in the hackescher markt area where we met some germans celebrating a friend's engagement (although he didn't seem too concerned about his bride to be as he danced with liz and nicole) and listened to great pop hits from the 90s and early 2000s (think: backstreet boys and linkin park).
the next day, we did a free walking tour of berlin, which was probably my favorite part of the trip. our guide, max, took us around the entire city while giving us the historical background about every place we visited. we saw the bradenburg gate, the holocaust memorial, hitler's last bunker, the berlin wall, museum island, as well as famous cathedrals, opera houses, and universities in a matter of hours. at the very end of our tour, we sat on the steps of the berlin cathedral while max told us about the fall of the berlin wall. fun fact: the berlin wall was knocked down due to the misinformed press secretary - the german government never meant for it to fall when it did. our day was filled with fun facts like this one and we left the tour educated and informed.
the coolest thing about berlin is the fact that basically the city is 20 years old. so many of the original buildings were destroyed during the second world war that were rebuilt either during soviet rule or after the fall of the berlin wall. it was incredible to see history that has only been occuring since the year we were born, and the city is still going through so many changes.
that night, we went on a pub crawl hosted by the same company that did our walking tour. we arrived at 8:30 for a half hour of free beer at our first bar, but there was a group of 30 americans from north carolina who were bellig (for you julie) and had literally started puking before we moved on to the second bar. thus, we decided to leave the pub crawl and go for a lovely dinner. after we ate, we went back to the 2nd bar (as the drunken vomiters had since left) where we tried the delicious german drink of berlinerweiss (pilsner with raspberry syrup). i had emailed my women and gender studies professor (who has her phd in german studies) and she gave us this drink as one of her recommendations. needless to say, we were not disappointed with this refreshing beer-drink (we had it at least 2 more times during the trip).
saturday, we started the day with a trip to the hamburger bahnhopf museum (this is the actual name, not more of my made up german) which was a display of modern art superstars such as andy warhol and robert rauschenberg. it was a nice break from all of the traditional paintings we have each seen at our respective museums in spain, italy, and france. after the museum, we got on the metro to head over to the east side gallery, the famous remains of the berlin wall that have been painted with murals depicting peace. however, when we got on the train, the metro staff was checking for tickets. don't worry - we weren't dumb enough to be traveling without one, but we had a [expired] group ticket that covered 5 people and there were 7 of us on the train (our second ticket was with another friend what had spent the day doing other things). the woman asked us to get off the train when she discovered that we were 2 too many. as we are all used to the lax rules of the st. louis metro, we assumed we would just get off, buy 2 more tickets, and continue on our journey. however, the woman began demanding a fine of 80 euros (40 euros per non-ticketed person). outraged, we explained that we were tourists, our other ticket wasn't with us, etc, but this bitch wasn't having it (it definitely wasn't her day). she said we either had to give her 80 euros or give up 2 passports so that the german metro administration could find us if we didn't pay up. after much angry banter, we finally paid up (it only ended up being 11 euros per person, but still), wanting to avoid giving our names to the german government. angrily, we got back on the train with new tickets and had stopped fuming by the time we got to the east side gallery, which was almost as cool as the walking tour. all of the murals were repainted last year in honor of the 20th anniversary of the falling of the wall so the paintings were colorful and thought-provoking.
our hostel
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| From berlin |
bradenburg gate
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| From berlin |
holocaust memorial
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| From berlin |
walking tour
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| From berlin |
on the steps of the berlin cathedral
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| From berlin |
reunion!
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| From berlin |
east side gallery
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| From berlin |
the whole crew along the river by the east side gallery
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| From berlin |
after our view of the gallery, we decided it was time for some shopping (obviously). we trekked over to KaDeWe, the biggest department store in germany (think harrod's with less english). we went straight past the 6 floors of clothing up to the top of the building where there was the biggest gourmet food selection i had ever seen. i'd be lying if i said i didn't make it out of there without a bag of delicious german chocolate. saturday night we went to a club and had a lovely close to our weekend with friends. overall it was a very educational, informative, and fun trip. berlin was an incredibly interesting city, and it was so great to see all of our friends who we have missed so dearly in the past 2 months.
as for madrid, everything here is business as usual (maruja over-feeding us, jamón whenever we can get it). next week i have to give a presentation in spanish to spaniards so that should make for an interesting blog post. until next week!
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