Berlin - will add pictures later

Berlin:

I don’t if I spoke enough about the castle that we saw – but it was very nice stop off. See picture of castle.

Speaks for itself yes....

A Fair moat - click the picture to get an enlarged view

We met tarks near the Teirgaten train station – quite good timing I might say. We repacked our things so tarks could get his stuff in, then had a drink at a café nearby until it was 7pm and Lars our new couch surfing host could take us in.

Berlin’s main streets was the first thing that I noticed that were majorly different, especially compared with other cities that we have been too, the footpaths are wide, room for bikes in a different colour (how far behind we are in Melbourne) We could walk easily 3 abreast and there was enough room for other pedestrians and of course the bikes had their own little lane. Then came the road for the cars. We were staying near Teirgaten (or tear garden) which was a really nice park (huge) in the west of berlin (about 10 mins by train to the center). Lars was much taller than I thought he would be (6.6 and about 110 Kgs) Was a big unit. He took us out to his local pub for dinner – where I ordered two meals – and we chatted. Now there is a problem that I have noticed about couch surfing,  especially when surfing at someone’s house – you need to be able to adapt to the other person’s interests, and these people let you into their house (you have to keep them entertained to a certain degree (I believe anyway – it’s just like hitchhiking – if you get boring, then you are out) I am now doubting about how much Andrew can actually do that – sure he is not the most willing to communicate,  but you can make an effort.  Anyway.. it came out a lot from my person view this week.

So the day finished with lars taking us into the main part of his district – with me suffering quite badly at the hands of my cold that I hadn’t been able to shake (from Middelfart Denmark, to Hamburg to Berlin – the 26^th of august to  the 6^th of September!) The huge thing that we noticed was that drinking was allowed on the train – beer that was, in the street, in the train everywhere! Crazy – and the drunk people on the train surprisingly weren’t causing that much trouble…. Interesting.,.. I would be sure that Australia would be different if that law was passed.

So we slept – the next morning Lars woke us up (it was a Saturday) and cooked/prepared us a delicious breakfast! So cool! 13 different types of meat, cheese, fresh rolls, and some weird German meat paste (which wasn’t too bad!).

We took the train – metro system is wonderful in berlin (why use a car when it is that good – trains every minute (almost), and you can’t walk more than 10 minutes without hitting a train station) We walked along teargarden to the Victory Column, a statue that Hitler moved for some reason, stupid man, and inside they had miniature(again I know) monuments from around Europe. The view from the top was excellent. We walked up to the Brandenburg Gate (a gate that represents peace) which was well… a let down (supposed to be really famous)

 I thought it would be more architecturally impressive, we then saw the parliament building (we didn’t go in) and then went to see the Berlin wall, and the Jewish memorial.

Jewish Memorial: Excellent exhibit – I took pictures of all the slides if maybe someone wanted them at school, but it was a powerful exhibit. It contained personal stories from the Jewish people, letters home, Hidden journals from the inmates at the concentration camps. Some of the stories were so sad  - This is a quote from the photo that I took of a letter written

“ Dear Father! I am saying goodbye before I die. We would so love to live, but they won’t let us and we will die. I am so scared of this death, because the small children are thrown alive into the pit. Goodbye forever . I kiss you tenderly.”

There was many many more, when leaving couldn’t help but try and analyse the way I was feeling when leaving. There is obviously nothing that can be done, but reading about monstrosities is always different when you read personal stories. So it was maybe a mixture of anger and deep sadness. Those poor people.

The berlin wall was a more comprehensive display of information containing information about the wall, and the lead up to it. It contained news articles, various ad’s, propaganda from that period, as well as how the wall went about existing. We were then getting tired of reading – considering that we had read over 3 hours that day. We then went to meet Lars at a park.

This is an abandoned airport - gotta love the bbq

Another cool things about Berlin is that they have an old airport where people go to play/bbq/ skate etc. It is huge, and it’s all now “park” land. There is no trees there yet, but it is open to the public to use in opening hours. We met Lars there after a short 3 jump metro train trip (Andrew went home feeling sick – must have got my cold) and found them (and some other Couch Surfing friends) playing Lars’s Finish game of wooden ten pin bowling. So a bbq and drinks were had, talking to a range of people – including a tarot card reading American, a really loud and quick spoken Englishman, a drunk Turkish girl and some others. It was a fun afternoon. We packed up – a few trick to entertain some people on the station platform were happening J and we then went home – helping Lars with his bike.

The next day after that we to the topography of terror – which basically outlines everything about the Holocaust. Reading for 2-3 hours again – but it was what I wanted to see – and the plethora of war museums that we have been – the millions of soldiers that have died have done because of this very reason, would seem weird not to know as much as you can about it. A very sad but clever thing done by the Nazi party was to make a law preventing people from creating another party… I hope that this has been fixed by governments around the world. The ‘terror’ started when they took over the police, and then started publically humiliating people for talking negatively about the government.. like a communist regime – except that they dealt harshly with the communists too!

Bah…

So many people watching people sing bad songs - but fun!

We left then and went to go to a Karoke pit at a flea market.. – ok, not the best mix, but highly recommended by Lars. So glad we went, we didn’t sing but it was truly truly entertaining – there was people everywhere, crowd was full watching – clapping, and enjoying people having a go. (better yet for me anyway – 95% of it was in English) We didn’t have a go – you needed to be there hours in advance to book a slot! We stayed watching from 4-7, and then after a quick bite to eat, we went back to Lars’s apartment – Lars was out on a date, so they played a little playstation. I was getting sicker at this point, and was miserable trying to think of how I could fix myself so I didn’t play. So my cold had progressed to some sort of tongue ulcer thing. Not as bad as a few years ago, but still annoying. Using what I could – I ditched the aspirin – which might have contributed to my mouth I don’t know, and switched to salt water. The next day was pretty bad.

Waking up, my mouth was worse, talking was hurting so I stopped for most of the day. It was a day in – we stayed inside all day – resting, eating good, and trying to get well. It was good, but still very very frustrating being sick on holidays – although it doesn’t seem like holidays now – just seems like living traveling kinda.  So – notch that down to a wasted (but needed) day. That night Lars cooked us some pasta (good, but it took me 4 times as long as the guys to eat it) and we ate in silence… weird.

The boys went out drinking that night – got home at 7.30am today. Lars was worried when he got up to go to work and they were not back yet. Annoying – cause I had to be the person to deal with it.

That morning I woke up feeling much better anyway, a glance out the window showed blue skies – so to hell with it I went out running. A good 50 mins running through the park, around past small lakes and paths that nobody else was on – in the middle of berlin! I ran a little far, so I found a station and come back (after a little bit of wondering where I was).

The boys got up – we cleaned his apartment, and then set off to get dinner at (hey cuth – alexandraplatz) which – is a big square… with well, not a lot there that is different. So we left and headed towards our next destination – Leipzig – or 20kms out of town.

My final impressions of Berlin are that it was a nice city, nice buildings, nice enough culture, public transport is excellent, big enough to have lots of parks to do things in, and not crazy traffic like Paris. I would go to berlin before Paris I think.