"Ich Bin ein Berliner"

After our 48 hours in Amsterdam, we spent our next 48 hours in Berlin, Germany. Thankfully, we took a quick flight instead of another overnight bus. My bussing days are over. 

We arrived in Germany around noon on Wednesday and headed to our airbnb located in the “hipster” district of Kreuzberg. Walking the few blocks from the metro station to our apartment, we passed by Turkish restaurants, fruit stands, Thai restaurants, waffle houses, and many other types of ethnic foods. What struck me the most was the amount of graffiti on buildings, even on our apartment building, but throughout the next two days, I got the sense that there weren’t many public spaces in Berlin free of graffiti.

After dropping off our things and meeting our host, we got on the metro and headed towards central Berlin. Before arriving in Berlin, Zoe and I had been given various recommendations by friends of places to go and things to see in Berlin. I had been told to check out a particular biergarten near Alexanderplatz, so that’s where we headed for lunch.  This biergarten was called Hofbräu München and it was the most German thing I’d ever seen. Since it was my first time in Germany, I realize that’s not saying much, but I will say it was a great introduction to Germany. Not knowing much about beer, I told the waiter I’d have half a pint of whatever was the most typical German beer on the menu. I don’t remember what kind it was, but it was actually pretty good!

While we were waiting for our food to come, two large German men came over to Zoe and me speaking rapid German. When we told them, “Sorry, we don’t speak German,” they happily switched over to English and replied, “That’s no problem, we speak English!” They then explained that the two of them, along with the six other guys at their table, were in the middle of a bachelor party, and one of the guys talking to us was getting married on Friday. He needed a dance partner for the next part of his bachelor party and was wondering if either of us would help him out for a couple seconds on the dance floor. My sense of rhythm is underwhelming at best, but Zoe and I were the only two young girls at the biergarten and Zoe was not having it. So I reluctantly volunteered and followed this German to the dance floor. There was a live German band playing on stage, a man on the drums, a man playing the accordion, and one on the piano. My dance partner was shackled, had a helmet on his head, and a pint of beer duct taped to his hand. Thankfully we entered the dance floor mid song and I only had to dance until the end of the song before I was allowed to sit back down. He was a friendly German, and I wished him all the best before going back to my lunch of meatloaf, a fried egg, and potato salad. Germany provided the warmest of welcomes to me.

The Hofbräu biergarten

On the dance floor

Still struck by the bachelor party and a little overwhelmed by the fact that that morning we had been in Amsterdam and we were now in Berlin, Zoe and I walked around Alexanderplatz, exploring the TV tower, the Berliner Dome, and the National Gallery. During our self-guided tour of the central city, Zoe and I were approached by a women who asked us if we would be interested in being part of a video she and her crew were filming for Heineken, pointing to a little old-fashioned Heineken car and her film crew down the street. Shocked, we agreed and waited while she called her producer. Five minutes later she came back to us very apologetic and said unfortunately her producer was looking for people who looked a little more “foreign” for the video. Coming all the way from California, Zoe and I were probably the most foreign people she would meet that day but that wasn’t the point. Our blonde hair and blue eyes just wouldn’t permit us to be foreign enough. Talk about racial profiling. We said no problem, still confused as to what was happening to us during our first couple hours in Berlin, but made her take a picture of us in front of the little Heineken car before we walked away! Tired from our early start to the day, Zoe and I headed to the Turkish restaurant in our neighborhood for an early dinner and then called it a night.

Berliner Dome

Heineken models

The next morning we headed to see some of the more historical sights of Berlin. We took the metro to the Berlin Wall Memorial and brushed up on our German history. The metro stop dropped us at Bernauer Strabe, the street where the Berlin Wall had been erected some 50 years ago. There were polls lined up down the street, providing markers for where the Wall had been and further down the street in front of the Berlin Wall Memorial, remnants of the Wall were still in tact. It was pretty amazing to read about and watch videos about the effects the Wall had on East Berlin and West Berlin and it’s crazy to think that the Wall came down only shortly before I was born. It’s hard to imagine something like that really happening, and only a short time ago.

View from above the Berlin Wall Memorial

Parts of the Berlin Wall still erect

From there, we continued on to Reichstag, the German parliament building, and then onto the Tiergarten and Brandenburg Gate. Berlin is amazing in terms of how much history took place there, and how recently things took place. More concerning is the fact that most of what happened in Berlin caused great destruction. I don’t know how Berliners are able to justify some of this history that took place in their city, but I guess every country has history they would like to rewrite. It just seems to me that Berlin has a particularly large and gruesome amount.

Brandenburg Gate

We visited Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, which was really interesting and at the same time hard to fully comprehend. The memorial itself is above ground and really pretty, a maze of erected stone, and underground there is a museum detailing individual lives and accounts of the Holocaust. There is no shortage of history lessons in Berlin. We continued on to Checkpoint Charlie and took a photo with a couple of “American soldiers” who were stationed at the base for 4 Euros. This we had to do to make up for the photo we had taken earlier with a couple of Soviets brandishing the German flag, also for 4 Euros.

Berlin's Holocaust Memorial

Our American comrades

For dinner, by way of another recommendation, we were in search for Mustafa’s, a well-known food stand serving the “best Dürüm in Berlin”. For this, stood in line on the sidewalk for 2 hours in 20 minutes. 15 minutes in, the woman behind us starts talking to us in German. Understanding our blank stares she says, “Oh! You girls speak English!” And with that, the next two hours went by in constant chatter. It turns out this woman worked in the fashion industry in Munich and was in Berlin for the long weekend. She was originally from the Caribbean and English was her first language, but she had moved to Munich 15 years ago to study and never left. She told us she had been to Mustafa’s once before, told us the Dürüm was well worth the wait, and what we had to order. After two hours we were sad to part ways but so happy to finally get our food and take it back to our apartment. And even though this was the first time I’d ever eaten Dürüm in Germany, I do have to agree it was the best!

And with that, our stay in Berlin is over. This morning Zoe and I had breakfast at the café right next to our airbnb and then we headed to the Berlin train station. We are now sitting on a train that is taking us to Prague, where we will be spending the next two nights. It’s about a five-hour train ride, and we are about two hours in, passing through Dresden. The German countryside passing out my window is lovely. Fields and fields of green grass and trees, with houses and small towns cropping up intermittently. Reminds me of my Amtrak rides from San Francisco to Santa Barbara-NOT!

Berlin was a really cool city, with all of its history, good and bad, but I feel like I barely scratched the surface of the city. I think I would have enjoyed it even more if I had more time there. Unlike Amsterdam, Berlin cannot be conquered in 48 hours. I guess it just means I’ll have to come back sometime!

Taking a picture with part of the Berlin Wall

Catch ya later Berlin