Berlin, Germany: A City Full of History

Day 1:

The dates for this Berlin trip were planned at the beginning of our time in Riva by the Student Life Coordinator, Katie. She left the trip open to anyone who wanted to come and I knew Berlin was one place I really wanted to go. It worked out nicely for us as well because she was given a budget for the trip that paid for a wonderful hotel!! First time I didn't have to stay in a hostel! We had to pay for our flight there but it was worth it.

After such a challenging week of management, when we finally boarded the flight on Friday afternoon I passed out almost right away. Woke up feeling a little refreshed as we landed in Berlin early evening. From the airport we caught a bus that took us near our hotel and got settled in. The rooms were so nice! Then we had some time to go out and explore part of the city for a bit.

We got off the S-Bahn (their metro) to Brandenburg Gate. What a place! The gate itself actually had large columns with a bronze statue on the top. Also the square just before the gate was buzzing with people! We took in this sight and all got pictures before passing underneath the gate.

We then walked along the 17 November Strasse. This main street is where Hitler used to have his parades, so it felt surreal to walk along it. After walking for some time, on the right hand side of the street was the Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten). This memorial was very intimidating as it had several huge tanks in the surrounding area actually used in the war. Then after walking up stairs there is the structure part of the memorial, with columns and a statue. Passing underneath the memorial there are walls of information about how people of other countries were treated during the war with truly devastating pictures.

We spent some time here and then continued walking down the street until we reached the Victory Column. In the middle of a major round-a-bout, the column stood tall and luminescent in the night.

On our way back down the street, we noticed a bunch of people hanging out on the streets and people with their music blasting out of impressive car speakers. We were so confused what was going on because there were also police cars everywhere along the street. I finally just got the courage and asked some people hanging out on the street what was going on. Apparently it was the night that everyone brought their "pimped out cars" to park along the sides of the street and a bunch of people came there to hang out and drink. It's legal to drink on the streets in Germany and be drunk. But I suppose only up till the point someone get reckless and that's probably why the cops were around. But it was fun to walk along the street and see all the cars. Looked like they came out of the show "Pimp My Ride".

We also had a moment that took me back to feeling like a little kid. I couldn't help but kick up the leaves as we walked along the side walk and eventually we all just grabbed a pile and threw them in the air. The leaves were so crisp and bright yellow. We were in Berlin in the heart of its fall season.

But at this point we were so hungry for dinner. We went back to our hotel area and got dinner right away. I ate an amazing chicken sandwich and enjoyed a Berliner Weisse Beer. After relaxing and having a fun conversation, I went back to the hotel still very tired from the week. I took a quick shower and fell asleep pretty much right away. It was a good night rest for sure.

Day 2:

We woke up to a wonderful continental breakfast. In fact, probably the best breakfast I had thus far! Katie had reserved for us a tour around the city for the morning. We took the S-bahn to the meeting point... back to the Brandenburg Gate! And we made a quick pit stop in the Starbucks right there :)

When the tour began, we were introduced to our enthusiastic and very informative tour guide. There were a bunch of stops on the tour, some that were really brief as well. But our first big stop was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Such an intense, powerful name. The interesting thing is I remember talking about this memorial in my history class because it was so controversial when it was first built in 2004. We came up the memorial hesitant and unsure of what to think exactly. Our guide told us to go through it for a couple minutes before he explained what it meant.

It was very eerie walking through the memorial. It is simply large gray rectangular concrete slabs, some that came up to my knee and then others that climbed over my head as you walked deeper into it. The ground was uneven and water droplets slid down the sides of the structures. I didn't know what to think, if the slabs represented a certain amount of Jewish people who died or what the tall vs. short ones meant. I just felt sadness. 

When we met up with our tour guide, he told us what the designer's vision for the meaning behind the memorial: there is no set meaning. The designer didn't want to say what he meant for the number of boxes or the height of them or the unevenness of the ground because he didn't want to take away from the individual experience within the memorial. He even picked a supposedly random number of slabs, 2,711. I definitely understand that after going through it. If I had known what every bit of the memorial meant, then it would have felt more rigid and historic. But without this set meaning, I can ponder myself the meaning of it all and feel my way through it. I thought the designer was very thoughtful for making it the way he did.

We made a few other quick stops before our next big site: Check Point Charlie. It served as the US border and passport check before leaving West Berlin and entering into East Berlin. Of course the Soviet side of the border check was much more heavily regulated back when Berlin was still divided. People tried to smuggle others across this border check to get trapped family or friends out of East Berlin.

The next big stop during this tour was the Gendarmenmarket. This is a city square that has the French Church, German Church, Concert House, and many statues all in one area. 

There were several other stops and sites we got to see on this tour. These included: Hotel Adlon (the Hotel where Micheal Jackson dangled his son Prince over the balcony), parts of the Berlin Wall, the remains of Hitler's Bunker, Bebelplatz (where the Book-Burning Memorial is), and Humboldt University.

After enjoying and learning a lot on this broad overview Berlin tour, we had the rest of the day to figure out what to do. It was such a beautiful day that we all wanted to stay outside. Our tour guide mentioned he was going to be giving another tour, this time going in depth about East and West Berlin and what it was like to be living in Berlin when the Wall was up. This really interested me. Everyone learns so much about the Jewish history in Berlin, but the Berlin Wall is such a momentous part of this city's history. All of us were intrigued about the topic and we decided to go on another tour with the same guide as before. 

This second tour started right outside the Russian Embassy. From here we were introduced to how Germany and Berlin came to be separated after WWII to limit the power of Germany. The East went to Soviet control and the West was split up between a French, British, and American sector. After tension was building, on a random Sunday night, the Berlin Wall was built on August 13, 1961 by the Soviets almost over night. It completely cut off the East from the West. Relationships were torn apart. Families were torn apart. Businesses suffered. Homes literally ripped apart if half of it was in East and half was in West Berlin. If you happened to be on the wrong side of Berlin the night the wall went up, then you were out of luck. 

There was no way to cross in and out for residents and trying to escape almost certainly meant death. The wall was guarded by armed gunmen that were commanded to shoot on site if anyone came too close to the wall. But of course, the Soviets made sure there was no dispute that the wall infringed on any of the West Lands and they made sure the wall was built several feet within their own territory. This also had implications on the rail system. It started in East Berlin, went into West Berlin, and came back out again into East Berlin. The West Berlin rail stops (called Ghost Stations) were blocked off and passed by, their stops guarded with gunmen. Just the whole scene turned so intense instantly (literally overnight). I can not imagine what it was like to live there during this time. 

Our first major stop was the Berlin Wall Memorial. There were a lot of elements in this one spot. We came across the Wall of Remembrance. This site is dedicated to the 136 people who lost their lives at the Berlin Wall, many of whom are pictured in the squares. Most of them tried to escape East Berlin's oppression and enter into the West, but failed. The East took many precautions to ensure this; it was almost impossible for anyone to get out. It was very sad to hear some of the stories our tour guide told us. Such young people too :(

The next area of this memorial sight that we spent time at was the Berlin Wall itself. Now the Berlin Wall was not just one wall, it had two walls with a no man's land in the middle. The East Wall was much more massive, with a large curved top as to make it hard for people trying to escape have something to grab on to. It also had barbed wire on the top of it back in the day it was used. In the middle were all sorts of devices to kill and a watch tower with a spotlight and gunmen. The West Wall was much smaller and it actually had a small slit about eye level so the West could see what was in the East. The whole set up is mind blowing.

At this point we got the opportunity to climb up to an observation area. This is the scene below with the two walls and the no man's land.

It was time for me to get a little snack before moving onto the following place on this tour. I got a wonderful pastry! People kept asking me what was in it and I honestly had the hardest time trying to figure that out... but oh well right? It was great and that is all that matters haha.

There was a quick stop at the Ernst Thalmann Statue. It was here we learned about the Soviet leadership as well as the West leadership during this time. We also found out that many of those people on the East side of Wall were not unhappy with their lives. In fact, many just did not know any better of what life could be like and they accepted the way things were. They accepted standing in hour lines to get the smallest bits of food rations or spying on neighbors and family members. So when the wall came down, they were incredibly confused as to how society worked. They felt behind times and unemployment rates in the East went up. It is interesting to learn more about the different perspectives of people in this situation.

The final stop of this tour was Treptower Park (Soviet War Memorial). Now this was one fascinating place. It is a vast war memorial and cemetery to commemorate 5,000 of the 80,000 Soviet soldiers who fell in the Battle of Berlin. It opened only a few years after WWII ended and served as the central war memorial of East Germany.

To enter the memorial, one must pass through the opening gate and walk underneath a canopy of trees.

After walking down the path in the middle of an open area is the Statue of Mother Russia.

Then a turn to the left and a further walk down a tiled path and finally arrive to view this massive, beautiful memorial.

We got there just as the sun was setting and the trees on the left hand side looked like the tips were on fire as the sun shone brightly on their orange leaves. This is the spot where our tour guide ended the tour. We were with him for most of the day! He was so lively and really informed us about so many aspects of Berlin. I felt empowered and like I had more understanding about a city I did not know much about a day before.

At this point it was time to get some dinner! We went to a small kabob, burger, falafel place and I had a falafel pita sandwich. I ate pretty quickly though because my mind was very distracted. After the tour we went to an ATM machine and my card was rejected. I was unsure why it was but I was not too concerned until the chiming of all my friends "Oh maybe your card has been compromised!", "Have you checked your bank statements lately?", etc. That had me a little worried. So after dinner we found two other ATM machines and each time my card was rejected. At this point I was really upset and was getting more concerned about what my friends were saying. What if someone really had gotten a hold of my account? That was a good chunk of my savings and I've been building this account up since I was little. It was hard not having a phone plan during times when you desperately wanted it and I really wanted to call my parents during that point. I attempted to find wifi to contact them, but eventually my friend let me use her phone to contact them. 

Long story short, I was able to find out that no money had been taken. My card simply did not work in German banks, even though my card company knew I would be going to Germany. They said German banks are sometimes harder to make withdrawals. My friends spotted me any money I needed which was very sweet of them. It was one of the biggest reliefs to find out my money was still there! I feel what made it so bad for me was listening to all my friends' dramatic comments about it, but thank God everything ended up being alright. 

After that emotional evening, I was ready for a nice warm shower and my bed. With my worries relieved, sleep came easy that night.

Day 3:

Our last day in Berlin started off again with the wonderful continental breakfast. We checked out of the hotel and dropped our bags off in the train station. We were going to do a little more sightseeing before heading back to Riva. 

This morning started out cloudy, but ended in a beautiful sunny day! (Although the wind was whipping!) We went first to see the Fernsehturm TV Tower. It can be seen from almost anywhere in the city since it towers over all the other buildings, but we wanted to see it up close. Looking up to the top, it looked like it was moving as the clouds were being blown around above it. That made me feel dizzy, but I bet the view from the top would be amazing.

After taking a brief walk through a lovely fountain, we made our way to the Berliner Dom (the Berlin Cathedral). Unfortunately it was Sunday so mass was going on and we were not able to go inside, but the outside itself was so beautiful and immense. I wish I had the time to have gone to mass inside (even though it would have been in German).

We then left and went into Alexanderplatz. My boyfriend's name is Alexander, although he goes by Alex, and all throughout the plaza his name was everywhere! I was having a fun time taking pictures of Alex's Restuarant, Alex's Snackbar, Alexander's Bank, Alexander's Train Station... no joke almost everything there was named Alex or Alexander!

But the reason we went here was to see the Weltzeituhr Worldtime Clock! It was so neat and the numbers rotated around the column to show the times of all different places around the world! In this picture, it was about 4:20am back home according to time in New York.

That was just about all we had time to see this morning before having to go back to the train station. Yes I said train... we were in for a solid 12 hour train ride home. Well after our first train got delayed half an hour, that totally messed up our sequence of getting back to Riva. We pretty much had to guess on the trains getting back and got screwed over a little bit. Eventually we made it back to Riva at 2:30am. We were completely dead tired and fell to sleep right away.

Despite the delays and late time getting back to Riva, the train ride was not too bad as I was reading ahead for my management class and relaxing. And it did not damper the wonderful time I had in Berlin. I learned so much about the city's history and truly enjoyed the time I got to spend with my friends on this beautiful fall weekend. And before I end this blog, I want to mention again just how awesome it was to be in Berlin during the fall. I am quite positive I have never seen such spectacular foliage. That bottom picture reminds me of something that would have been around in prehistoric times.