Berlin: Under Prussia

Ok, now that my midterms are over I can get back to what is really important: blogging. Last time we checked in I was at the train station in Prague. We had a problem and didn’t know what was wrong. We kept guessing on ways to fix it, but nothing was working. We kept trying different things but the problem was confusing everybody, it was like we’d never seen anything like it before. But then, right at the end of this little episode, we figured out the solution and everything worked out. Due to that little distraction we arrived in Berlin a little late so we just grabbed some kebab and took the S-bahn to our hostel. Once again we just threw our stuff in the room and went out to explore our next city. Based on a recommendation from the guy at the front desk (the hostel in Berlin was great, Baxpax, definitely recommend it to anybody headed in that direction) we made our way to a nearby bar/club. The club was exactly what I wanted. It felt really Berliny, and I had a blast there. There was graffiti on the walls, cardboard security cameras, a fire-breathing dragon (real fire), and just a really cool vibe. It was perfect example of the East Berlin minimalist scene. Not only that, but the playlist was banging. Out of this world. Seriously, I was inspired. He wasn’t that great of a D.J., meaning D.J. skills, but his song selection was impeccable. He had me at hello and kept me until good morning, beautiful. My dude played everything from Dr. Dre, to Donavon Frankenreiter, to the now-obligatory Grease soundtrack, to Gossip and the Talking effing Heads. You know I put on a show on the dance floor.

The next morning we woke up and continued the city touring system. New Europe picked us up at the hostel and we walked to the Brandenburg Gate to meet up with our tour group. Once again we got very lucky with our guide. The walking tour in Berlin was definitely one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. It was exactly what Extra-American Studies is all about. Our 5’4” guide from NYU made me consider space and place throughout the entire tour and I felt like I was back in an American Studies class, only in Berlin. I loved it. I don’t know how he fit so much information, enthusiasm, and humor into such a tiny body. Our free tour lasted over four hours and we saw so much. We started out in Pariser Platz where we saw the Brandenburg Gate and saw where this happened. We saw the outside of the Reichstag, the German parliament, but we didn’t get to go in because they were cleaning. This was one of the things I was most looking forward to because people can go inside and look down and see the representatives in action and they can look up reminding them whom they work for. I regret not being able to go in about as much as Bruce Willis regrets this commercial.

We saw the controversial Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which I liked even though it has been criticized. I enjoy how it is an interactive memorial; you can walk through the giant slabs and feel a sense of loneliness and uneasiness. It is also centrally located in a position that forces people to recognize it, something that many Germans would have a hard time doing on their own. It was also interesting seeing it after we had just been in the Jewish cemetery in Prague, which was a main inspiration for the memorial. Then we stopped in a random parking lot and our guide informed us that we were standing above where Hitler shot himself in his bunker at the end of the war. There was nothing there. The juxtaposition of the contrasting uses of space in the memorial and the parking lot was particularly thought provoking. We saw what was left of the Berlin Wall (not much), and Checkpoint Charlie. We saw all the old, beautiful buildings from when Berlin was under Prussia. I also enjoyed the Nazi book-burning memorial, a window in the ground in the middle of Bebelplatz that shows empty bookshelves, as well as the Memorial to the Victims of War and Tyranny. After the tour we went to the East Side Gallery and watched the original 1990 artists re-do their pieces of the wall. We also posed for some album cover photos. After resting and warming up because Berlin was cold as frick, we set out to find the German dinner that I’d been hoping for. Turns out the traditional German food I was thinking about is more from the southern part of the country, but I was still able to find plenty of meat, potatoes, and beer, so I was happy. After dinner we decided to make our on pub crawl and started out at a bar called Acapulco where I drank enough tequila to earn two pairs of Jose Cuervo dog tabs, and one pair of Jose Cuervo fingerless gloves. Needless to say, I was pumped. Then we went to an absinthe bar and sat on couches and drank absinthe. It was a fun time and felt very European. The couches started to make everyone sleepy (it definitely wasn't the tequila and absinthe), so we decided it was time to head to our prime destination, a club that our tour guide told us about. The club had one rule: no cameras. He said that the first floor was full of leather daddies, and if that wasn’t your thing you could go upstairs where they had an ice cream parlor, a swing set, and a maze. Now, as cool as that sounds, you probably see where this is going. I’m telling you what he said because we didn’t actually make it inside. We found the semi-hidden club, which looked like an abandoned mental hospital, but it was closed on this particular Wednesday. I regret not being able to go in about as much as Bruce Willis regrets this commercial. I wish we could’ve travelled Europe on a week full of Saturdays, but those don't exist yet. There was however, an underground club that was open next to it, but we decided to pass on that and head back to the club near our hostel, especially since I was now dressed for it. As you can tell, I really embraced the East Berlin minimalist scene.The combination of absinthe and tequila did wonders for my dance moves, but unfortunately it couldn’t do anything about the D.J. who was very weak and was dressed like a waiter. And his mustache sucked.

On Thursday we took the train to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp about an hour north of Berlin, which was later used as a Soviet special camp. The camp was cold, rainy and miserable, but there was no possible way that we could complain. There’s not much else to say, because I like to consider this a fun blog, but I'll echo the words of our tour guide and recommend that everyone go to a concentration camp at some point in their life. It is important to remember the struggles that different types of people have endured so that we can do our best to improve this world.

I feel like we scrambled around Berlin like crazy but there is still so much that I want to see. Berlin is the first place that I’ve visited where I already feel like I have to go back. Definitely my favorite city of the fall break trip. It is just really a cool city and it reminds us that we must live it up, because this is our last chance; this is ourselves.

Besitos,

Jim