Berlin, Germany 24.08

We left for Berlin in the morning, and farewelled Ben and Debs. Artur was thrilled to have a second chance to test our the Autobahn roads in Germany. This time it wasn't in an Audi, so he wasn't quite as speedy, but he had a great time anyway.

These Trabant cars are for hire, and are completely made of plastic!

We arrived in the early evening, and found our hostel. We had a huge room in the basement of the building, but we definitely weren't there alone. There were almost 40 beds in the room! It looked like a war hospital, but with bunk beds. We didn't mind though, as it was in a great location, and it was a good price. We were only about 1km from the Brandenburg Gate.

We headed out for a tasty German dinner at a pub/restaurant nearby. The wurst, sauerkraut and fresh beer were perfect for our hungry bellies. We didn't have much time in Berlin, so we decided to go out and see the nightlife after our meal. Our hostel had a huge list of nightclubs and what is open on each night of the week. We got the impression that clubbing is pretty popular here. Instead of going to a place on the 'nightclub' list, we decided to just wander around the busy main road near us. We soon came across an outdoor recycled gallery that reminded us of Christiania in Denmark. It was dark and there were lots of pieces of discarded industrial equipment that had been turned into works of art. There was an indoor, open exhibit, as well as lit pieces outside.
We wandered further into this strange world and found a whole complex of alternative bars. One of the bars was nearby in a ground floor room of a tall concrete building. The bar was industrial looking too, and had pipes that spewed fire every couple of minutes. There wasn't very many people there, so we kept moving.
We walked through another section of the building to get to out, but we heard a band playing somewhere upstairs. The cement walls around us as we climbed the stairs were absolutely covered with 'tagging', not graffiti, just words spraypainted randomly.

Usually tagging looks ugly and destructive, but this looked quite incredible. It wasn't colourful and artistic like graffiti, but when it was all packed together, without a single space between, it looked like it was meant to be there.

A few floors up, we found a music venue with a band playing. It was a free gig, so we decided to go in and check them out. It was a band from Belgium, and they played some alternative, heavy rock. Some of the songs were really great, and managed to be melodic and enjoyable despite the volume. The singer reminded Loren of Bjork, and after the show, she decided to buy one of their cds. They weren't very expensive, music was good, and it's a great and unusual souvenir from Berlin.
After the show was over, we decided to keep exploring this empty shell of a building, which seemed to have so much life in it. A few levels up, we came across artists who had taken up residence there, for creating and selling their artwork. Loren was thrilled by the idea of the place, but she didn't find that the art produced there was as inspiring as the idea itself. We wandered into one of the 'galleries', and the artist wanted a 'donation', even though we weren't so thrilled with anything we saw there.
On the very top floor of the building, there was another bar. This one had a great view over the industrial bar and art scene that we saw outside. There were lots of comfy couches and young people chilling out and chatting. The place seemed so much like Christiania in some ways, that we were surprised to only see one person smoking a joint that whole night.
After seeing that bar, we went back downstairs. We discovered that the bar with the fire that we had visited earlier, was going off! Turns out the place was called Cafe Zapata, and there was a latin band playing. People were really getting into the music, and lots of people were dancing. Loren was itching to dance the whole time we were there. We stayed for a while and enjoyed the atmosphere, then we headed back to our hostel.
We saw a couple of prostitutes on the way back. We didn't realise that they were at first, because it was so cold, that they couldn't expose any skin. Instead, they all wore fancy, long, bright coloured boots. The only thing that could help them identify themselves in the cold!

Berlin Walking Tour
The next morning, we grabbed some breakfast at the hostel, and then raced to be ready for the free walking tour that the hostel had recommended. It was the first time we had heard of these free walking tours, so we were curious and definitely wanted to check it out. A guide met us in the foyer of the hostel, and led us on foot to the starting point at Brandenburg Gate.

This is the hotel that Michael Jackson dangled his baby from.

There was more than one hundred people waiting there for the tour. We were a bit worried that we were all going to be in one big group, but soon we were sectioned off into groups of about 30 people. There were even groups in different languages! Italian, Spanish and English.

Our tour guide was an English guy, who was a philosophy graduate, with a huge interest in history. He gave us a really captivating and enjoyable tour.

He told us about the city of Berlin first, and about how the city was still a divided city just two decades ago. Berlin was split between the Communist east and the Capitalist west. We were amazed when we realised just how far Berlin is into the centre of Germany, and that this was only place in the whole country that was occupied by Western Europe. It was like a tiny island, lost in the middle of a hostile country. At one point, the Soviets cut off all supplies to West Berlin, hoping they would give up and let Russia take over again. However, the little island survived, thanks to supplies that were flown in.

The first thing he took us to see was the nearby Brandenburg Gate. It was finished in 1791 as one of 18 city gates. The neo-classical Brandenburg Gate became an East-West crossing point after the wall was built in 1961. A statue of a winged goddess in a horse drawn chariot decorates the top of the Gate. It was once kidnapped by Napoleon and briefly taken to Paris. It's back in place now, but facing the opposite direction.

Parliament House Next we passed the Reichstaggebaud (Parliament House). A fire here in 1933 helped Hitler to blame the communists and grab power over the country. The Soviets used this same place in 1945 to signal Nazi Germany's defeat. Today, the glass cupola which was added in 1999, allows people to see Parliament in progress. They can walk around the rim and watch from above. This is symbolic for the Parliament, a reminder of who they are answerable to, and a demonstration of the transparency of the government.

Holocaust Museum
Then we visited the Holocaust Memorial, which fills up a huge square of land in the middle of the city, 19,000 square metres! It is a grid of 2711 concrete columns of varying sizes and heights. When you look out over the memorial, the heights don't seem to change that much, but when you start walking into it, the ground gets deeper and deeper, so that the columns are towering over you like giants.

The whole idea was to put the memorial in the very heart of Berlin, so people would never forget what happened during the holocaust. You feel quite disoriented in the midst of the towering columns, and you can run into people coming around sharp corners. Some people think this disorientation is the intended effect of the memorial. We found that the columns look a lot like gravestones as well, and the deeper you go into the memorial the gravestones get bigger and bigger, maybe to represent the number of people that were murdered.
It's a very simple but effective memorial, and it has even been equipped with its own defense mechanisms. If someone spray paints slogans or nazi symbols onto the columns (which actually happened a few days before we arrived), the paint washes off with water. The surface is resistant to other paints.

Hitler's Bunker
Next, just north of Potsdamer Platz, we walked to a fairly insignificant car park. It quickly gained significance when we realised what lay beneath. Below the ground, lay the ruins of Hitler's former bunker. After the bunker was destroyed, they didn't want people coming here to pay tribute to the evil dictator, so they erased all memory of it, and turned it into a boring carpark.

The guide told us a little about life in the Bunker, and about Hitler's love life. Apparently the Fuhrer was a bit of a sex symbol, so he had to remain single in the public eye. It was like he was married to the German people in his mind, so he could not make his relationship with Eva Brown public. When the war started to fail, he gave up on the public, and 'divorced' them by publicly marrying Eva Brown.

Hitler committed suicide in the bunker, along with his new wife and the closest members of his entourage. He shot himself under the chin, to ensure that he died instantly and efficiently. He left written orders to burn his body, so that he would not be displayed and paraded in public by his conquerors.

This order was very useful propaganda in the hands of the Russians, as there was never a body to be found. The Soviets knew that he was dead, but kept this a secret, and scared people into thinking he was in hiding and planning a counterattack. They convinced people that their power and army presence was needed to prevent Hitler's return.

A few interesting facts that the guide told us were that Hitler had a sweet tooth, and that he never allowed himself to be photographed with glasses on, to protect his image of power. He absolutely hated smoking as well, and it was forbidden from the bunker. The first thing his deprived guards did when they heard the suicide shot, was to light a cigarette.

Former Luftwaffe HQ
The next place we visited was the former Luftwaffe (airforce) headquarters. It's an ugly building, but it managed to survive the bombing by the allies, because the pilots have a code of honour regarding airforce buildings of any country. The building was covered in a huge propaganda mural, that is supposed to show how happy the people are under their leaders.

A small distance from this building, there is an enlarged photograph of workers protesting against an increase in workload. The government panicked and called the Russians to come in with their tanks, and breat up the fight. People were killed, and their spirits were crushed.This photo shows how they felt.

The Berlin Wall
After this, we finally saw the Berlin Wall. It was raised in 1961, to separate the East from West. The East built the wall to prevent its citizens from leaving and escaping into the West. The East was very crafty, and told the West that they were having a drainage problem and they needed some pipes. The next day, these pipes were place on top of the wall, to make it even harder for people to get a grip on the wall, and climb over.

Other people outsmarted them, and built sections of the wall to be very weak. Then they told their friends and family where these sections were and then carloads of people would drive into the wall, break it and cross to the other side. The wall was made very strong in the end, and people could no longer cross through it.
While families and lovers were still separated on both sides of the wall, new ideas for escapes continued to come out. A couple of these involved cars. One guy wanted to rescue his girl who was on the East side, so he hatched a devious plan. He found a girl who looked just like his girlfriend, and started dating her. One day he suggested they go for a day trip to the East side, she thought it was a weird idea but went along with it. Once they were on the other side, he made up some excuse and went to find his real girlfriend. He took the girl's papers and used them to cross back to the other side with his real girlfriend.

When the girl realised she'd been deserted, she called her dad on the West side. Fortunately the girl's dad was a powerful man, and he managed to get her back and expose what had happened. Unfortunately for the guy, the dad found him and put him and his girlfriend in jail. So they both ended up worse off than before.

The other story also involved a car, and a girl stuck on the East side. This guy frequently visited his girl, but couldn't bring her back with him. One time when he was at the crossing, the boom gates accidentally crashed down onto his car. They didn't cause too much damage, as it was a fairly low model. The guy realised that if he had a lower car, he could probably drive right underneath it.

When he got back to his side of the city, he went searching for the lowest car possible. He lowered the tires and did everything he could to improve it. The next time he crossed, he collected his girlfriend and they drove back to the crossing. When the guard was walking around to check her papers, the guy floored the accelerator and the car shot through under the gate. Success! This brand of car suddenly became very popular with people in Berlin. After a few more attempts by people to cross this way, they had to adjust the crossings to make it harder to drive through in a straight line.

Not far from the wall, we saw some sections of wall that had been cut out and left standing on their own by the sidewalk. Artists had decorated these pieces with murals and graffiti style painting. It was great to see that the wall had been used to create new things, and that people are able to see it in a different light.

Checkpoint Charlie

We walked from the wall to Checkpoint Charlie, which was one of the many 'border' crossings. It is a very famous place, and has a big sign that announces, 'You are now leaving the American Sector'. It has a fake booth with fake soldiers now, to help tourists to visualise what it would have been like before.

On either side of the wall, there were former spy headquarters. The people inisde used to spy over the border into the other buildings. The cafe beneath one of the buildings was an eavesdropping point, for finding out information from other diners by listening.

BabelplatzNext we went to Babelplatz. During the Nazi regime, thousands of books from the library were burnt here. There is now a memeorial in the centre of the square, below the ground. You can look through a big glass window, and see huge empty shelves. The space on these shelves was equivalent to the number of books that were burnt. It helps you realise just how much was destroyed.

There were two impressive churches in this square. One of them was actually a Polish church, that was built in honour of the large population of Polish immigrants. On another side, you had a prestigious Berlin University in a spectacular white building.

At the far end of the square, there was a huge bookmarket. Cheap books are sold here as a way of making up for the book burning years ago. University professors and many other important people were involved in the burnings, so they feel quite guilty about it now.

Victims of War Memorial

We continued walking and came across the memorial to the victims of all wars. It was a beautiful but simple building, and inside it was even more simple. In the centre of the empty building, there is a statue of a woman holding the broken body of her son. It's a very moving scene, and the light coming in to the room from the skylight looks like a halo.

Museum Island

Next we went to Museum Island, which lies in the River Spree. We stopped outside the Berliner Dom, which is a spectacular Cathedral. In front of the museum, there is a large grass area, with fountains and park benches. It was really pretty.

In the background you could see the huge spacelike bubble of the TV Tower. It was built in 1969, and it is 318m high. It has become one of the most loved symbols of Berlin.
On the other side of the Cathedral lay the Pergamon Museum. This museum was in an impressive building itself, and had a nice collection of ancient art. There is the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, the Pergamon Altar and other antiquities.

On the other side of the river, there was a huge construction site. The site used to house an enormous palace. The palace was torn down at one point, and was replaced with a monstrous, ugly building for public use. The building was an eyesore, but it was loved because the Hof (David Hasselhof) sang there. He is quite popular in Germany for some reason.
There had been a recent decision to tear down the building and rebuild the old palace. It is an extremely expensive operation, and is is questioned by many. It will be one of the most specatucular tourist attractions in the world when it is completed though.

Our guide led us to the steps of the museum, where we all collapsed and took a break from walking. Here he told us about the fall of the Berlin wall, and the the reunification of the east and west. Apparently it was a mistake, and brought about by an uniformed public relations officer. The government had decided to make a big change, and allow limited travel for East Berliners, outside of the country. However, they had all sorts of restrictions on how much money you could take, and that you had to leave your family behind so you would come back.

The spokesman didn't read the report before he went ot the press conference, and when he started reading the paper out, he didn't know all of the clauses and exceptions. He read the first line, which said something like, East Berliners may now travel wherever they like. People went crazy, and questions were being flung at him like bullets. He answered as best he could, but by that point, people were already trying to cross the wall. There were so many people attempting this at once, that the guards had no way of stopping them, and sections of the wall were completely destroyed.

After the tour was over, everyone tipped the guide, as that's how they get paid for running these free tours. Then we went walking back to our hostel along the pretty Spree River. The Cathedral looked beautiful from the waterside, as did many of the other old buildings along the way. We saw lots of locals lazing around by the water, chatting with friends at little tables by the water. We also saw a very funny little outdoor cafe, which had seats with the pedestrian red and green light walking man. Berlin has a very funny looking picture for the red and green walking man, so they used it here as a kind of icon,

We had our last German meal at the same pub near our hostel. It was tasty and filled us up nicely for our long drive. We had a 500km drive back to Wloclawek. The car was already packed, so once we'd finished eating and sightseeing, we headed home to Poland. We managed to avoid getting a speeding ticket on the way home. We saw an unmarked police car following us down the road, filming us, trying to catch us out. We disappointed them by not speeding, so they went off to pick on someone else.

To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
Paris pictures