Well, the trips just keep getting better. Berlin, as many post-communist cities and countries are, is a city of lots of contradictions. The difference, though, is the way Berlin has absorbed a lot of those contradictions, making them an integral part of the city (and I guess that comes with the territory in a city that was literally a living contradiction for the majority of the past 100 years). It's such a cool, cosmopolitan city (Jonas said that for the past 20 years it's been called 'the construction site of Europe.' You can see why). And I realized after I got there, I felt this interesting sort of connection with the city, an excitement to explore it and get more familiar with it, knowing that my grandfather had spent a bunch of time here at war's end.
Our hostel was located in East Berlin, in an area that's become notable as of late because of an influx of artists moving there to take advantage of the low-cost housing in dilapidated Socialist housing projects. So we were in the area with a lot of nightlife and community, which was really neat.
We arrived around midnight on Friday evening after leaving a traffic-clogged (clagued?) Prague at about 5pm, and I just had to take a least a short walk and grab a drink somewhere or I'd have felt like I wasted the night. So me and a few others headed to an area recommended by the receptionist, where we found some sweet bars with outdoor seating (Europe in warm weather is a completely different place, by the way! Everything's outside, it's wonderful). I was amazed, as we were walking - in Prague, the night streets are crowded with people speaking Italian. But here, everyone was speaking German!
Saturday, we took a morning city tour with a guide from Michigan doing his grad work in Berlin, studying post-communist cities. And what a city it is! We headed first to Checkpoint Charlie, one of three places in divided Germany to cross from East to West, and got to see one of the many remaining fragments of the wall (of course I was humming Pink Floyd, did you have to ask?). It's unbelievable. I've heard so much about the terrors of the communist regime, but to see the physical remains of something so irrational (but so rational), and in the middle of a city that has emerged as a rival to New York, Paris, and London...it just re-contextualizes this whole utopian experiment. The best streets in the city are bisected by cobblestones marking where the wall stood.
Lest we forget, however, that Berlin was also the capital during WWII (damn, this place had a rough century, huh?). We walked through the Berlin Holocaust memorial, and I think it's one of the most effective I've seen (pictures coming soon). The afternoon was spent in a museum, after which I headed down to the Technical Museum for an exhibit on the history of technology and games (not as cool as it sounds, but I got to figure out the metro all by myself!).
And then, of course, the evening. We began at the Reichstag, the seat of German parliament, where we watched the sun set from the huge glass dome on top (does anyone else find it incredible/slightly concerning that it's so easy to gain access to important governmental buildings in Europe? Maybe it's just my American fear talking...).
Then, I went with a bunch of other people on a Berlin pub crawl (oh, I really am in college). On the way (and it was a LONG way. This city is bigger than Paris!), me and my friend Caitlin found ourselves a doner kebab that just might have been the culinary highlight of my trip (I ate terribly this weekend, but for cheap). The crawl brought us to pubs of all shapes and sizes, including one that made us all feel like we were on The OC, complete with sand, and one playing really loud drum 'n' bass music complemented by a badly played trumpet.
And may I take a moment to say, yes JC, it's official - I only really like Czech beer.
Stephanie put me in charge of making sure she got home, which I was reluctant to do, but we managed it. We spent over an hour taking public transportation (for 2.10Euro) and walking back to our hostel, after consulting multiple drunken Berliners who all gave us different directions in different languages (honestly, I'm getting really good at deciphering bad directions). All this, only to return to the hostel and discover all of our friends already sleeping in their beds after having taken a cab for a whopping 4Euro. She was a little mad at me. But I got her home!
Sunday (which is today. Wow that seems strange) I slowly regained consciousness for our 9:30am check out time, tried to ignore the overflowing backed up drain in our shower and toilet, and we headed out to the Pergamon Museum, home to some of the most incredible relics from antiquity I've ever seen (I took a million pictures). Then it was back on the bus to head towards home, with a two hour stop in Dresden during which we all took pictures of buildings that may or may not have had some sort of significance. Dresden is a really interesting city if only by nature of it looking so old, but being SO new (remember? It was leveled in WWII). We all felt like we were in Disneyland a little bit.
Arriving in Prague, as always was like a breath of fresh air. And that, my friends, is the whirlwind tour through my nearly instantaneous visit to Berlin. However short that time was, though, Berlin joins the very short list of European cities (with Prague and Amsterdam) where I could honestly see myself living at some point. I love cities with a kind of 'edge,' if you can't tell (my dad pointed that out to me) and Berlin has so much edge, in fact, that I think it might have hurt me - I think I'm getting sick, AGAIN. I guess that's what comes with little to no sleep every night...
Note: Tuesday, I'll post pictures if it's the last thing I do.
