Berlin, Part Two... And a Great Story

On my second day in Berlin (6/13) it was rainy and cold so I decided to try and do something indoors. Berlin has a ton of museums, so I figured one of those would suffice. After my usual 45-minute trek downtown, I chose the Pergamon Museum, which houses all kinds of ancient art from thousands of years ago. I realized I wasn’t the only one who decided to do museums that day, as the line for the Pergamon was about a half hour long. After finally getting in, one of the first exhibits is the Altar of Pergamon, an incredibly massive structure that was constructed in the 2^nd century BC by the ancient Greeks. After it was excavated, the entire thing was transported to the museum and reconstructed. It fills an entire room the size of a warehouse and is around forty feet high. Around the wall of the room are these long marble “friezes” which tell the story, through sculpture, of when the greek gods fought the giants. As you walk along, it plays out like a filmstrip.

Another cool thing that’s housed in the museum is the original Ishtar Gate, which guarded the entrance to the ancient city of Babylon. Apparently it’s the most impressive thing in the museum, even after the Altar of Pergamon, and it was pretty much the reason I went to that museum. However, once I bought ticket and got inside, we were informed that the entire Babylon exhibit was closed! That’s pretty much half the museum, and I didn’t even get to see it. Here’s a picture I stole off Wikipedia to give you an idea of what it looks like. I wish I could’ve seen it, but for only four euros (student ticket), the Pergamon Altar was still pretty cool. They had a ton of other relics and sculptures from long ago as well, which I took a bunch of pictures of.

After the museum, I stepped outside to realize the rain had stopped, so I could do some more stuff outside. For lunch, I picked up a doner, which have probably accounted for about 80% of my diet in Berlin. They’re kind of like gyros, but instead of tzatziki (cucumber sauce), they put garlic sauce on it. It still has the souvlaki-type meat that’s carved off the massive rotating spit, which is then topped with onions, lettuce, and “salad” (tomatoes, cucumbers, etc) and all stuffed inside a grilled pita. They’re delicious, super cheap at only 2.50 a piece, and no matter where you are in the city, you can always find one.

After lunch, I headed towards the Berlin Wall Documentation Museum, which chronicles the rise and fall of the wall through interactive exhibits. Remember the Brandenberg Gate that I talked about in my last post? Here's what it looked like in the 60s (that's barbed wire). And across the street from the museum is the only surviving example of a section of the Berlin wall where both the eastern and western walls are still intact, complete with the area in between the two known as the “death strip,” or no-man’s-land. On the top floor of the museum, there is an overlook where you can look down at the walls and death strip across the street, which was really cool.

Next, I walked to the Sony Center at Potsdamer Plotz to try and leech off some free wireless internet, but it wouldn’t work so I just had some coffee.

To end the day, I went up in the Reichstag (German Parliament) building which has a big overlook on the roof. In the 1930s, only one month after Hitler became chancellor, there was a very mysterious fire that devastated the Reichstag. Hitler used the fire to declare a state of emergency, saying that it was started by those that were against his government (i.e. communists, Jews, etc). He started rounding them up, arresting them one by one. Those that didn’t get arrested fled the country in fear of their lives. Then, a few weeks later, there was a pivotal vote in parliament that would allow Hitler’s party to have supreme, dictatorial power. The only members of parliament that showed up to vote were the Nazis, because everyone else had been arrested or left the country. Thus, the vote passed with flying colors, and so began Hitler’s third Reich. Years later, it was discovered that the Reichstag fire was started in five separate places at once, which leads us to believe that Hitler almost certainly started it intentionally. After a 45-minute wait and an intense security screening, they let us go up to the top. It gave a pretty good view over Berlin, so I snapped a few shots while I was up there.

After I came home, a bunch of people were hanging out in the common room, so I bought a few Berliner Pilsners out of the vending machine and chilled with them for a while. We ended up watching I Am Legend with Will Smith, which actually turned out better than I thought it was going to be. I got to sleep around 2:30, way later than I had planned.

6/14, Saturday – I ended up sleeping in bigtime this morning, and when I woke up I actually decided to take the day off and relax for once. I always try to do so much every day, and it had caught up with me. I sent some e-mails, made some calls home, and even watched an episode of The Office that I had downloaded a few days prior. The hostel was nice and quiet with everyone else being out for the day, which was nice. For lunch, I hiked on a trail through the woods (my hostel is on the edge of a huge forest) to a beer garden that’s only about 15 minutes away. Don’t think it was anything spectacular – it was a tiny hut with a few tables that served a bunch of different kinds of beer. The food was pretty amazing though, as well as the beer they gave me.

Since I hadn’t yet gone out on the town in Berlin, I decided that tonight would be a good time. I got a hold of Fab and asked if he wanted to do another pub crawl, and he was more than happy to oblige. The pub crawl started at 8:15, but I had no idea how far away it was going to be. I left at 7:45, but I had a really long way to go. On top of that, the train line I was on got shut down and we had to walk really far to get there. I met some college kids from Missouri who were heading to the same place, so we all made the trek together. We ended up getting there around 9:15 and I reunited with Fab, who I hadn’t seen since Amsterdam.

This night actually ended up being a ton of fun, and it ends with a pretty good story as well. Right off the bat, we met a lot of different people, including a guy and girl from London, John and Aslynn, who study archaeology together. We spent most of the night with those two. We also met people from Virginia, Australia, and of course those Missouri kids that I’d walked from the train station with. Luckily, I took my camera that night so I have pictures to remember everyone by. Fab ended up losing the pub crawl at the second to last bar after he went back inside to get a lemon from the bartender (which is pretty funny in itself), so I hung around with those two from London for the rest of the night. They told me that if I was ever in London again, I was welcome to stay for free at their flat. Since I’ll be in London at the end of July (right before I fly home), I just may take them up on it.

This is where the story gets good… Well, around 3 in the morning (Berlin parties all night long), I decided I should head home since I had such a long commute back. I had no idea where I was and forgot to bring a map, so I just started walking on the main road until I came to a train station. I actually ended up having to walk like 45 minutes, and it was really late by the time I got on the train.

Late at night, the trains move really slowly, so it took me forever to get all the way to Hohenzollerndamm Street, which is where I normally catch the bus to go home. On the train, there was this crazy-looking guy paying techno out of a boombox who ended up putting the stereo under his head and going to sleep on the counter in the train. Very bizarre. By the time I got to my train stop, it was nearly 5, and I checked the bus schedule, which I had to take for the last leg of my trip. Yesss, the bus will be coming at 5:09. It was 5:03, so I knew I’d be home soon. Okay, 5:07, only two more minutes and I’m on the warm bus. 5:09, okay any second now. 5:11, I guess it’s running a bit late. 5:12, alright something is wrong here. The buses were always on time. I go back up to the schedule for a closer look, and I didn’t have to speak German to realize that I had been looking at the “Monday through Friday” timetable. I cruise past the Saturday timetable and over to the Sunday table (as it was now early Sunday morning). Oh no… the first bus wasn’t coming until 6:30 in the morning. Here it was 5:15 am, I’ve been out all night long, I’m super tired from the already long commute home, and now I’m stuck far from home and have no way to get there. I had only brought enough cash as I knew I would need, so I didn’t have any spare money for a cab. My only choice was to walk it.

The sun was already up when I set out on my journey. I headed south on Hohenzollerndamm Strasse, knowing I would eventually hit the road that led to my hostel. The only problem was that it was 9 bus stops away, which I knew had to be really far, at least a few kilometers. The trek was brutal – definitely not what I wanted to be doing at 6 in the morning. However, I did commandeer a bike about 20 minutes in, which was nice. It was a purple women’s ten-speed, with half-flat tires, and I assume it had been abandoned by its owner (if it had one) as it was laying on the side of the street. I hopped on that thing and rode like the wind. I can only imagine what people thought when they saw me – some guy weaving down the street, eyes half-closed, knees out to the sides, on a purple women’s bicycle with nearly flat tires. If only I could have gotten a picture… I did get one of the bike, however, which I placed against a tree for some other weary traveler once I reached my destination. I walked the last little road to my hostel and stepped inside at 6:15 tired and dehydrated, but happy to be home. I didn’t want to wake up my roommates by coming in so late, so I was trying to be as quiet as possible. I crack open the door, peek my head in, and see two glossy-eyed roommates getting ready for bed. “You’re just getting in too?” they ask.

And so ended an awesome night in Berlin.

To see all my Berlin pictures, please click here.