SPRING BREAK!!!! - Part 2: Berlin, Germany

Wednesday 7 – Sunday 11

We flew on EasyJet (cheapest airline in Europe I think) to Berlin. During the airplane safety audiovisual/demo the airhost said “in case of a drop in cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop from above you and oxygen will be provided for free. Pull the mask towards you to start oxygen flow.” Nicole and I were amused by his free oxygen comment (I think he was also on our Berlin-Rome flight too, because he said the same thing and looked familiar).

Our flight arrived around 6pm, by the time we got to the hostel waaaay on the otherside, it was about 8pm. We just grabbed a quick dinner in the U-Bahn (subway) station before getting to the hostel. Now this hostel, it was paradise compared to Luna Park/c. The JetPak Hostel is owned by a family, Gul-noor (I think that's how her name is spelled) and her husband, Neal (I think). They were wonderful, and live on the otherside of the drive way. When we got to our room, she gave us CLEAN UNBURNED linens for our beds that had a pillow each and a duvet. She showed us around: a dining room with a guest fridge (!!), breakfast from 8-10am (which was acutally pretty good for a continental breakfast), common room with books, fooz ball table, a internet computer (free), a tv with CNN and local channels, movies, and lots of comfy things to sit on (giant beanbags, weirdo looking sofas but really comfortable). Gul-noor also said that becuase we're right in the woods and we could walk along the trails to the lakes (apparently there are lots of foresty-woodsy areas in and around Berlin). So that night we made our beds, and watched a movie then went to bed.

Thursday we woke up, dressed and what not and walked over to the Elliot Museum which exhibits the history of WW2 and Nazi Germany, etc. After that we went to the Brucke Museum and saw some expressionism art work. After that we took the bus into the city center of West Berlin which is Zoo Garten. There we went to the Berlin zoo and aquarium, we spent about 3.5 hours there! I took loads of pictures there, here's one of them:

Us and giraffes:

We had dinner at this Mexican restaurant (had a bit of a German touch to it! haha) after walking around the area window shopping. After dinner we went back to the hostel and watched "Little Miss Sunshine" and called it a night.

Two of the other guests had highly recommended doing the Berlin Free Walking Tour (work for tips). So we did that on Friday. Nicole and I had intended on doing the tour starting in the morning, but we got on the wrong bus and ended up in some random area and missed the first tour so we just walked around, had lunch to pass time until 12:30.

Our tourguide was Andrew, he's an Aussie and has been living in Berlin for 11 years. He originally moved becuase he was working for Associated Press as a journalist (he unfortunately missed the moment that Michael Jackson dangled his child off the balcony because he was busy getting coffee in Starbucks and ignored all the hulaballoo outside! He late found out what happened when his photographer told him!). The tour was amazing. It lasted about 4 hours and we walked through East Berlin starting at the Brandenburg Gate (left). (The hotel that Michael Jackson stayed in is across from the gate on the side I took the picture, just fyi).

We took a left after passing under the gate and walked along the cobblestones making where the Berlin Wall used to stand - we were heading towards the Holocaust Memorial. Along the way, we passed Tiergarten, a huge park, where in the summer people, mostly men, sunbathe nude.
Holocaust Memorial (it has a museum underneath with the history, letters writen by people sent to concentration camps, etc). It was pretty intense since mostly all the information was first hand accounts of what happened to them, so it was very personal. The memorial is different sized blocks set up in a grid formation, the ground underneath them is undulating so it's almost "hilly".


Then we walked to the Berlin wall, and along the way saw a Communist propaganda mosaic mural (6x6" tiles painted to make a whole image...so its not quite a mural but its not really a mosaic either..but kinda both i guess!) that was made during the Cold War at somepoint. Then later, in front of the building there is a photographic installation opposing the mural. The Berlin Wall acutally wasn't that exciting, especially not after seeing shops selling segments (like square inch sizes) of the wall for hefty Euro prices. There was one part of the wall that is right next to where the SS HQ used to be (it was demolished). Now on the site they're building a museum called "Topography of Terror"...there is also a temporary one, in the excavated prison cells right under the wall until the big one is built. Unfortunately it was all in German (with a few random English comments) so I could really only look at pictures.





The Wall:
So on the otherside of this segment of wall is the site of the former SS HQ.

We walked some more, stopping at Checkpoint Charlie then taking a break at a cafe before moving further. We walked to the square where the book burning took place. There's a monument (don't know if that's the right word or not) in the ground. As you walk on the cobbles there is a portion missing where it's replaced by glass, and when you look in, you see a white room with empty shelves - the books having been burned. Apparently, that glass has to be replaced about every two months becuase it gets so scratched and worn that people can't see into the library! This area that we were in is heavily influenced by Classical Greek and Roman architecture and art, so a lot of the buildings are made in that same style with large domes, columns etc...they're all Neoclassical! :D

This is a picture of the French Calvinist church; across from it is the Lutheran church and in between the two on the left of the picture stands the French Opera (which at somepoint burned down or something becuase the special effects department got over enthusiastic and their fire kind of got out of control).












We ended the tour at Musuem Island, where the Pergamom, Old National Gallery and many others are located. We could see the TV tower from where we sat on (I think) the Old National Gallery steps. The TV tower, from what i remember, is important cause that's how East Berliners got news and information, but specifically cause they were able to access West Berlin TV as well (on the sly). Andrew told us how the news got out that East Berliners could cross the wall, it was REALLY interesting, especially since he was so enthusiastic about it!

Bascially, long story short, the Mayor (if i remember correctly, some position like that) was given a huge stack of new immigration policies by his secretary literally minutes before a press conference about the polices, so he didnt have time really to prepare himself. And in the conference he tried being as vague as he could or avoided getting into fine details about allowing East Berliners to go west, but eventually some reporter asked when the policies would be in effect and a number of times the mayor dude avoided the question or beat around the bush but eventually says "...i guess now?" And at that point there were soooo many questions being thrown at him, and outside, all those East Berliners were passing along the news and were running to the wall, but the guards had no idea what was going on or what was on the news. There was a lot of back and forth of relaying messages between authorities and people etc, eventually the guards questioned whether they were the authority or the people, and decided to let the people go. All of a sudden people were climbing over and West Berlin was rather overwhelmed. But then the West Berliners, later in the evening, wondered where all the East Berliners were...they weren't in the street....they had gone to the cinemas to watch Dirty Dancing - they had seen commericals on it through their blackmarket-West Berlin TV. So that was the first thing they really did when they crossed, watched Dirty Dancing.

After the tour, Nicole and I went to have dinner at a southern German cafe called Black Forest Den, which had AMAZING food, i highly recommend it. We headed back to the hostel after dinner.

Saturday morning we walked the trails in the woods around our hostel, walked part way around a lake - it was fun! The rest of Saturday was a more detailed version of the tour, we went back to the places and went to the museums and what not, and spent more time in the sites.














We went to the Pergamom Museum and saw:
The Alter of Zeus:
(my bad photo composite of i think the east frieze)
The Gates of Ishtar:

and much more!!!! :D