Turns out I had booked an overnight non-sleeper train that had not one but two layovers at remote German train stations at 3 and 5 am. Fun times.
I got to the enormous Berlin Hauptbanhof at 6:30 am, and was subsequently blown away. My five ND friends were staying at a hostel a bit far from the train station, and I had to figure out how to get there. It was a bit overwhelming at first, and I thanked God that I'm an anglophone (another post on that later). I asked an information stand how to get where I needed to go (something I learned from my Mom: ALWAYS ASK!) and soon I was on my merry way.
I got to the hostel, and my friends were just coming downstairs for the continental breakfast. Even though I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, I joined them for breakfast. Unlike dinky toast and jam often served as the free breakfast in American places, (or nothing in French places) this place did NOT scrimp: cheeses, heavy flat German rye bread (volkornbrot, I think it's called), five different cereals, milk, tea, coffee, juices, cucumbers, tomatoes, and yogurt. Just one reminder that the Germans are not the French!
We decided to go on a Fat Tire bike tour of Berlin, which turned out to be an excellent idea. For 17 euros, we went on a really enjoyable 5 or 6 hour bike ride, hit all the major Berlin attractions, as well as a stop at a Beergarten for a nice break. We walked to the meeting place, in East Berlin and all of picked bikes with cute little bells (ok, squeakers)
and with a random name of some famous person. Mine was Merkel (as in Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany). Other bike names were "Mary J. Blige" and "Christina Aguilera." I don't know if the bike company just wanted to keep track of their bikes or wanted their clients to be really entertained by saying things like "Merkel needs to go faster" or "Shit, I forgot to lock up JFK!"
We started out in East Berlin, at the TV Tower, which was built as a sign of Soviet innovation back in the Cold War.
Along the same lines, we visited Marx and Engels themselves in Alexanderplatz.
The downside to taking a bike tour is that even though we learned more about stuff we were looking at from our bike leader's informative talks than we would have with a guide book or by ourselves, some of the monuments, churches, and historical sights simply blur together in my mind. Beautiful, nonetheless.
This was a memorial commemorating the burning of books authored by Jews by Hitler and the Third Reich:
The photo isn't very good, but you can make out an empty bookshelf in a completely white room below. It was very, very chilling.
"Where they burn books, they will ultimately end up burning people" -Heinrich Heine
The photo isn't very good, but you can make out an empty bookshelf in a completely white room below. It was very, very chilling.
"Where they burn books, they will ultimately end up burning people" -Heinrich Heine
Next was Checkpoint Charlie, one of the crossing points between East and West Berlin.
There was also a memorial to the thousands of victims of the Berlin Wall. I guess I hadn't really thought about people dying to escape East Berlin that much; my history books probably had a few sentences about it. But it was astounding reading the stories of how desperately people tried to escape: disguises, fake identification, riding in car trunks, even zip-lining to freedom. It also struck me how fundamentally the world has changed since just 20 years ago. As much as I have studied history, I still cannot really understand how it felt to live at a time when the world was divided into US vs. USSR, capitalist vs. communist. We're more likely to hear about Iran or Iraq in the news than Russia today. The world I've grown up in has been one of ever-increasing globalization and international reliance, of multinational corporations and the internet. I can't really remember a time without computers of some sort.
I was born the year the wall came down, and now only small pieces of it remain intact around Berlin.
Our bike tour group then went to the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. It covered an entire city block and consisted of hundreds of rectangular stones representing the lives lost during that horrible time.
Each rock was placed close to others so that you have to walk by yourself, isolated from other people, through it. It made its point very clearly without being too overt.
Each rock was placed close to others so that you have to walk by yourself, isolated from other people, through it. It made its point very clearly without being too overt.
I don't have any pictures of it, but we did see Hitler's bunker, an underground, highly-fortified concrete complex where Hitler spent his last few days, eventually committing suicide. The bunker has walls of four meter thick concrete, and about 30 rooms. Both the Soviet army and the East Germany government tried to destroy it, without much success, and it was eventually filled in. Today, it's in a residential neighborhood with things like nail salons and Chinese restaurants surrounding it, and there's only a small sign noting that the small grassy square was the Führerbunker.
The bike tour continued to Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate in English), 
where both Kennedy and Reagan made famous speeches (the latter's being the "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!"), and where thousands of people gathered during the fall of the wall (and, where David Hasselhoff performed!...I think Berliners are much more excited about that than are Americans) . Brandenburger Tor is an all-around Berlin icon, and as are all iconic things in Europe, it's become a tourist trap, complete with really German things, like:
where both Kennedy and Reagan made famous speeches (the latter's being the "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!"), and where thousands of people gathered during the fall of the wall (and, where David Hasselhoff performed!...I think Berliners are much more excited about that than are Americans) . Brandenburger Tor is an all-around Berlin icon, and as are all iconic things in Europe, it's become a tourist trap, complete with really German things, like:American Indians
Storm Troopers
and large bears approaching children in bike helmets.
Really, what more do you need in life?
Right next to the Brandenburger Tor is the Hotel Adlon, which besides being famous for its hotel rooms that will set you back a thousand or so a night, was also the place where Michael Jackson (RIP!) caused quite a brouhaha by dangling his baby out the window a few years back.
We biked through the HUGE Tiergarten (akin to Central Park in NYC),
to get to the Beergarten!
Where we refreshed ourselves with malt beverage and nourishment in the form of sausages (for everyone else), pretzels, sauerkraut, and couscous. Delicious, and a great pit stop for a bike tour.
The second half of the bike tour included some native wildlife:
(kidding)
The Reichstag. Possibly the coolest state building ever, and it played such a central role in 20th century Germany history. More on that tomorrow. 
A one-man sausage machine (Only in Germany!)
A museum and a famous church (I know I'm awful for not remembering more about them, but there ARE a TON of both famous churches and museums in Europe!)
That night, we met up with my friend Laure's German friend Christian for dinner
and some posing at Potsdamer Platz.
Side note: I know it looks like I wore the same outfit (my dark blue coat and my white lacy scarf) the entire spring break, but I swear I changed my clothes a few times over spring break! Promise. Just get prepared for seeing more of Adventures of the Girl in the Navy Blue Coat!
Love, Claire
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