Around the World in Almost 80 Days: October 2015

Finally getting into Berlin early in the morning, I passed by a rack of pamphlets for different tours and attractions so grabbed two different pamphlets for walking tours and a tiny booklet on how to talk dirty in German (regarding trash and how to ask for trash bins and the like) and it was by chance that I was passing by the Tourist Information Center so I decided that there was no harm in checking it out. It was lucky that I did because it was there that I read about the Berlin Welcome Card which gave me access to public transportation for two days (there were options for amount of days) in three zones which included Berlin as well as Potsdam (I picked the card for three zones because if I had picked the one with only two zones, I wouldn't have been covered to go to Potsdam), discounts on certain museums and restaurants and included a map and guide book. So equipped with my Berlin Welcome Card, my first stop was Vivantes Hospital.
Why the hospital, you ask? Rewind back to two days prior to my arrival when I receive a message from my Couchsurfing host, Maria, telling me that she was in the hospital because a recurring stomach problem had reared its ugly head again. I had told her that she didn't have to host me if it was too much trouble but she insisted that her flat was empty anyway since she was in the hospital so all I had to do was pick up the keys from her. She had told me which underground train (U-bahn) to take to get to the hospital but I had to figure out how to get to the train station because it seemed like the one that she had told me did not leave directly from the airport so after a bit of meandering and talking to a train attendant, I got onto the proper bus and then the appropriate train. With the little amount of battery life left in my phone, I had seen where the hospital was in proximity to the train stop but I forgot to check the direction in which I needed to walk prior to my phone dying so I asked a nice older couple if they spoke English and they said a little so after repeating Vivantes several times with different emphasis on different syllables, they were able to point me to a bus right next to the station that would get me there. I thanked them and got on my way. The bus driver was really helpful too because he told me when I had to get off when I told him where I had to go.

I hope this is the right bus...

The immature boy in me giggled

Learning German

Finally making it to the hospital, I wasn't quite sure where to find the entrance so I followed this family that walked past me on the street and I came across a sign that contained some words that I recognized and hoped was pointing me in the direction of information (infopunkt) and where patients might be (patientenaufnahme). When I walked through the doors, there was a lady at the front desk so I thought I needed to sign in or something but after receiving a bunch of confused looks from her, I just gave her an apologetic smile and walked further into the building. Maria had told me that she was on the fourth floor in room 18 but when I got to the fourth floor, there were four "platforms," which I guess are different wings and each of them had a room 18. I attempted one wing and saw that the room 18 there seemed to contain some medical equipment so no luck there. I didn't want to seem too sketchy searching different rooms so I went back out towards the elevators to charge my phone for a bit to contact Maria. At one point, a nurse pushed a cart with a patient past me but didn't even give me a second glance as if people carting around big packs and charging their phones at the entrance of a hospital wing is pretty common.

Seems about right

Once my phone turned on, it had held enough of a charge for me to read a message from Maria telling me the proper wing so I gathered my things and went to the room. However, when I got there, there was a lady in one bed with her family (I think it was the family I followed to the entrance) and an empty bed next to them so I asked for Maria but they said something to me in German and rather than having a staring contest with them, I decided to ask a nurse. They verified the room but we still didn't find Maria so again I walked out to the elevators to charge my phone. Within a few minutes, the nurse came out and told me that Maria was just in the bathroom so I went back to the room and finally met my Couchsurfing host.
Upon getting the keys from Maria, she gave me directions to her flat which was perfectly situated next to the train station so off I went again. I remember her telling me that there were two 17s but I thought that they were on opposite sides of the street so I walked up and down the street searching for another flat with the number 17 since the first one I went to didn't have a button with her last name (which she told me I should see to verify I was at the right building). Finally, I found a building that had her last name on a button and I realized it was the unmarked building next to the building marked 17 and this was after I had walked up and down both sides of the street - so weird. But finally! I got to put my things down somewhere.

Cool street art I saw while walking up and down the street

Since all of this happened before noon, I had just realized that I was hungry so I walked out to get some chicken döner at the stand on the corner of the street to bring back to the flat to munch on while I mapped my plan of action. The multitasking was unsuccessful as the döner was messier than I had expected but it was so yummy!

I flipped through the guidebook that I received as part of the Berlin Welcome Card and picked some places that I wanted to go like the Currywurst Museum and the Ritter Sport Chocolate store since I had missed the times for the walking tours that day and figured that I could spend the day walking around Berlin getting a lay of the land. At this point, I decided to ditch my phone for the day because it would take forever for it to keep its charge and try my luck with following a map and relying on my sense of direction.

Just a funny looking advert

When I got out of the U-bahn at Friedrichstraße (the ß is a double s), someone stopped me and said, "Sprechen sie Englisch?" so I readily answered, "I only speak English" and I guess I saw a look of relief flood his face because then he told me that he's from the U.S. as well and the reason why he tried his chances with seeing if I spoke English was because I was wearing my hoodie that said Crossfit Pendulum on it. So we chatted really quickly about what brought us to Berlin and I asked him for some advice of where to go and he pointed me west. By the end of our conversation, we exchanged names and he had invited to meet me for dinner at Potsdamer Platz station at 6PM. This was all based on goodwill for both of us since I didn't have my phone so neither of us could confirm or cancel with each other. After I said bye to Godfrey, I went on my way in the direction he suggested and as I walked down the street, I noticed more and more people walking towards me with heat blankets looking like they had completed a race of some sort. As I walked further down and along the spree (the river?), I asked someone what race had happened and was told it was the Berlin Marathon.

Walking along the spree

I later found out that the dome is the Parliament building

I didn't want to get sucked into the crowds of people so I continued to walk along the spree and looking at the map, I told myself that I was going to get as far as the Siegessaule which looked like something important because it seemed to look like a hub with five major roads coming from it (kind of like the Arc de Triomphe) before turning back around. It was a beautiful day and lots of people were out just sitting by the spree and I was feeling a bit groggy so I walked further down a bit before choosing a bench to sit on to take in the view and to get over my sleepiness.

View from my bench

That's where I wanted to go

On my way to the Siegessaule, I think I passed by the homosexuality museum, from what I could decipher from the placard and there was something about the history of it but I didn't investigate too much before I continued on my way. I got to this really nice green area and saw that it was the Tiergarten on the map and it continued until the Siegessaule so at least I had some nice greenery to look at while I walked. Finally making it to this column, I saw that it was also similar to the Arc de Triomphe in that I needed to find the underground walkway to get to it. I walked in one direction and when I walked out, I had just walked all the way to the other side so after my second attempt, I made it to the center. There wasn't signage in the tunnel to tell you which way to the column but there was this cool motion-sensor light display down there. When I got there, it was only a few euros (reduced student price) to go through the little museum and to climb to the top so I went in. Throughout the museum, there were various displays of German relics and models of buildings. One of the small rooms displayed models of different notable structures throughout the world such as the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty and finally at the end, there was the option to climb to the top so I took it.

The Siegessaule

Don't know who Roon is...

Flags for the Marathon

It's just cool to me how far out this road goes

From what I counted (I might have lost count), there weren't as many steps as The Monument in London but still a lot of steps. The view from the top, as you would expect from my posts lately, was great! There were quite a lot of people up there so I paused for a quick moment to admire the view then did one quick loop around the top before I headed back down.

i_mon_top

Tehe

I wasn't quite sure of the time but I figured that I was doing well on time to meet up with Godfrey as I made my way towards Potsdamer Platz, taking a different road to see what else there was to see on my way back. Just to make sure, every so often, I would pass by someone and ask for the time while patting my wrist just in case a language barrier existed. I did happen to pass by an area of what looked like a large garden and at the top, there was a statue paying tribute to some famous composers. I chose to walk down this particular path (straße des 17. Juni) because it looked like one of the more prominent ones on the map and it led to another landmark, which from the map was labeled Brandenburger Tor. I was doing well on time so when I got close to where I needed to be, I saw a sign for a Holocaust Museum so I knew I had to pay my respects. Right before I got to where the arrow was pointing, I stopped at this large open area where there were a lot of big blocks of cement that were organized in nice little rows and columns that dipped and rose and I didn't know the significance of it all but something about it made me feel calm and at peace as I walked through.

This was at the little garden area I walked through

I'm not sure which composer was which...

Brandenburger Tor

I just thought this street light was interesting

The blocks of cement near the Holocaust Museum

When I got to the museum entrance, I knew I was going to be pressed for time if I went through before meeting Godfrey so I was glad to learn that the museum closed late because it would be closed the next day. I knew it was close to 6PM by the time I got to Potsdamer Platz station but there seemed to be several metro entrances and one larger station so I hung around one of the smaller entrances first and after about five minutes, I walked towards the larger station and there Godfrey was and he said that he had the same thoughts about which place we were actually meeting and was surprised that I knew the time without a phone. After a quick look at the pieces of the Berlin Wall that were placed on display near the station, we headed in the direction in which I had come since I had seen restaurants near the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (the big display outside of the museum). When we got to the memorial, however, Godfrey was really shocked that he had missed it after all the times that he had walked around that area so we walked through it together at our own paces and when we got to the entrance to the museum, I asked if he wanted to join me in walking through and he did so we spent a bit of time walking through the museum, reading the stories of some families and what happened to them after WWII and getting first-hand accounts of events from letters and journal entries. There was one room that read off individual names of the victims of the Holocaust and a brief history of them and it would have taken something like six years to read through them all and I think that was a powerful room because it gives a story behind each and every person and makes them important.

This green walk symbol was cool to me too. I learn more about it later.

Pieces of the Berlin Wall

Walking through the Memorial

After getting out of the museum, the side across the street from it was lined with restaurants so we walked up the street to pick a place for some German food. One of the guys standing outside of one of the restaurants (it looked like they all worked at all of them and kept walking in between them) convinced me to come in because he said he would get the rugby game on for me and it was funny because his boss actually brought a large flatscreen TV out and put it right in front of our table. However, when he clicked on the channel that said it was airing rugby, it turned out to be showing golf and by the time they were able to figure out how to stream the game, Ireland had already beaten Romania. Since there wasn't anything else that I wanted to watch, they turned on some version of MTV for us and we listened to American top hits while we ate our dinner of currywurst and schnitzel with various sides of sauerkraut, potatoes in different forms, and salad.

With my tummy full of meat and beer, and a little bit of veggies (I began missing veggies at this point), we walked around a bit towards Potsdamer Platz station to find some ice cream and we got into Häagen-Dazs (mmm...). At this point, I was getting a bit chilly and Godfrey had to get to a business call from New York (where I found out he lived) so we said our goodbyes and I later found out that he works for Apple. When I asked him about his reason for being in Berlin, he had mentioned that he was working on some sort of mapping and it turns out that his team is mapping out the metro lines in various cities around the world and he said that he usually doesn't tell people that he doesn't think he'll see again about where he works but since he told me, perhaps we'll meet again. I didn't think to get his contact info but he has mine so we'll see if he ever reaches out.

Getting back to the station, another chunk of Wall I thought was cool

Interesting sculpture at the Potsdamer Platz station

Surprisingly, without the help of any alarm clocks, my body has been successfully waking up at a reasonable hour in the morning and this particular morning, I had planned on going on a walking tour so was glad that I had woken up with enough time to mosey onto the S-bahn (above-ground train) to get to Hackescher Markt. Jess, our tour guide, was from LA and had moved to Berlin after he visited for a few weeks two years ago; his trip to Berlin was supposed to be a summer trip prior to starting his applications for law school but he ended up loving the city so much that he decided he was going to stay and is now studying for his master's in history at Humboldt University. I've met quite a few people so far whom I am fascinated by because of their unprecedented decision to stay in a city abroad after visiting and it's been adding to my crazy dreams of one day doing that as well.

Getting ready for the tour

Since Jess is a huge history buff, we got a tour that was rich with history and he added a lot of his analyses on certain bits of Berlin so it actually kept me interested the whole time. I've been finding that I've really been enjoying learning about the history of the different cities I've been visiting even though I don't always remember all of it. I used to have such an aversion to learning about history because I remember being really bored by it all in school since it was always a matter of memorization of dates that didn't seem to matter. But I would have to say that since my visit to Berlin, I've been enjoying learning about world history a lot more because it makes more sense to actually pass by a landmark and see the marks that were left behind from bombshells during WWII or stand in the same place as where crowds would form when Hitler would give his speeches and to learn about how the different cities are connected to each other throughout the different historical events. I would have to say that I'm a pretty ignorant person when it comes to world affairs and I guess many subjects outside of the realm of science (hell, I'm ignorant about many things even within the realm of science as well), but my explorations so far have definitely opened up my views and knowledge.
Now enough of that detour - Jess gave us a brief introduction by telling us how Berlin is actually a Slovak word meaning the opening at the end of a swamp and that Berlin actually has more water running through it than Amsterdam and gave us an overview of the layout of Berlin (east and west) in front of the Berlin Cathedral before taking us to Museum Island. I feel like somewhere along my education, I might have heard mention of Berlin here or there but I'm not so sure because I had much to absorb on this tour. So learning that Berlin, up until 25 years ago, was a city separated into two parts where the Soviets controlled East Berlin and the western part was considered the American, British, and French sectors (some of the little drawings and trinkets inside of the Siegessaule were starting to make sense now), we walked over to Museum Island which is named as such because museums were built on this section of an entirely natural island. Jess introduced us to the three museums that are facing each other on the island and the various collections that they hold. It was cool to actually think back in history to when war was occurring and to see the pillars along the walkway with holes from bombardment. It's amazing and crazy to me to see structures with such history and even then, these are events that didn't really happen too long ago in the greater scheme of things. As Jess brought us back into time to tell us about the division of the city, some people on the tour were able to give us first-hand accounts of what it was like to travel in Berlin at the time and it's really incredible to me how recent this history is.

Can't remember what this building is...

Cathedral

Heading to Museum Island. Lady playing the accordion here.

The National Museum

After Museum Island, we walked over to the king's Pleasure Garden which was just that - a garden with a church in the back and it was meant for the king to walk about leisurely back when there was a king. Here, we were pointed towards an old Prussian symbol which is a black eagle with its wings by its side that lined the top of one of the prominent buildings situated in the Pleasure Garden. Right before we made our way to the next point, Jess mentioned that when Hitler was chancellor and giving his speeches, he would often start at the Pleasure Garden and then lead a procession through Berlin and it just so happened that the best path for the tour covers most of this procession path.

Can't remember what church this is...

Building lined with Prussian black eagles

New building being built - I think it's supposed to be a museum of sorts

There's an image over there to show what the building will look like

A museum

So I guess in following in the footsteps of Hitler, we made a stop at the Memorial of the Wounded Soldier which is dedicated to the victims of war and tyranny. In this fairly large building which is just a single room, right in the middle, sits a statue and right above the statue is a hole. It's a very simple memorial but just looking at it seemed to give me some sort of calmness and resolve. Jess was able to add a bit more of an interpretation to it for us saying that because there is no covering in the hole and the memorial is left completely to the elements, he said that when it rains, it's kind of like tears pouring over the statue and when it snows, the statue looks like it's very serene.

Outside of the Memorial of the Wounded Soldier

Our next stop was to Jess's university, Humboldt. At one point, it was a very prestigious university and Einstein taught there among having some other famous names having studied there, those of which I don't remember, and now it's still a very good university but I guess not as prestigious. But we weren't taken there to hear about all the famous people we might know who studied or taught there. We were taken there because it was the site of a national movement by German students during the time of the Nazi rule where they went throughout the library picking out all the works written by non-German authors and piled them in the square where we were standing and burned them. Near the library, there is a memorial dedicated to this book-burning but if it weren't for Jess, I would have completely missed it. He took us a few meters away from the library to this small square of see-through material and I had no idea what everyone was looking at but once I stepped back a little, I noticed that we were looking down into a room with just white, empty bookshelves. Apparently, there is enough space on those bookshelves to hold 20,000 books, the amount of books that burned that night. A few steps away, a small little plaque wrote "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen" which translates to "Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people." This quote was written by Heinrich Heine in a play in 1820, way before any of this ever happened but it proved to be some sort of admonition. In a way, there is also irony in the use of this quote because Heine's works were also burned that night.

Humboldt Library

Humboldt University

Church

Memorial to the book burning

Heine's quote

After that, we found ourselves walking up Pariser Platz, so named not to honor Paris but to show reign over it. At the top of Pariser Platz is the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) and on top of this large structure sits the the goddess of victory, Victoria. At first, the statue was of another goddess, Irene, who originally had her arms open but when Napoleon invaded way back when, he rather liked the statue so brought it back to Paris with him. Then, when Napoleon was defeated, the statue was brought back to Berlin, changed to Victoria wielding a staff and placed right at the top of this street rightly named for the victory over Paris.

Victoria

As we walked closer to the Gate, we were told that we were standing in what would have been the Death Strip at the time the Berlin Wall was in existence. But let's jump back a little bit. When Berlin was first separated into the Soviet sector (east) and the American, British, and French (west) sectors, all of the people from East Berlin that didn't want to live there anymore just walked over to West Berlin, were pretty much given a new ID and money, and went off to live on the rest of their lives. These people included some of the best and brightest so this time was known as the Brain Drain [of East Berlin]. Of course, there needed to be something that was done to stop this from continuing so a tiny little fence about knee height was put up. And still that wasn't proving to be enough so thus started the construction of the Berlin Wall which was actually two walls running parallel to each other. For anyone to even approach the walls was dangerous and to be in between the two walls brought death, hence the Death Strip. Yes, there were still ways to get from East Berlin to West Berlin and that's where the different checkpoints come into play. As we walked under Brandenburger Tor, we slowly made our way into what would have been West Berlin, having Jess point out various spots for where the walls used to run and I could definitely tell the difference in the architecture between the two parts.

The remaining indications of the Berlin Wall

From the Gate, I started to recognize that we were going near the Museum for the Murdered Jews of Europe. We had some time to walk through it and reconvene to kind of debrief. Some people said that it made them feel kind of alone because from some blocks in the Memorial, they could see over it and others, they couldn't and it made them think about what it must have felt like to be carted off to concentration camps without really knowing what was happening in the future and to be able to kind of see what was going on but at times, not. Jess gave his analyses of it, saying that when the competition was announced to build a memorial, the two designers who proposed this design didn't give any type of explanation and at first, they had proposed more columns but it got narrowed down to 2711. Of Jess's analysis, he said that the ground itself rises and falls and he takes that to symbolize how the life in Berlin had its highs and lows and many were often ignorant to what was going on at the time. And the sheer number of the columns is meant to actually give life to each and every European Jew that was killed during that time period. Also, to have the Memorial situated in the view of the Parliament building, it's thought to symbolize that the Parliament recognizes what happened and remembers it every single day. Jess did bring up that when we are learning about the holocaust in school, it is all of one paragraph that is mentioned how many lives were taken and that's pretty much it which kind of takes away the importance of it and makes it less real. He was really passionate about bringing to light the fact that each and every one of the millions of Jews that were killed during this time had a life and a story. And to have this named the Memorial for the Murdered Jews rather than using any other word like "sacrificed" or something similar really makes the Memorial seem stronger in its dedication. I had never really thought much of this part of history and it might have been because it is so watered down in our textbooks but I am really glad to have had the chance to learn about it in this perspective.

Parliament building in the back

Someone asked me to take her pic and took one of me in exchange

From the Memorial, we had a light break before we moved onto the spot of Hitler's bunker. It was told that Hitler and his long time lover hid in that bunker when they knew that the end of the war was near. And it was in that area that they decided to commit suicide by cyanide. I think someone had burned their bodies so Hitler's body was identified by his dental records and so all beliefs of him still being alive can be dispelled.

Standing on top of the bunker. Jess, our tour guide.

From the bunker, we walked to look at a German propaganda mural to show how life is so nice in East Berlin with jobs and education and lots of smiles but that mural was accompanied by a photo taken of the same dimensions of the mural to show what life actually was like in East Berlin at the time. Oh! And somewhere along the tour, I asked Jess about the little green walking man and he told me that it's a remnant of East Berlin.

Happy East Berlin mural

Reality of East Berlin photo

And having officially left east Berlin, we stepped into west Berlin, where parts of the wall were still visible to the public and there is an area called the Topography of Terror where one can read all about the wall and go into the Museum to learn about Berlin during that time period. Our second to last stop brought us to Checkpoint Charlie which was the third checkpoint (first is alpha, second is bravo, using the NATO phonetic alphabet) between east and west Berlin. Since the attraction for Checkpoint Charlie is nothing like it was back when it existed according to Jess (he despises the tourist attraction), we walked over to look at the old photographs. Here, Jess told us about how he had the chance to meet someone who was able to successfully smuggle his girlfriend out of East Berlin. The story, as I can remember it, consisted of this guy lived in West Berlin and went to school in East Berlin and he had met his girlfriend in school. One day, while he was driving back to West Berlin, his car suddenly lurched forward on its own and the security arm came down but it barely hit the hood of his car. So that got him thinking. He either purchased or borrowed a very low car and practiced driving fast and then one day, when he was going about his regular visit to East Berlin, he picked up his girlfriend and her mother and drove straight past Checkpoint Charlie, right underneath the security arm. Apparently, the guards had not expected that at all and it happened so quickly that not even a single gun was raised. And a week later, someone else did the exact same thing and not a single gun was raised then. Pretty cool story, I think.

Heading into West Berlin - remnants of Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

The top of the Berlin Wall had the rounded parts so that grappling hooks could not hook on

I feel like I've seen this on postcards before so took a photo of it as well

Checkpoint Charlie

So after Checkpoint Charlie, we got to our last stop in front of two cathedrals facing each other and flanking the opera house. I can't quite remember the significance of the cathedrals but one was a German cathedral and I'm not quite sure of the rest... During the tour, I had met this couple, Theresa and Claude, from Pasadena (small world - Theresa saw my Pasadena Rugby hoodie so asked) and their nephew, Garth, from New York and we chatted here and there throughout the tour. And after the tour, they invited me to have some beer and snacks with them so I gladly accepted. It's really a small world to meet people from Pasadena, an already small town, in Berlin, in a relatively small walking tour! Along the tour, I spoke with Theresa here and there and learned that Garth had traveled around the world so then I got to talk to Garth for some travelling tips. It was nice to meet them and Theresa gave me her contact information so that I could invite her to watch a rugby game or something when I'm back in the area.

Opera House

German church

Other church

Claude, Garth, and Theresa

After leaving Theresa, Claude, and Garth, I headed towards the Bitter Sport Store to check out what chocolatey goodness was there. There was a quick little walk-through area to learn about the process of how chocolate is made then a store downstairs where I purchased a few things and went on my way. Maria was still in the hospital so I gathered a few things for her and went to pay her a visit. We chatted for a bit and I learned that she's originally from Spain but moved to London to learn English and she recently moved to Berlin due to romantic issues about four months ago and still does not speak a lick of German but has somehow managed to get herself an apartment and everything. Those types of stories are crazy yet inspiring to me.

Bitter Sport!

When it was time for Maria to have dinner, I left to go find myself some dinner. On the map that I had, there was an advertisement for Scheer's Schnitzels which seemed to be close to some things for nightlife so I decided to go check it out. I ordered myself some kind of schnitzel with mushrooms and of course ordered some sort of beer per the owner's recommendation. The place was pretty chill so I decided I would try to figure my way back to the city center after dinner but when I looked at my map, I saw that there was something called the Eastside Gallery which was nearby so I decided to go check that out. It turned out to be this open air gallery with these really cool murals. I'm not sure how long I spent walking along this stretch of wall but it was really pleasant because the night was so calm and besides a few people at certain points along the street, it was just me and my thoughts. At the end of the gallery, it was still pretty quiet and I wasn't sure of the time but I wanted to make sure I could catch some sort of train before it closed so I found a train a little while after and got on my way back to Maria's to settle in for the night before heading to Prague the next morning.