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"Berlin’s nightlife...is a teeming cauldron of debauchery that runs around the clock and threatens to inflict coronaries upon the faint of heart." - taken from the Let's Go Europe Travel Guide at www.letsgo.com From Nov 4th to the 8th I was in Berlin. I went with three French friends. To save money, we drove instead of taking the train. We left on the morning of Thursday Nov. 4th and arrived at a youth hostel in the North of Berlin at about 5:30 PM. The youth hostel was a great deal - we stayed for four nights at only DM 28 a night, and that price included breakfast. 
We also had to buy a youth hostel card for DM 20. We never used the car to get around Berlin once we were there. The city is huge and driving would have been insane! Instead we used public transportation: buses, streetcars, and subway trains. The first night we scored a free dinner. Some other people staying at the hostel were having dinner there and had too much, so they gave us what they didn't need - which was more than enough for all of us! After dinner we took the bus to the subway station, then the subway to the city centre. Berlin has an absolutely amazing subway system, there are about 15 different lines - compare that to Toronto which has two, despite also being a large city. That night we walked around and saw some of the famous sights. We saw the Concert House, the Brandenburg Gate (very well known image of Berlin) and the Reichstag (German Parliament). In the Reichstag we had the chance to read about its history (it was burned to the ground in 1933). Today the restored building has a very modern glass dome on the top. The next day we got up early for breakfast, served from 7 to 9 AM. After breakfast we went back into the city. We first went to Checkpoint Charlie, which was a well-known border crossing between the former East and West Berlin, a point between the American sector and the Russian sector. There is a painted Trabi (Trabant, really - the plastic East German cars with a top speed of 90 km/h - downhill I imagine) parked outside of the museum. 
At Checkpoint Charlie there is still a big sign reading "You are leaving the American sector / (same line in Russian) / Vous sortez du secteur Americain / Sie verlassen den Amerikanischen Sektor". The sign is a copy, the original is in the Checkpoint Charlie museum, which we also visited. Here is the front of the original sign in the museum, 
and here is the back of the sign (this picture was taken outside). 
The museum was really interesting. There were a lot of stories about how people escaped over the years. A lot of people dug tunnels. The longest tunnel - 145 m long - was built by students over a ten month period. When it was finished 57 people escaped over two nights. After just the second night the Soviets discovered the tunnel and it was closed. There were also some cars which were used to smuggle people over the border, some people took out "less important" parts of the engine and hid beside the engine! And of course there was also the story of how two families built a homemade hot air balloon to cross the border. After Checkpoint Charlie we saw some other sights like the Opera House, the Berlin Cathedrale, and Humboldt University. That day we also saw a number of other churches and the TV tower as well. Here you can see the Berlin Cathedrale and the TV tower. 
The TV tower is around 350 m high (the CN Tower is 553 m). We went up for a good view of the city but unfortunately it was too cloudy. While there though I was able to ask someone where we could find a remaining stretch of the wall. The original Berlin Wall, which encompassed all of West Berlin, was about 162 km long!!! Today there are less than 2 km remaining, if you add up all of the parts. The largest part is about 1.3 km long and is called the "East Side Gallery". Near the TV tower was a big square where one large building was covered on one side with a large mural reading "Wir waren das Volk" (we were the people). 
It was a reminder of what 100 000 people said ten years ago on Nov 5th, 1989 (then they said "Wir sind das Volk" - we are the people) as they gathered in the square. They were demonstrating against the government and demanding that East Germany's borders be opened. Four days later, on Nov 9th 1989, the Wall "fell" as a result of this and other large demonstrations. After the TV tower we saw some ruins of an old church and then we went to the East Side Gallery. We were on the former East side of the wall, were the artwork is quite good (the West side has mostly just mindless grafiti). After the wall we took an U-Bahn (a Subway) to a station called "Zoologischer Garten" (Zoo Station). 
Now, if you know anything about me at all, you know that I am a HUGE U2 fan. U2 recorded much of Achtung Baby (the first track of which is "Zoo Station") in Berlin. The subway lines in Berlin are numbered U1 to U15. The U2 line (as well as the U9 for that matter) runs through Zoo Station. So it was particularly exciting for me to ride the U2 subway line into Zoo Station. Another reason to stop there is that a lot of Berlin's night life is in the vicinity of this station. We found a pizza restaurant there and had dinner. After dinner we walked into the Tierpark in the middle of the city. There we came to the Siegesäule (Column of Victory), which is a 60 metre tower with a 6 metre tall gold angel on top. This was also very important for me, as there is also a U2 connection! So that was day two! The next day we got up early again for breakfast then went back into the city. We went to the Wall first, where I took at least 20 pictures of the artwork there. The next seven pictures are all from the "East Side Gallery." The first reads "Many small people who in many small places do many small things can alter the face of the world." 
One of the most famous paintings about the political relationship between East Germany and Russia shows the East German Leader Honecker kissing the Russian leader Breshnev, suggesting that the two were always looking out for each other's best interests. Unfortunately, some dumb-ass from Canada had to mess up this painting here. 
This painting depicts two people on either side of the wall with different goals, the one on the West wants to paint the wall, the one on the East is trying to break through. 
"He who wants the world to stay as it is does not want it to stay." 
Notice the license plate on the Trabant: Nov 9-89, the day the wall fell. 
Curriculum Vitae. The wall was built in 1961. It came down in 1989, and in 1990 Germany was reunited. Black-Red-Gold are the colours of the German flag (which you should see at the top of this page). 
Finally, a shot of me standing in front of the wall. The sign reads "Dieses Bauwerk steht unter Denkmalschutz. Wir bitten diese Waende nicht zu beschaedigen." which means "This construction is a protected memorial. We request that these walls will not be damaged." 
After the wall we saw Potsdamer Platz, which is one huge construction site. I must have counted over 20 cranes there. There is a lot of development going on in Berlin and also in East Germany right now. 
Then we went to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag again to take pictures during the day, then back to the Column of Victory. Here is the Brandenburg Gate. 
Here is the Reichstag. 
Between the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag there are white crosses with the names of people who died trying to go over the wall. 
There was a great view of the city from the Siegesaeule (Column of Victory). 
Next we went to a palace called Schloss Charlottenburg. 
Afterwards we saw the Gedaechtniskirche - the Remembrance Church, before having dinner at another pizza restaurant. The church was deliberately left in its damaged state after the last war so that those who saw it would always be reminded of the destructiveness of war (hence the name). 
Being in Berlin, I knew I wanted to go out at least one night to a major Berlin discotheque. Three of us (plus a Japanese guy we met at the hostel), searched Berlin in quest of a good techno disco. The first disco we found was quite a disapointment. We were offerred drugs, there was a high cover charge, the building was run down, and the place was empty. We didn't pay the cover, we decided at the door to leave and find a better place. Great decision. The next place we found was very nice, and turned out to be one of Berlin's largest discos!! It had three large dance floors, all separate with different music. At 2 AM some great techno kicked in. We left around 3, then discovered that not all U-Bahn lines run all night, and took a night bus all the way to the hostel. That meant getting home at 4:30 AM!! The next day we went to Potsdam, the capital of the State of Brandenburg, which is also very close to Berlin. There we saw the Nikolai Church and we spent a lot of time in Sans Souci (French for "without worries") park where there are a lot of palaces, including Sans Souci palace. 
We took a tour in this palace. 
At dinner time we went back into Berlin for dinner. We walked around the Zoo Station area and went home at the end of the night. The next (and final) morning we left early to drive back to Karlsruhe. Back to the Main Page - Zurück zur Hauptseite |