Berlin gives me strange feelings. I wouldn’t say it’s a city I particularly like, I’m even a little bit glad to be leaving, and yet I already want to go back.
It’s the history, in the end, that makes it so appealing. Berlin is the only city in which I’ve done a walking tour that didn’t start with the city’s history and background. Instead, we looked at the Brandenburg Gate as the tour guide told us, “This is the Brandenburg Gate. In a few minutes we’ll be walking through it, which is amazing, because fifteen years ago walking through it would have meant walking through the Berlin Wall.” He didn’t have to explain what that meant: what the Berlin Wall was, why fifteen years ago, none of it. Because we all knew. And that’s what’s fascinating about the history of Berlin. It’s not German history, it’s world history.
That being said, it’s still a pretty grungy city. Take New York and imagine it was built on swamp land so now you have swamp gas added to the stench of urine, drugs, and unwashed squatters and there you have Berlin. The fact that it was the birthplace of punk is visible everywhere you look, street art spanning the walls, musicians crowding the trains. It’s an interesting vibe, but alas it’s not really for me. Still, as potentially the most important city in Europe, it was a good place for me to see, even hastily and with some reservations.
I only had two days in Berlin. The first I’d set aside for some of the main sights and museums while the second was meant for a tour of an old prison with an ex-inmate and a few of the memorials further from the city center. I started my first day as planned with a walk by the Reichstag Parliament Building, a trot through the lovely, tree-filled Tiergarten, and a wander through the maze like Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. A definite highlight of the day came from passing the U.S. Embassy, right next the aforementioned memorial, where a sign of congratulations to Germany for winning the World Cup hung on the side of the building. I would have liked to be in the country for the celebrations, but alas, at least the Embassy is congratulating on all of our behalves.
After that came a free walking tour of the city, but it was on that walking your that the rest of my plan went entirely out the window. My guide, you see, was an ex-history teacher from England, and he convinced me that I needed to see more of Berlin than just the museums. Nevermind that I wasn’t staying in the best part of town, and had thus seen more than the museums already. I bought into his spiel, though I did not then buy his second tour. He was charging for his “Alternative Berlin” tour, you see, while one of the brochures I’d glanced through at the hostel had advertised one for free. Now, free isn’t actually free, but I’ve never tipped a guide near as much as the first guide was charging, so I decided to go with the other company instead. It wasn’t my best ever decision.
I saw some nice things on my slow wander from the end of the first tour to the starting point of the second. Humboldt University was hosting a book sale to commemorate the Nazi book burnings. There’s an entire island of museums that were too expensive to go in with my limited time, but which were pretty on the outside from what I could see through the massive construction work. Short after Museum Island, I even ran into a Berlin Dungeon, just like those in London and Edinburgh. I stopped to ask for their times, because I have this thing about comparing experiences across cities, but if I did their next English show I wouldn’t have made the alternative tour, so I took note of the schedule and politely continued on my way.
I’m happy to report that the bathrooms in German McDonalds’ are once again free. Also, despite its love of sausage, Germany is surprisingly vegetarian conscious. I have seen an abundance of vegetarian and vegan restaurants, as well as plenty of other restaurants with veggie and tofu options. I mention these because I stopped at a McDonalds to use the restroom, and then a noodle place where I had rice and veggies and tofu in peanut sauce and it was phenomenal. They didn’t even skimp on the veggies like most noodle places seem to.
And then it was time for the alternative tour, which I’m sad to say was a bit more alternative than I was strictly comfortable with. The idea of the tour was to see some of the sights of modern Berlin - the heart of the city that most of the tourists miss. The highlights included street art and artists squats, as well as a number of historic bars. Unfortunately, it also included endless illusions to all the best places to score various drugs, excessive disparagement of any and all manners of authority, and constant plugging from our tour guide whose band was playing at a rave in a bombed out train station the following night.
There wasn’t anything directly threatening about the tour, but it was all the little things that got to me: the guys in the corner of a park with what I suspect was heroine, the fight that broke out at the Jamaican beach bar where we took our break, the stares from the creepy bartenders as we wandered through the deserted Raw Temple before the sun went down and the patrons came out. And the way the tour guide glorified it all. That was the worst part.
Now, I try very hard to be tolerant of different people and different ways of life, but I was shaken enough after the tour that all I didn’t even want to finish out my day at the various parks I’d picked out on the map. Call me a prude, or uptight, or whatever else you’d like, I went back to my hostel, showered, and climbed in to bed to hide from the world.
While I still maintain it was good for me to see that side of Berlin, I was a bit disappointed that I’d foregone a few museums to do it. As such, I made sure I was up bright and early the next morning to go see at least one of the ones I had missed.
The Palace of Tears exhibition at the former border control between East and West Berlin at Friedrichstrasse Station was both free and fascinating. It chronicled the experiences of the people of Berlin, unequivocally separated overnight and only able to bridge the divide with much danger and difficulty. Following the museum, however, I had a ticket for one more thing I’d let that first tour guide talk me into the day before. Faith in his opinion lost or not then, I couldn’t really back out. This time, it turns out it wasn’t such a bad idea.
What he’d said, you see, was that no one should come to Germany without seeing a concentration camp. It was a thought I’d had before, but considering the distance of the concentration camps as well as the depression they were bound to inspire, I hadn’t fought too hard to fit one in. As I heard my guide speak, however, I’d started to feel guilty. Like by not visiting a camp I wasn’t paying the due respect. I don’t think that was his intention, but regardless, I’d purchased a ticket for the company’s tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp that second day.
It was a large tour, prone to selling out on a daily basis, and that day one of the English tour guides had woken up violently ill. So we set out from Brandenburg Gate with twice as many people as the tour guide intended, catching the train out to Sachsenhausen in one giant wave. The guide, I’m happy to say, was a consummate professional, crowd managing without so much as a hint of the impression that he was herding cats.
He was also a phenomenal public speaker. His summaries didn’t feel like summaries at all, delving into not only the history but the psychology and philosophy that permeated Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He was engaging, asking questions and encouraging group discussion nearly as often as he talked. He made the group think, which was nice for a change. And by the end of the tour I wasn’t even frustrated with anyone.
It’s something about the concentration camp, I think. People realize, for once, that they’re in a place where they need to respectful. No loud voices, no littering, and while people took advantage of the fact that photos were allowed, there were none of the jostling crowds pushing and shoving for a commemorative photo in front of the gates. The Spanish tour group we rode the train with still gave me a headache with their vastly different public culture norms, but that was the train, and can’t really be helped.
Speaking of culture, Berlin itself aside, I very much like the German people. I even fell a bit of kinship. It is only by being here that I realize just how German-ly I was raised. My mother has some distinctive French-German routes going back not too far at all, and there are things about the Germans, the way they carry themselves, the way they greet people, that remind me of her. It doesn’t hurt that I have also realized I am clearly built like a German. The number of people who have mistaken me for a local here are higher here than anywhere else by far. But I digress.
The concentration camp was such a trying experience that the tour group as a whole decided to head for a beer garden afterwards to have a drink together and unwind. I contemplated going along. Like I said, I liked this tour group more than just about any other I’d joined before. Nevertheless, given the tour content I hadn’t been particularly social, and while I could have ramped it up at said beer garden and inserted myself into a conversation accordingly, that required too much energy for what was supposed to be a chance to relax. I bowed out then, and headed back to the city proper where I arrived just in time to squeeze into a show at the Berlin Dungeons.
The Dungeons were, at once, interesting and disappointing. I had hoped for some sordid Berlin history, but none of the stories throughout the show were much if any different than the ones in the U.K. The establishment was definitely new. The actors hadn’t quite settled into their roles yet. I imagine the company is working on expanding across Europe, but they’re keeping their model fairly identical everywhere they go. The biggest difference was the the torturer, whose first language clearly wasn’t English, forgot his lines halfway through. Other than that, the interesting part was my fellow audience members.
To begin with, few of them spoke English as a first language. I don’t know how much that had to do with their behavior. Said behavior, however, was at best reluctant and at worst uncooperative to a fault. The show hinges on audience participation. Performers accuse, question, and order the audience about, and without a reaction, or at least obedience, it’s very difficult for the show to go on. People wouldn’t move when they were told, wouldn’t come closer, wouldn’t pile through doors. Part of that was a result of the group being just a bit too big, but even then, an actor would ask a name and the audience member wouldn’t respond. An actor would tell people to get out and point at the door and no one would move. It was a bit sad actually, but possibly one of the reasons that having visited three different city dungeons and a number of similar shows, I was finally chosen as the plague victim that needed her bits cut out.
Other than the language bit, I don’t really have a theory about why this group would have been less forthcoming than others. Maybe bad groups just happen. Either way, I was glad to get to play my part.
After the Dungeons, it was too late to do any more museums. Most of them were closing within the hour. So I stopped at a chippery for some fried fish (yay protein!) and caught the train back to my hostel for another early night. I even wrote this post before heading to bed! So maybe something will happen between here and Copenhagen tomorrow, and maybe it won’t, but here’s your post early everyone! Sorry there aren’t any pictures… I wasn’t really in the mood.
It’s the history, in the end, that makes it so appealing. Berlin is the only city in which I’ve done a walking tour that didn’t start with the city’s history and background. Instead, we looked at the Brandenburg Gate as the tour guide told us, “This is the Brandenburg Gate. In a few minutes we’ll be walking through it, which is amazing, because fifteen years ago walking through it would have meant walking through the Berlin Wall.” He didn’t have to explain what that meant: what the Berlin Wall was, why fifteen years ago, none of it. Because we all knew. And that’s what’s fascinating about the history of Berlin. It’s not German history, it’s world history.
That being said, it’s still a pretty grungy city. Take New York and imagine it was built on swamp land so now you have swamp gas added to the stench of urine, drugs, and unwashed squatters and there you have Berlin. The fact that it was the birthplace of punk is visible everywhere you look, street art spanning the walls, musicians crowding the trains. It’s an interesting vibe, but alas it’s not really for me. Still, as potentially the most important city in Europe, it was a good place for me to see, even hastily and with some reservations.
I only had two days in Berlin. The first I’d set aside for some of the main sights and museums while the second was meant for a tour of an old prison with an ex-inmate and a few of the memorials further from the city center. I started my first day as planned with a walk by the Reichstag Parliament Building, a trot through the lovely, tree-filled Tiergarten, and a wander through the maze like Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. A definite highlight of the day came from passing the U.S. Embassy, right next the aforementioned memorial, where a sign of congratulations to Germany for winning the World Cup hung on the side of the building. I would have liked to be in the country for the celebrations, but alas, at least the Embassy is congratulating on all of our behalves.
After that came a free walking tour of the city, but it was on that walking your that the rest of my plan went entirely out the window. My guide, you see, was an ex-history teacher from England, and he convinced me that I needed to see more of Berlin than just the museums. Nevermind that I wasn’t staying in the best part of town, and had thus seen more than the museums already. I bought into his spiel, though I did not then buy his second tour. He was charging for his “Alternative Berlin” tour, you see, while one of the brochures I’d glanced through at the hostel had advertised one for free. Now, free isn’t actually free, but I’ve never tipped a guide near as much as the first guide was charging, so I decided to go with the other company instead. It wasn’t my best ever decision.
I saw some nice things on my slow wander from the end of the first tour to the starting point of the second. Humboldt University was hosting a book sale to commemorate the Nazi book burnings. There’s an entire island of museums that were too expensive to go in with my limited time, but which were pretty on the outside from what I could see through the massive construction work. Short after Museum Island, I even ran into a Berlin Dungeon, just like those in London and Edinburgh. I stopped to ask for their times, because I have this thing about comparing experiences across cities, but if I did their next English show I wouldn’t have made the alternative tour, so I took note of the schedule and politely continued on my way.
I’m happy to report that the bathrooms in German McDonalds’ are once again free. Also, despite its love of sausage, Germany is surprisingly vegetarian conscious. I have seen an abundance of vegetarian and vegan restaurants, as well as plenty of other restaurants with veggie and tofu options. I mention these because I stopped at a McDonalds to use the restroom, and then a noodle place where I had rice and veggies and tofu in peanut sauce and it was phenomenal. They didn’t even skimp on the veggies like most noodle places seem to.
And then it was time for the alternative tour, which I’m sad to say was a bit more alternative than I was strictly comfortable with. The idea of the tour was to see some of the sights of modern Berlin - the heart of the city that most of the tourists miss. The highlights included street art and artists squats, as well as a number of historic bars. Unfortunately, it also included endless illusions to all the best places to score various drugs, excessive disparagement of any and all manners of authority, and constant plugging from our tour guide whose band was playing at a rave in a bombed out train station the following night.
There wasn’t anything directly threatening about the tour, but it was all the little things that got to me: the guys in the corner of a park with what I suspect was heroine, the fight that broke out at the Jamaican beach bar where we took our break, the stares from the creepy bartenders as we wandered through the deserted Raw Temple before the sun went down and the patrons came out. And the way the tour guide glorified it all. That was the worst part.
Now, I try very hard to be tolerant of different people and different ways of life, but I was shaken enough after the tour that all I didn’t even want to finish out my day at the various parks I’d picked out on the map. Call me a prude, or uptight, or whatever else you’d like, I went back to my hostel, showered, and climbed in to bed to hide from the world.
While I still maintain it was good for me to see that side of Berlin, I was a bit disappointed that I’d foregone a few museums to do it. As such, I made sure I was up bright and early the next morning to go see at least one of the ones I had missed.
The Palace of Tears exhibition at the former border control between East and West Berlin at Friedrichstrasse Station was both free and fascinating. It chronicled the experiences of the people of Berlin, unequivocally separated overnight and only able to bridge the divide with much danger and difficulty. Following the museum, however, I had a ticket for one more thing I’d let that first tour guide talk me into the day before. Faith in his opinion lost or not then, I couldn’t really back out. This time, it turns out it wasn’t such a bad idea.
What he’d said, you see, was that no one should come to Germany without seeing a concentration camp. It was a thought I’d had before, but considering the distance of the concentration camps as well as the depression they were bound to inspire, I hadn’t fought too hard to fit one in. As I heard my guide speak, however, I’d started to feel guilty. Like by not visiting a camp I wasn’t paying the due respect. I don’t think that was his intention, but regardless, I’d purchased a ticket for the company’s tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp that second day.
It was a large tour, prone to selling out on a daily basis, and that day one of the English tour guides had woken up violently ill. So we set out from Brandenburg Gate with twice as many people as the tour guide intended, catching the train out to Sachsenhausen in one giant wave. The guide, I’m happy to say, was a consummate professional, crowd managing without so much as a hint of the impression that he was herding cats.
He was also a phenomenal public speaker. His summaries didn’t feel like summaries at all, delving into not only the history but the psychology and philosophy that permeated Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He was engaging, asking questions and encouraging group discussion nearly as often as he talked. He made the group think, which was nice for a change. And by the end of the tour I wasn’t even frustrated with anyone.
It’s something about the concentration camp, I think. People realize, for once, that they’re in a place where they need to respectful. No loud voices, no littering, and while people took advantage of the fact that photos were allowed, there were none of the jostling crowds pushing and shoving for a commemorative photo in front of the gates. The Spanish tour group we rode the train with still gave me a headache with their vastly different public culture norms, but that was the train, and can’t really be helped.
Speaking of culture, Berlin itself aside, I very much like the German people. I even fell a bit of kinship. It is only by being here that I realize just how German-ly I was raised. My mother has some distinctive French-German routes going back not too far at all, and there are things about the Germans, the way they carry themselves, the way they greet people, that remind me of her. It doesn’t hurt that I have also realized I am clearly built like a German. The number of people who have mistaken me for a local here are higher here than anywhere else by far. But I digress.
The concentration camp was such a trying experience that the tour group as a whole decided to head for a beer garden afterwards to have a drink together and unwind. I contemplated going along. Like I said, I liked this tour group more than just about any other I’d joined before. Nevertheless, given the tour content I hadn’t been particularly social, and while I could have ramped it up at said beer garden and inserted myself into a conversation accordingly, that required too much energy for what was supposed to be a chance to relax. I bowed out then, and headed back to the city proper where I arrived just in time to squeeze into a show at the Berlin Dungeons.
The Dungeons were, at once, interesting and disappointing. I had hoped for some sordid Berlin history, but none of the stories throughout the show were much if any different than the ones in the U.K. The establishment was definitely new. The actors hadn’t quite settled into their roles yet. I imagine the company is working on expanding across Europe, but they’re keeping their model fairly identical everywhere they go. The biggest difference was the the torturer, whose first language clearly wasn’t English, forgot his lines halfway through. Other than that, the interesting part was my fellow audience members.
To begin with, few of them spoke English as a first language. I don’t know how much that had to do with their behavior. Said behavior, however, was at best reluctant and at worst uncooperative to a fault. The show hinges on audience participation. Performers accuse, question, and order the audience about, and without a reaction, or at least obedience, it’s very difficult for the show to go on. People wouldn’t move when they were told, wouldn’t come closer, wouldn’t pile through doors. Part of that was a result of the group being just a bit too big, but even then, an actor would ask a name and the audience member wouldn’t respond. An actor would tell people to get out and point at the door and no one would move. It was a bit sad actually, but possibly one of the reasons that having visited three different city dungeons and a number of similar shows, I was finally chosen as the plague victim that needed her bits cut out.
Other than the language bit, I don’t really have a theory about why this group would have been less forthcoming than others. Maybe bad groups just happen. Either way, I was glad to get to play my part.
After the Dungeons, it was too late to do any more museums. Most of them were closing within the hour. So I stopped at a chippery for some fried fish (yay protein!) and caught the train back to my hostel for another early night. I even wrote this post before heading to bed! So maybe something will happen between here and Copenhagen tomorrow, and maybe it won’t, but here’s your post early everyone! Sorry there aren’t any pictures… I wasn’t really in the mood.
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