More time in Berlin needed

29 June – 2 July 2008, Berlin

When we landed in Berlin, we were knackered. Traveling is exhausting. It was really good timing because the Germans were out in force, lots of shouting and chanting for their teams and lots of red yellow and black to be seen everywhere. It was an exciting time to arrive in Berlin. Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof Station is pretty darn amazing. I’ve never come across a train station quite like it, it’s enourmous!

On our way to our hotel, there was an incident on the train. Some crazy weirdo dude decided to attack an elderly man and he almost hit him when a quick thinking super hero jumped to the resuce.

His reactions were so lightening fast, this previously unassuming man just grabbed the crazy weirdo’s hand before he hit the old man and quickly dragged him out of the carriage and then held him in some sort of wrestling grip until the police arrived to take him away. What a good man. All this commotion caused him to miss his train too and I hope his glasses weren’t broken in the fracas. German superhero, I salute you.

Met up with Marisa’s boy, Bard and their friend, Marcus and tried to go to one of those free public viewing areas around Brandenburg Gate to watch the Germans and the hot Spaniards fight it out in the Finals. I don’t think we could’ve time it better to be in Berlin. Right now, the weather is great, the atmosphere is fantastic and everybody is happy.

Unfortunately, even though it was still around 5:30pm, every gate leading to the public viewing areas were being closed off, everywhere we went people were being turned away in droves because it was completely full (gees, what a surprise!)

We were forced to make a choice, either go back to watch the game in our hotel room or find a cozy bar/ café to enjoy the game with other people and soak up the atmosphere. Now, I’m no soccer fan, but even I would choose option #2. Watching the game in a hotel room sounds so dull and boring….

So, we retreated to a nearby café (Berlin Pavillon), and found a good spot in front of their little big screen. This place was making a killing from all the passing trade who could not make it into the public viewing areas.

I must admit, I was a little relieved that we couldn’t get into the public viewing areas because the game didn’t start until 8:45pm, and we were trying to find somewhere from before 5:30pm, I think I would’ve got sick of the sun and heat and crowd after about 15mins so finding this nice little garden oasis with a screen, and shade and food and drinks was a Godsend!

And you will never guess what happened there too. Who should we bump into at the Berlin Pavillon? Sib & Steve! The lovely couple that we met in Prague. What are the chances of that happening! Amongst 500,000 odd people wandering around Berlin that night, of all the different gates we could’ve stopped by, of all the bars and cafes we could’ve chosen, we chose one where we bump into 2 people we met a few days prior. That is fate. It was great to see them again that’s for sure.

When the game was nearly over, I get a tap on my shoulder and this cute guy starts talking to me in German… ummm, sorry, I don’t speak any German I tell him. I thought he wanted to ask if the seat next to me was taken, because it was empty and I had a prime location smack bang in front of the screen and seating was scarce. Turns out, he was trying to chat me up! That’s something I definitely didn’t expect to happen, but what an ego-boosting way to end the night.

He was no more than 18, just a kid but he was cute. What a shame…. Still, I gave him my number if he decides that he can afford international mobile phone rates. Well Silvio, thanks for making my day.

Then drinkies and a sort of “after party” for us at a nearby bar – Germany lost, but our hot Spaniards won, so it was a victory for Marisa and me. I must’ve had the strongest mojito ever made, half alcohol, quarter mint & lime and quarter soda, very powerful. I was only half way through it before feeling somewhat woozy, granted, I don’t drink much to begin with, but it normally takes more than 1 drink to get me happy.

Day 2 – Berlin

We woke up rather late compared to the other days, but considering we didn’t get back to hotel until about 2:30am, I thought that it was pretty amazing we were up before 10am at all!

Today is designated touristy destination day. We met up with the boys, who was staying at a different hotel,
and made our way to the city central. The boys both looked somewhat hungover and/ or tired… possibly both.

So, first stop, Brandenburg Gate, which was fenced off because they were still holding some sort of giant music festival and celebrating/ mourning the defeat of the Germans from the night before. So we couldn’t really get any closer nor could we walk through it…. Oh well, I did get a picture of the line where the wall used to sit in front of Brandenburg. Then we headed to the Reichstag building, which is the traditional seat of German Parliament.

The building itself is pretty awesome, it has an open domed glass roof, which the general public can go in and climb to the top if you so wish. Entrance is free, and you get a pretty amazing view of most of the city so many tourists line up to get in. It took us about an hour to get to the front of the queue (queuing is the bane of a tourist in Europe) and a funny thing happened there. To get into the building, you have to go through a bag check and scan, like at an airport, and when you get to the front of the queue, there is a big sign that clearly says, please do not empty your bags. Keep all the contents and belongings inside your bag. Anyway, immediately after this sign, a man a few metres in front of us decides to duck underneath the barriers and begins to empty his bag of stuff, it looked awfully dodgy, Lordy knows what he was keeping in his backpack that he needed to so desperately empty. Well, of course the security peoples starts to tell him off and there’s some sort of discussion and then he was made to go through the bin (it was not a public bin, I think it was for the staff) and look for the items he threw away. Well, after more discussion, he was made to put his backpack on, and leave the building. So there ya go, after over an hour of lining up in the sun, he only made it 10 metres into the building, but at least he can say he got into the building eh?

It only took another 15 minutes before some police officers came over to check the bin for whatever he threw out. And of course during those 15 mins, anything could’ve happened, what if he had thrown out a bomb?! What about something that released poisonous gas??!! We were standing less than a metre from this bin, if anything had happened it would’ve been bye bye to us. I love how they can choose to be strict about something and not so strict on others. Normally I love the German efficiency. Anyway, turns out he threw out a little fruit knife. He must’ve freaked out when he saw that his bag was gonna be scanned, and he decided to get rid of this knife…. But dumbass, if they caught you with a knife in your bag, just tell them you forgot it was there, flutter your eyelashes a bit, play dumb and tell them that they can throw it out! (it works, I’ve tried it!) Sheesh, why cause such a big commotion and make yourself look so bad for?

Nevermind the dumbass though, we made it inside and up to the top. Despite the open roof, it gets quite warm inside that dome. Nice view, different to seeing it from a tall tower, but it also gave us a history of the place, which was good.

From the Reichstag, we went to the Jewish Memorial, and I really liked that place. It really doesn’t look like much to begin with, just a load of concrete blocks of all different sizes, but as you keep walking through it, the concrete blocks get bigger and bigger and it becomes a maze. Through the giant concrete blocks, it becomes quite cool and a nice sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the street and heat of the Summer sun. We saw people just huddle in groups, relaxing amongst the pillars. I like the way it’s become a social gathering place, offering peace and rest for more reasons than one.

From there we followed the line of the wall and headed towards Checkpoint Charlie. It took me a little by surprise that they still keep the line of where the wall once sat in the pavement and roads as a reminder of what happened in the past. I think it’s great that they are not trying to forget the miserable past, no matter how awful it must’ve been for them, but using it to move on and form a better future for the next generations to come.

We saw lots of old buildings that still have remnants of the war, bullet holes and broken bits and pieces, we saw statues that have yet to be restored, but there were also lots of buildings that looked quite old yet are not, much of the city has been restored and renewed, so much of the historical old buildings aren’t really the originals anymore. I really like Berlin, it feels so different to the other European cities I’ve been to, I like it almost as much as I love Barcelona. I like the big open spaces, I like the big open streets and roads, I love how things are not cramped here. I like the friendliness of the people, I like how things just work here. It’s just nice.

Checkpoint Charlie is exactly how it looks in pictures, for me it was just another tourist destination to cross off my list, but you should’ve seen how excited Bard was (I think it was a movie-buff thing??) and it’s always nice to see somebody excited about something. We didn’t go inside the museum, I heard it was really depressing, but that’s not the reason we didn’t go in, we were just really knackered by that stage.

It was a lot of walking for one day, so we headed back to our hotel for a little rest before heading out for dinner at a Spanish restaurant, Espana did win the Euro 2008 afterall!

We all had paella and Sangria and lots of conversation. There was a lot of food leftover, but I think Germans serve big big meals. The boys took home the leftovers, I’m not sure if they ended up eating it or not.

We had intended to go bowling after dinner, but by the time we got there, the bowling was closed and so disappointed, we just went back to our hotels for some well-earned rest.

Day 3 – Berlin

Got a few little things done in the morning before we went out to do some more exploring… posted some stuff back home to make space in our luggage for more shopping… did our laundry.

At the Laundromat, all instructions was in German, but we managed to figure out that we needed 4 euros in coins to operate the machines, and somehow we figured out how to choose the right settings to start the machines. We did quite alright for ourselves.

I did have to leave Marisa for 2 minutes to get more change, and when I returned, she had spilt coffee all down the front of her top, creating a massive stain. Oh the irony! Watching your clothes being washed while soiling the one your wearing… sometimes, I can’t take her anywhere. She had done a similar thing in Paris with some chocolate crepes….. there must be a hole in her chin.

So anyways, after our little unavoidable tasks one must do while on holidays, we set out for Tiergarten to see the Victory Statue and took the obligatory cheesy photo or two with her.

Went to some palatial home, I can’t really remember what the significance of it was, it was big and it was pretty and somebody important lived there….

Went to some broken church, a memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm, or perhaps I should call it by it’s proper name, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It was a church that was damaged during the war, and they’ve restored it and kept it looking broken in memory of this Wilhelm dude. We didn’t go into the Church part, just the memorial hall part, but the stained glass windows from the outside looked pretty impressive, and I’m sure it would’ve looked awesome from the inside too.

Then we headed out towards Kurfurstendamm, (Ku’Damm as the locals call it) a long wide strip of shops and hotels, kind of like the Champs Elysees in Paris. Actually, almost exactly like the Champs Elysees in Paris.

Because we were in the former East Berlin side of the city, the traffic signals for pedestrians are different. We finally saw the famous “Ampelmannchen” so cute.

The traffic signal men wears little hats! I wish we had these in Melbourne, makes crossing the road so much more amusing. I love them so much I bought lots of those souvenirs.

Went back to the hotel to farewell Marcus, who was going back home to Frankfurt and work…. Ahhh… work, what is that?!

The 3 remaining us, went out to dinner to my father’s namesake restaurant, Monsieur Vuong’s – yes it is spelt French, and yes we are in Berlin.

It’s a cute little Vietnamese restaurant, very trendy and full of people and that’s always a good sign, and since they don’t take bookings, having a line of people waiting to go in and eat, that’s a great sign! The awesome part of this restaurant is that it is very cheap, and actually serves really good decent Vietnamese food. I honestly didn’t have high hopes for this place, but this was a surprise package. Good service, good food served quickly and efficiently and cheaply. I reckon they’re onto something here. I’m glad we found this gem. Thank you Lonely Planet!

Day 4 – Berlin

We made our way to Schloss Charlottenburg, the largest existing palace in Berlin. Very much like Versailles but on a slightly smaller scale. It even has a gardens area like Versailles. I like this palace better though, it’s not as garish to the eye, but I love the gardens at Versailles, that’s pretty hard to top.

It amazed me that the royals back then were so interested in oriental culture, there is a room dedicated to the China they brought in from, well… China… so here is a room with shelving designed to display all the bowls and saucers and cups and vases they got from China and other asian countries. It’s very funny to me, because my family used to be in the porcelain / China business way back when in Vietnam. Nothing antique or worth any money, but that was what they did, so if my dad saw all these vases and bowls and stuff on display like this in a Berlin palace, I imagine he would just laugh and tell me, hey we used to make this stuff and it was so cheap! These white people so totally got ripped off.

After Charlottenburg, we visited Museum Island, the plan was to visit the Pergamon Museum, but we ended up at the Altes Museum instead. Truthfully, I didn’t think I’d enjoy it very much since I’m really not that into Ancient Egyptian history, nor Ancient Greek history but you can never really know what you do and don’t enjoy because it wasn’t as boring as I thought it might be. The audio guide lady voice thing did drag on a bit with the details of the artefacts sometimes, but it’s better to have too much detail than not enough detail, because I can always fast forward the boring bits (it seems to like telling me about how many layers of linen some cast was made of and what kind of wood it was and how many holes, blah blah blah blah, fast forward)

And to end a long hot day of walking, we went on a cruise of the river. Pleasant and relaxing and nice views along the way.

Got back early to the hotel where we all got take-away for dinner while I packed my stuff and heading to Belgrade bright and early in the morning!

Before I left Berlin, I had really wanted to eat one last sausage. The very famous and humungous ‘Berliner’ – an enormously long, mother of a sausage served in a teensy little bread roll, you need to see it to believe it. I had seen them all over town and just when I craved one, I can’t find a single stall who sold them. The sausage stalls we passed only sold the ordinary snags, or the ‘Curry wurst’ which I didn’t want. I think Marisa and Bard were a bit baffled by me, what kind of sausage does she want? What does she mean that sausage isn’t big enough?

I think asking people “Can I see the size of your sausage?” before I buy one just might seem a little bit wrong……