Right, thought I'd start using this again, now that I have some traveling news.
Day 1 - Berlin.
Got the flight to Berlin without any real incidents and touched down about 6pm. The German train network is pretty efficient and although not as pleasant/modern as London's, is was still a smooth ride.
We checked into our hostel and it was really cool. It was situated in the Turkish area of town and hidden down a side alley. Apparently Turks are the largest minority in Germany so you'll find more kebab places there than you will find German food. Not that German food is much to talk about. It's usually bratwurst in a bread roll, curried sausage in a bread roll or some other meat… in a bread roll. Occasionally, that meat will be pounded flat, and then it's wrapped in breadcrumbs. The taste is good (spicy bratwurst is brilliant); there's just not a great deal of variety or artistry - I suppose the Germans decided to put more effort into industry and war than they did into their cuisine.
When you think about it, as you travel from city to city, it's not often you see German food places, is it? Unlike Indian, Chinese or Thai, and I suppose Turkish kebabs.
Berlin is an interesting beast. It's quite a dilapidated city, lots of old buildings and lots of construction going on so it's covered in graffiti - no big deal as it makes the old, grey buildings look a lot more interesting. I imagine that spray can shops do a good business here --it's very much a graffiti-friendly city.
As we arrived sorta late, we decided to take a stroll around a random area of the city. We walked through a relatively uninteresting, leafy part for a half hour then took a turn into the middle of town and headed toward Checkpoint Charlie - where the American and Communist sections met. It was quite late at night, so not many tourists were around and while it's quite an unremarkable looking area, it holds a great deal of 20th Century historical significance.
Not far from there were some remains of the Berlin wall. I (stupidly) always thought it was designed to keep people out, but it turns out that at the rate that East Germany was losing people over to the other side, they decided to build the wall to keep people in. The early wall was actually put up overnight in 8 hours and was just some barbed wire around a 155km perimeter, which you can imagine, was not particularly effective. So, over time, the Communists put up fences, then later on, the wall and even a second wall spaced further back to deter those who who wanted to switch teams. If that weren't enough, watchtowers were put up in the city where armed guards shot down anyone looking to escape.
Quite sad, really, as if you went to visit some friends over in the East the night before the wall went up, you'd have been stuck there for 30 odd years with no way back.
Late in the evening, we went into a mall which was the only place open and ordered some food from a sports bar. We saw these pretty cool contraptions at particular tables where you order like 3 or 4L of beer that comes in a large pipe with a dispenser, so you can just pour yourself beer without having to get up.
German efficiency at it's best.
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Day 2 - Berlin
On the second day, we started early and went on a bicycle tour around Berlin. We met in the local square where we watched a bunch of gypsies steal someone's bag and run off cackling, while we got some food from a wasp infested local stall. The tour started about 11am and after being assigned to various tour guides, we had to choose our bike -- all of which were individually named and had their own personality.
I choose a bike named Buttercup and Anna chose one named Frankfurt. Our guide was a really cool Japanese-American (from Seattle) chick named Sumi. She lead us on the tour and was a great balance of humour and as you'd expect had lots of informative facts about the areas we rode to. Earlier on, we were keen to avoid the main Irish guide, Ciaran, who was typically Irish, spouting lots of jokes and lame humour, and while he was very charming, his effervescence was starting to grate after 5 minutes, so we thought it best to go with someone else as the tour was about 4.5 hours long. Luckily, Sumi turned out to be brilliant.
We rode all round the city tourist spots, including Brandenburg gate, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Humboldt University (burning of the books), Alexanderplatz, the Reichstag and many more and got a pretty good idea of German history, pre both World Wars. Humboldt University was interesting -- every major German politician or scientist of note is an alumni of it. Also of note, were the statues on top of some buildings, which were removed as Berlin was about to be attacked in WWI and placed in local rivers for conservation. Many of the buildings in Berlin are reconstructed, but the statues in some areas are original, as if they accepted that they were going to be bombarded. So after the war, they were brought out of the rivers and returned to their original spots on reconstructed buildings.
Also of note, Germany finally paid off the reparations of WWI last October, so not only can they clean up their own mess, but their cleaning up everyone else's as well as they bail Greece and Ireland out of their Euro difficulties.
Midway through the tour, we stopped at a local beer hall for lunch and sampled more meat-in-a-bun and found our favourite beer on the trip thus far, "Erdinger Krystalwasser (Crystal Water)". Beer is reasonably cheap in this part of Europe and the further east you go, the cheaper it gets. It tastes so clean and apparently, in Germany, 'bier' in classed as a food, so it has none of the nasty preservatives that add to any potential hangover. (Interesting fact - after alcohol percentage, preservatives are the main cause of hangovers).
After our stop, we continued onto the other sights before finishing back where we started. Cycle tours, while "touristy" are a great way to see the city and good to get a bit of exercise as well. Anna and I have been careful not to drink too much and have been pretty active. I'm not sure exactly, but we've easily been averaging 10km - 14km walks a day, sometimes more.
Later on, we went back to the hostel and met some Dutch girls, Steph and Fien who were rooming with us. They were a bit younger and were all about hitting the clubs, which Berlin is very much known for. We decided to explore in the other direction of where we were last night and found a cool, edgy area of town with all sorts of arty alternative types. We found a funky, outdoor cafe which served food out of a bus, but decided to come back the next day and see it in the daylight instead. Dinner was Mexican which made me sweat through my shirt but was super-tasty.
We got back late-ish and the Dutch girls were asleep. I guess the clubs could wait for them.
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Day 3 - Berlin
This morning was all about the Rugby World Cup. Anna saw a poster in the Hostel common room advertising a Mexican bar showing NZ vs Japan at 10am. So the night before when we ate, we scouted the location so there would be no chance of missing any action. We were sure we had the right place, but couldn't see any TV's.
However, 10am rolled around and there were already about 8-10 people there including staff. A laptop was hooked up to a projector and they screened the All Blacks thrashing Japan 83 - 7. The service was really laid back, they brought us a German breakfast each and when Japan scored their intercept try everyone was given a free (frei) tequila shot which at 10.30am in the morning is not exactly the sort of drink you want. Still, in the spirit of the occasion, it went down the hatch (and nearly came back up again).
German service is brilliant. They don't expect you to pay up front and tell you to 'put your money away' and settle up casually at the end of the meal. It's pretty sweet as you never feel like you're being rushed to have a drink or to finish up when you're done. Usually, their spoken English is great and they're really friendly and laid back so it's impossible not to have a good time. As far as cool cities go, it's hard to top Berlin.
After breakfast, we went to the station to book our tickets for Prague. After that, we went for a stroll around some of the areas we touched on yesterday before hitting the renowned 'Pergamon' museum. As I understand it, as the German empire was expanding and the Turkish/Ottoman empire was contracting, the Germans had an agreement with the Turkish government and basically shipped entire statues, temples and structures to Berlin to be displayed in this museum.
The Pergamon museum lifts entire parts of the altar of Pergamon and is really impressive. There are many rooms filled with artefacts, pillars and works from ancient Mediterranean and Mesopatamean cultures and even has a partially reconstructed tower/walk of the walls of Babylon.
Considering that we almost didn't bother hitting it, we were really impressed with the stuff on display. Some of the scale of the works is amazing, not just because it's so well preserved/reconstructed, but also because over 2500 years ago, they were building stuff which stood the test of time.
Late afternoon rolled around and we decided to hit the outdoor cafe 'Kjosk' that we saw the evening before. Typically Berlin, it's cooler than cool, but unpretentious so it was great to relax for a bit. After that, we ate some stupidly large schnitzel before checking out a tip that Anna got from her workmate Ioane.
We went to a small bar called 'Dr. Pong' -- a ping pong bar. No, not one of those ping pong bars, but an actual place where you go and play table tennis against random strangers. Inside, it was decorated in a post-Communist fashion, which is to say the barren walls are either bare stone or covered in graffiti and people were allowed to smoke inside (something Europe needs to sort out, STAT). We watched the locals play table tennis before joining in occasionally. Bizarrely, the king of the roost was an obese man in a wheelchair who was practically unbeatable with his array of slices, topspins and swerve shots. Anna was competitive against him but I lost 21-3, with two of those points coming from unforced errors.
However, the main draw of Dr Pong is the table tennis tournament. Everyone who enters circles the table and then walks around in a counter-clockwise direction and hits the ball once to the person the opposite side of the table, while continuing to move in that direction. If you make a mistake, you have to sit down and it continues with people circling the table until only two players are left and then they play off in a real game. Pretty cool, we thought.
We got back and the Dutchies were getting ready to hit some exclusive bar that only posers and weirdoes can get into. Seriously, if your'e dressed smart, rich or 'cool', you'll be turned away. It's kinda counter-exclusive, which I suppose fits with Berlin's vibe. Despite much cajoling, we told them that they had a better chance of getting in without two nearly-mid-30 year olds but in actual fact, we were just pooped from walking all day and getting our arses kicked by a ping pong ninja in a wheelchair.
Next blog... Prague.
