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Ok, I mentioned that there was a couple that insisted on making out in the children-friendly Botanical Gardens. Well, this seems to be a common theme in Europe…the making out part. Maybe it’s my prudish ways, but QUIT WITH THE MAKING OUT. This isn’t some quick, “HI! I’m SO glad to see you” peck on the cheek or on the lips. It’s the, “HI! I have no awareness of my surroundings, so I’ll kiss you like they kiss on Soap Operas,” full blown make out session. When does this happen? When one of said couples gets off the airplane, meets in the train station, meets for lunch, is in the romantic botanical gardens with Foreign people walking all over, waiting in line for the train, waiting in line to be seated for dinner, waiting in line to check out at the grocery store, picking a bottle of wine, picking out a book at the bookstore. Ok, maybe a BIT over dramatic, but so is the making out. Ok, I’m done.
3-27 Thursday Berlin
Ok, we were gone all weekend, so this is a bit late. I have some major catching up to do. Anyway, here’s our adventure from Berlin:
Brother Bee and I had to get up very early to catch our way to early plane to Berlin. Why I booked a train leaving at 6am, I’ll never know. So, I got up at 4am to shower before German Boyfriend Bee got up. He apparently was leaving also, but he got to drive to the Airport. Showered, left for the train, took the train, got to Berlin about 7:30. That was the short version of the incredible hassle it is to get from one station to the next. Of course, this included Brother Bee and I forgetting that for the first time since we’ve been here that we needed a train ticket. Oops. They NEVER check here, either which is weird. Anyway, we got to Berlin and decided that we needed some pastries here, and since they treat their train stations like shopping malls with everything from McDonalds and Burger King to flowershops and a variety of clothing stores, it wasn’t hard to find. Though Brother Bee and I keep trying to convince German Bee that Burger King really isn’t that good. So we grabbed some wonderful pastries and ate them. That took us until 8am. What were we going to do for another 2 hours? Two hours because we had decided that taking a walking tour would give us the best view of Berlin in a day.
We were quite a ways away from the meeting point of the Berlin Walking Tour, so we decided since we had 2 hours that we would walk. Lucky, our journey took us straight through one of the biggest city parks in Europe. It’s ginormous. We got lost only a couple times, plus got to walk past some zoo animals. Llamas, cranes, aardvarks, the like.
Anyway, we met up with the tour guide and begun our next 5 hours of walking. Yes, I realize this was a total of 7 hours of walking, we’ll get to that later. I know no one wants to hear all of the places we went, so I’ll highlight. However, I will say, if you are going to a new city, whether you are there a couple days or a month. TAKE A WALKING TOUR. They are absolutely the best thing you can do for yourself. It’s amazing what you learn, what you see, and you can always get your bearings. Wonderful. Our tour guide was absolutely the best, and for 10 Euros, he better be. We were in a group of 35, which was a bit much, but we pretty much saw all of Berlin in a day. Here are my favorite parts:
Brandenberg Gate; Hilter’s Bunker location (nothing is actually there, for obvious reasons); Holocaust Memorial; Buildings that still have gun holds, bombing markings; the absolutely pompous new Embassy the US Government is opening right next to the Brandenberg Gate (seriously it’s ridiculous, AND as an added feature, guess when they’re opening it?? That’s right, good ol’ July 4, 2008). Those were the highlights.
On story: Apparently, when Berlin was divided into East and West, the Russian Communists were not into organized religion. So, they made all the churches take down their crosses, whether it was Catholic, Protestant, you name it organized religion was bad. During this time, they were also building a radio-TV tower, just like every other city in Europe has. They added a disco ball-like thing to it with indented paneling, so all of Berlin could see. However, on particularly sunny days, the sun reflected off the ball (so all Berlin could see) in the shape of a giant cross. Thus became known as The Pope’s Revenge. Quite amusing in a way.
Now, this tour was very enlightening and all, I mean, I never realized that during the East-West divide, virtually no rebuilding occured in East Berlin. I guess I’m not surprised, but I think that many American believe that once the wall was brought down, that Berlin reunified and was great again. This is simply not the case, and this was the most startling of all things I learned. Berlin will, in fact, look completely different in 10 years than it did on Thursday. I mean, there are buildings that are still being brought down, there are buildings with HUGE bomb holes in them, and almost 20 years later, East Berlin looks almost the same as it did in 1989. It’s incredible.
However, as the 35 of us were pondering this underneath the Brandenberg Gate, our tour guide asked us to turn around and look at the Hotel Altona. Here’s his words “Now, if you will for a second turn around and look at the Hotel behind you, this Hotel was completely destroyed in the bombing of Berlin. However, they have rebuilt it here in this square to look almost exactly like the original with its stucco facade and high windows. Now count up 3 floors to the middle balcony. You will remember this as the balcony in which Michael Jackson hung his baby out of the widow for all to see.”
Yes, East Berlin is in ruins, and Michael Jackson makes the news. Awesome. (I will have pictures of said balcony when I am on the other computer)
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