Well, what can I say about Berlin.... firstly I apologise for half of the photos. I didn't take most of them. I bought some great postcards and scanned them. The reason for that is twofold. Firstly, I didn't feel entirely safe in Berlin and didn't want to keep dragging out the camera especially after I had been pickpocketted in a safer place than Berlin and secondly the weather was completely crap! It was cold and I mean C O L D. It was supposed to snow but I think the wind blew it all away and left this wind that I have never experienced before in my life!! It was below freezing and there was this humidity that seeped into everything.
I decided that Berlin was going to be my city of experimenting given that I didn't have a particularly great time with the Swiss Germans I decided I would only have a day and a half there and I would do things that didn't involve me having to deal with the German Germans... lol
Firstly, I flew Easyjet. Anybody seen the show Airport?? HAHA It really is a low cost airline and you get what you pay for and I will certainly recommend them to everyone! So cheap I would have been happy to have stood on the plane. The flight was only 65chf roughly the same in Aussie dollars and only took an hour and half. You go to the furthest ends of the airport and you are allocated a group by time of check-in. I was in group A because I already knew this so I was one of the first on the plane and I managed to nab a window seat. I sat next to a rather nice German man who was rather chatty and offerred to show me his Berlin but unfortunately couldn't do it the next day as he had other things to do and was quite dissappointed when he found out I was staying in a "women's only" hostel and then only staying for one more day. He was rather cute and his name was Dieter! I loved him for his name!! HAHA I am soooo shallow. But he did help me in locating the train station into the city and which trains I had to get.
The trains in Europe are amazing. On time all the time and hardly any time to wait if you miss one. There is generally another along in less than 10 minutes. Why the hell can't Sydney do that? Anyways, I had to get 2 trains to Mohrenstrasser station and then had to ask directions to the hostel because I have no sense of direction when I come out of underground stations. But the German Germans are really nice people and I apologise if I inadvertantly included them in my little diatribe previously. The women's only hostel was really cheap (EU60 about 100 AUD) a night and included breakfast. I got my own room and bathroom for that. What is it with Europeans fascination with IKEA? Seriously they are mad about it! The hostel didn't have anything in it that wasn't IKEA. They must have struck up some seriously made deal and what the hell is it with IKEA's pillows? The pillows I have at Ang's house are tiny, more like lounge cushions and the pillows at this hostel covered half the bed!! But it was clean, neat and very trusting. They emailed me the entry code to the front door because no one was going to be on the desk when I got there which was about 4pm and then the key was located inside the room. It would have been very easy to have done a runner without paying but that's hardly my style. Besides, I wanted breakfast! hehe
So to keep with experimenting, I then had booked a reservation at a "sightless" restaurant. It is one of those restaurants that is completely in the dark... and I mean in the dark!!
Do you see me there?? That's me on the end. It was actually a really great restaurant and a fabulous experience. I barely made it there. The reservation was for 7.30pm and by the time I found the hostel, had a shower, got changed and found the right trains to get there it was dead on 7.30pm. At first you think that they have gone a bit overboard because the lighting in the reception area is really really dim and you can barely read the menu but I'll get back to the lighting. It was expensive I guess well, in comparison to what I usually pay when I have been travelling. I don't generally go to a michelin hatted restaurant on my own and this one had 2! I was greeted by a very friendly, English speaking, maitre 'd who takes my coat, gives me a drink and a menu in English. The menu was really funny actually because the menu is written in a form of poetry that really doesn't translate well into English obviously. You had a choice of 6 set menus and the soup was optional. Given that I wouldn't be able to see what I was doing and I really liked the outfit I was wearing I didn't go for the soup. I would be curious to see how many others also thought like me and chose not to have it.
After making my menu selection I am then introduced to my waiter who is a blind man called Manfried. His English is also excellent. I then have to place one of my hands on one of the shoulders of Manfried and he then escorts me to my table. You have to go through a series of windy bits and I guess that is to ensure that all light is totally eradicated from the restaurant and it works. Really Well. You can't see ANYTHING! I was placed at a table of other Germans who were lovely. There were 5 of them and one of them grabbed my arm as I sat down and just started talking to me in German until I told them I didn't speak German and then the whole group spoke English all night to include me which was really nice.
First course was a salad that was fresh and crunchy and had a fabulous dressing on it ... when I got to it that is.... I ate my fork a lot!! It also had these little round crunchy potato thingies that I think also had sundried tomatoes in them. Absolutely delicious and a nice suprise. One of the women at the table told me the secret to ensuring I don't walk out with a chest full of food and that was to only use the fork in one hand and a napkin in the other and carry the (hopefully) food laden fork to my mouth with the napkin underneath in the other hand. This worked remarkably well. I later found out that her mother is blind and always did that.
Whenever Manfried came to the table he would place a hand on my shoulder to announce himself and then, if he put something on the table, he would tell you where it was in reference to a clock... example when he put down the glass of wine he indicated it was at 1 o'clock.
The second course was the fish. I couldn't quite rightly understand the menu but it was FANTASTIC whatever the hell it was. What it was served on was another matter entirely. It was a type of ratatouille is my best guess. It had beany things and these potato things that weren't entirely my cup of tea. They were in the shape of penne pasta and so heavily laden with butter that it was just too rich for me. The sauce of the veggies was divine and I just went for that with the still warm fresh bread (placed at 12 o'oclock).
I also couldn't understand what I ordered for dessert either. The menu said it was red and green on a bed of beige. (like I said, the poetry didn't really translate well) It doesn't sound terribly appetising does it but I was intrigued that such a boring menu item could come out of a michelin hatted restaurant. I think it was alcohol saturated melon on a bed of the smoothest and most sinfully rich vanilla custard. Heavenly! Hot and cold, sweet and sour (the alcohol), crunchy and smooth all at the same time! The dinner was worth it just for the dessert. So simple but soooo amazing! Followed by coffee that came with milk in a separate jug and of course I flooded the saucer... everyone at the table did!! I am sure that they deliberately fill the coffee cup to the brim and do it on pupose so you do flood the cup. Nowhere in Europe have I ordered a coffee that has come to the lip of the cup! perverse bastards!! HAHA
When you are finished your waiter then escorts you out of the restaurant. If you are more than one diner the other's then grab each others shoulders and form a sort of conga line out of the restaurant. This is where the muted lighting becomes understandable. Coming out of the restaurant even the lighting (by which I could barely read the menu) becomes glaring! It was amazing and thanks to the great tip from the other woman at the table (whom I never saw because they left before I did and didn't hang around) I wasn't covered with food! You then settle the bill and the Maitre 'd puts you back into your coat, opens the door and bids you Auf Wiedersehen gute Nacht. It was FANTASTIC. Also a great experience. And, half the pleasure of food is not in the presentation because I think without the ability to see the food, if it is good food, it tastes even better because you are concentrating more on your taste. I thoroughly recommend this experience to everyone. I then make my way back to the hostel by the train and only when I get back to the hostel do I realise that I spent over 3 hours having dinner and didn't realise I was there that long because it didn't feel like it at all. I have to confess that I really wanted to ask the woman sitting next to me at the table if she could see if I had any parsley stuck in my teeth but didn't have the nerve to make the joke.
The next day I did the "hop on hop off" bus around Berlin and as I said it was absolutely freezing. Given that I only had one day to see around the place, I selected a few monuments that I really wanted to see. Unfortunately I seem to have chosen the most emotional and spent a great part of the day crying which I seriously had to curb if I didn't want to get frostbite on the face when I came outside!
So, I got off at The Reichstag Building below. This is the seat of the now reunified German Parliament. This building has gone through all sorts of refurbishment but the view from the dome is pretty cool and would be even better on a clear day. It was originally built in about 1884 and escaped damage for pretty much both world wars until the last days of the second. When Germany reunified, it was at this building that all the speeches were made and it was officially made the seat of parliament in 1991 previously being Bonn.
This is the roof of the Sony building located in Potzdamer Platz. This is my photo.
One of the things that I found really depressing was all the new buildings and designs in the city. Don't get me wrong... the architecture is amazing and some pretty cutting edge but I kept imagining what it would have been like to have been in this city during WW2 when most of it was reduced to rubble. Also what it was like in East Berlin after the wall had been constructed. All the new buildings force you to think of it rather than signifying a new and more prosperous future for Berlin. Well it did for me. I then got off at Checkpoint Charlie which is still there and also the last remaining bit of the old Berlin Wall. There is an exhibition behind the wall which gives a pictorial history of the wall and the number of people who managed to escape and who were killed trying. It's amazing that it went up overnight literally and houses had windows and doors sealed if they crossed the divide and the tenant evicted. I can't fathom what that would have been like.
The above is the Charlottenburg Palace. This was the one place I went to where I didn't cry. Well I almost did because it was so beautiful. It was built in the 1600's (I can't remember exactly when sorry) and it now serves as a museum and the most amazing gardens which I spent all of about 15 seconds in before the wind drove me inside. The opulence is extraordinary. The place has rooms set out to show various periods of time throughout the prussian history as well as rooms serving as galleries for the museum.
Above is me in the Sony Building. I took the photo of the roof from here. Below is Potsdamer Platz. The building on the right is the Sony Building. The one in the middle is the Chrysler Daimler building and the other one is an apartment complex. These buildings came about after 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Prior to 1989 the wall ran directly across all three buildings and there was rubble and desecrated buildings on both sides of the wall. The before and after photos are amazing. Unrecognisable.
Below is me at the Brandenburg Gate. Oh yeah, I didn't cry here either... lol. Actually there were mime artists everywhere and they were great! There was this group of people who were puppeteers and were manipulating a life sized robot type of thing and made him climb walls and do cartwheels. It was good fun and I kind of needed it at this time. Prior to the Brandenburg gate I had gone to the Jewish Museum. Do I have to say more? Lots of crying, lots of tissues and pure unbelievability. I can sort of understand those people who try to say that the holocaust never happened because it is so beyond rational thought that humans could do that to each other. I have no doubt that it did happen though. In case you are thinking that I am emotional wreck of a person, I wasn't the only person in the museum profoundly affected by what we saw. I was sitting on the steps outside trying to get myself under control before going and waiting for the bus when a man about 60-70 (obviously jewish as he had on his yamuka) sat next to me and introduced himself and his wife (I just remember her name was Mava) gave me a huge hug and let me cry some more before saying "evil prevails when good people do nothing. Be a good girl. Dry your eyes and remember today." His wife sat on the other side of me. It was quite surreal. They then got up took each other's hand and walked away. Funny though, I stopped crying. I have been trying to think of who said that quote though. Was it Martin Luther King?
Below is the Berliner Dome. This is in the Berlin Cathedral. This cathedral is spectacular with the most amazing pipe organ that is HUGE! This is another building that despite the fact that it was built in the 1700's remained desolated and ruined after the second world war until after the wall came down and in 1990 when it was repaired. There are so many buildings that have this history. This was what is so depressing. I don't know what I can say about Berlin. I do know that I was so emotionally affected by it that I don't know if I ever want to repeat the exercise and return to see the things that I missed.
By the time the bus stopped which was around 5pm I was so emotionally and physically knackered that I didn't know what to do with myself. I was getting the overnight train back to Geneva and it didn't leave until 9.30pm. It was also Sunday so, as with the rest of Europe, nothing was open. The bus stopped at Potsdamer Platz and I was walking around in a kind of daze thinking what the hell am I going to do with myself that I turned around and noticed I was outside the Sony building and the cinema. Harry Potter was having an advanced screening so I went in to see if there was a theatre showing it in English (I figured that since it was being screened in 7 of the 15 cinemas in this complex that there was a good chance) and sure enough there was one starting at 5.15pm! So I ended up the day going to the movies and watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. My niece (Megan, the biggest Harry Potter fan I know) hates my guts! HAHA it doesn't get released in Australia until the 1st November and in fact anywhere else in Europe until the 30th November. I was just in the right place at the right time.
To continue the "try new things" I adopted in Berlin I got the CityNightLine train back to Geneva. This involved a sleeper car (a single) and a change of trains in Basel. This was fantastic and I had THE best nights sleep I have had in ages. If you get motion sick you would hate it but I don't and the funny thing is that when I got off the train in Geneva (some 14 hours later) it was the same feeling I had when I got off the cruise ship. I still felt like I was moving. I loved the train and if I could afford the money and the time I would choose this way to travel all over Europe. I was greeted at the door of the train by a cute little German boy in Uniform who took my bag and escorted me to my cabin. It certainly wasn't flash or big but it was still great. There are 2 cabins up and 2 cabins down. He then showed me all about the cabin including the sink and the toiletries cabinet with the earplugs, water, soap etc. He then took my order for breakfast, took my passport and ticket and explained how he would knock 3 times in the morning at 7am (one hour before arriving in Basel) to announce breakfast and then I would return the knock and he would return 5 minutes later with my breakfast. This is to allow myself to make myself presentable and/or go to the loo or whatever, I have no idea but it worked great. I could have chosen a cabin that had it's own shower but that was about another hundred bucks more expensive and I figured I could have a pommy shower in the cabin and a proper shower when I got home. Also the person in the other downstairs cabin must have gotten off earlier in the morning because he set up my breakfast in there after he returned the room to a sitting room as opposed to having the bed down. Check out the train at www.citynightline.ch if you go to www.babelfish.altavista.com first you can then get the page translated as it only comes in German or Dutch.
So that was Berlin. It certainly was a weekend of "experiences" which is what I had planned. There were great moments, moving moments, moments of utter wretchedness, moments of humour and moments of humility. I still don't know how I would sum up this experience in 3 words and to be honest, it is still affecting me and I have put off doing this blog for 2 days trying to get my head around it. I don't know if I ever will. Maybe I really should have gone to Munich and spent the day wandering around the Disneyland Castle in Oberumagau. Aaahh well. Life is meant to be an experience isn't it?
