Party at Nick's place
Trip Start
Jun 15, 2007
1
104
164
Trip End
Ongoing
Berlin,
Germany
Monday, October 13, 2008
We arrived into Berlin Hauptbahnhof around 5.30pm and went to book our onward ticket to Hamburg while we waited for Nick to finish work and come to get us. This gave us our first chance to practice our German by asking the ticket guy in German if he spoke English!! Which of course he did, much better than either of us speaks German. Once we had booked our tickets we went to wait for Nick and watch all the action around the station, as it is a shopping centre / eatery as well.
Nick met us after work and we made our way back to his apartment on the tube or metro as it is called in Germany. Nick's apartment is on the top floor of an apartment block right in the middle of the action. 2 minutes to one side is the main street of museums, shops and cafes and 2 minutes to the other side are a lot of restaurants and bars, so we felt it was a pretty fine location for our stay! We were starving by the time we arrived as we hadn't eaten since breakfast, so after a quick tour of the apartment, which is very nice, we headed off out to dinner to an Italian restaurant around the corner. The food was great and we spent the entire meal chatting about travels and Nick's job, etc. Then we hit the bars, stopping at an art gallery type thing en route to see a couple of cool art works. The first bar we went to is the bar where Nick met his girlfriend, so we had to see that one! Then we went to a bar where we could sit outside under the heat lamps and watch the Friday night activity. Here, both Ed and Nick ordered a beer but I don't think either of them was prepared for the size of it! When it came, the glass was pretty much big enough for them to climb inside and swim in the beer! I fully expected to have to carry them both home! As we were walking around that night, Nick pointed out the prostitute area on the main bar road, and we saw our fair share of "workers". It always seems crazy to learn that prostitution is legal, although some people think that it makes the girls safer that way. I'm not really sure where I stand on that, but I do find it sad that these girls feel that they have to do that to themselves.
Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, so after an amazing breakfast of cereal, toast, mini croissants, coffee and orange juice, all prepared by Nick, we headed out to see the sights of Berlin. We walked along the main street, Unter Den Linden, where we saw the Cathedral, the Opera House and the Museum Quarter. We passed over the river and we saw lots of outdoor cafes, full of people enjoying the weekend sunshine over coffee, and then we came across a couple of car showroom / museums, which the boys felt compelled to visit. The first was a Bugatti showroom and the second was a museum type showroom for a range of Peugeots that admittedly were quite cool. There was also an art display in here which I found quite interesting. From here, we continued walking along the street until we came to the Brandenburg Gate, which is the official gateway into Berlin, although there is no actual, tangible gate there!! It used to be part of the wall that separated East and West Berlin, but obviously that is no longer the case. We took a few pictures and saw a really cool bike taxi that can take up to 6 people, all pedalling at once and sitting in a circle, with the driver at the "head" of the circle to steer. It would be cool to go on one of those! We then walked along past Tiergarten Park to the Victory Monument, where we climbed the 282 steps to the top to get a bird's eye view over Berlin. It was a pretty cool view but very tight and squashed up there! We walked back through the park to the Sony Centre where we stopped for lunch at a café called Alex, which Nick thought was just like my name. It was at this point I felt it necessary to introduce myself! After all these years too!
On the way to our next tourist spot, we visited the Holocaust Memorial, which is a group of 2711 different height slabs of concrete, symbolising the terror of the war. It is meant to show the disorientation the Jews felt at this time, as it is all a maze of different sizes. We had fun hiding from one another and poking our heads around the slabs, hoping it wasn't disrespectful.
Our next stop was Checkpoint Charlie, which is the crossing point from East to West Germany and vice versa. Up on the walls are stories of people who tried to cross the border during the war, some of whom made it safely across and some of whom weren't so lucky. The things they did to try to get across safely were amazing. Some of them borrowed military uniforms from friends on the West side so that they looked like guards and would not be stopped, while others hid in car boots so they couldn't be seen. Some of those who were caught were shot, while others were just sent back to the East. Some of the stories were really sad.
We walked around to the Topography of Terror next, which is the former site of the Gestapo and SS Headquarters. It is now an open air museum with details of the Gestapo and SS up on the walls, along with stories of some of the people who were killed during the war for crimes against society, such as being Jewish. It was really interesting to read all the stuff here, but really sad too. We had only got through maybe 2/3 of the information when we were kicked out at 6pm, as it was closing time, but still, it was a lot to process.
We had hoped to go up to the dome of the Government Building, the Reichstag, to watch the sunset but when we got there it is actually closed for refurbishment so we couldn't do that. Instead we watched from the gardens outside, and saw the sky turn a beautiful pink colour as the sun went down. We walked back to Nick's along Unter Den Linden and at the Brandenburg Gate we came across a protest march that we had heard earlier in the day. We couldn't figure out what is was for as it was all in German but we think it is something to do with the Government watching everyone too closely, and people not having any privacy anymore.
On the walk back we took some nice photos of the Cathedral, with the lights on it and we saw the Tower all lit up. It was a really nice walk.
That night we went out to a steak house for dinner as Nick and Ed were craving steak! Surprisingly there was a vegetarian menu as well and so I didn't have to starve! The food was really good too, and fairly cheap which was a bonus. After dinner we decided to head back to Nick's, where we taught him a Mongolian card game we had learnt when we were camping in Mongolia. He picked it up really quickly and we had a lot of fun playing cards all night. Ultimately Nick lost, although it was a close call between him and me. Ed must have been cheating!!!
On Sunday Nick had to go over to his girlfriend's house to help move some furniture, so he left Ed and I a list of things we could go to see, and directions on how to get there. The first thing was the East Side Gallery, which is a stretch of the Berlin Wall which has been left standing. It is 1.3km long and has a lot of graffiti on it, some of which is really good. We walked along this stretch of wall to the end where we saw a hostel on a boat which was quite cool. Then we walked back to the metro station and headed to see the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche, a church that was bombed during the war and has never been rebuilt and so stands with half its roof missing, and has blackened walls from the fire. Unfortunately it was closed and so we couldn't go inside but it was good to see it all the same.
As we hadn't got to go to the top of the dome yesterday, we really wanted to see the sunset from the top of the TV Tower and so we headed over there and bought our tickets. As we had a certain number on our tickets we had to wait until our numbers were called before we could go to the top. This meant that we just missed the actual sunset but we got to the top just as it was going dark. This was still pretty cool and we got a good view of the city lights. Nick text while we were up there to say he was on his way home, and so we watched for him coming out of the Metro station. We saw him walk home and then he flashed his apartment lights at us, to which we flashed our camera back at him! It was all very silly but hilarious all the same!
On Sunday night we all went out for dinner to a Spanish Tapas restaurant. It was really nice food and it was good to meet Kristina, Nick's girlfriend. She is lovely.
On Monday we didn't really do much as we had to catch our train to Hamburg. We did go for breakfast though and won't need to eat for another week now!
It has been a very good weekend and good to catch up with Nick as we haven't seen him in so long. Thanks for letting us stay! Berlin is wicked!
