Going behind the Iron Curtin - Starting in Berlin

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  Berlin, Germany
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

I left Amsterdam after a pretty rushed breakfast as I was leaving little check-in time at the airport (this would come back to haunt me). I said goodbye to my parents and head off into the unknown as I was entering a part of the trip where I had no idea what to expect of the places I was about to visit. As I rode the train to the airport in Amsterdam I started to feel like I had left something behind. I started to go through my hand luggage and I couldn't find my sister's camera that mum and dad had brought with them to replace my camera after it had died. When I arrived at the airport I found a rather long line with Luthansa airlines checking 4 flights through just 2 counters. This gave me time to go through the rest of my luggage where I could still not find the camera. I also rang the hotel and told mum and dad to have a look in my room to see if I left it there. They then gave a final call for my flight but by the time I got to the front I had missed my flight to Frankfurt and then onto Berlin. I thought my luck had desserted me on this day but I got a break as the girl at the counter put me on the next flight for both legs of my trip which meant I would get to Berlin about an hour and a half later. After checking in for these later flights I headed to another pay phone to ring my hotel in Amsterdam again. They told me that no camera had been found and that it must be with me. I once again went through my luggage and found nothing. To be on the safe side I brought 2 disposable camera as I was now reserved to the fact that I had lost it. By this point of time my patinence was non-existant so I headed to the bar and calmed myself down. So I continued onto Berlin with only a slight hiccup in Frankfurt where they changed the gate of my flight at the last minute so I showed up and found no one sitting waiting for the flight.
When I arrived in Berlin I decided to grab a taxi to the hotel instead of tackling the public transport due to my mental state. I arrived to find a quaint hotel in a good part of the city and about a 2 hour wait till I met the tour manager of the trip. When I checked in I noticed that I would be sharing a room with someone who first name was Sophie. Now I was quite prepared to share with anyone but I was told that the single travellers were paired with same sex roommates and last time I checked the English language (and any other language I coud think of) Sophie wasn't a guy's name. Then due to all my other dramas I started having various images pop up in my head of someone who was going to explode when they found they were paired with me. I headed up to my room and expecting to find someone but no was there except a travel pack so I dropped off my luggage and head out for a walk and a bite to eat. When I returned to the room once again there was no one there so I headed back to the lobby and used the free internet for a while. The tour manager then turned up around 5pm and started getting people's details. As I lined up I heard the girl in front of me tell the tour manager that she had been paired with a guy. After a while I stuck my hand up to let them both know I was that guy. Thankfully this issue was sorted quite quickly and my new roommate Phil from Sydney was decided. After all the details were sorted we headed out for dinner and I found that the group was quite small with there only being 15 people on the tour (2 were missing from the first nights dinner). I sat at one end of the table next to the tour manager Justin, who was from Victoria and had been doing this sort of stuff for a few years. After dinner we walked back to the hotel and called it a night.
The next day was our first full day of the tour and we found that the 15 of us had a full size coach to spread out on. In the morning we started with a quick driving tour of Berlin and a stop off at the east side gallery which is one of only 2 parts of the old Berlin wall left. After this the bus dropped us off at the site of checkpoint charlie which is where the main border crossing of east and west Berlin existed in the COld War era. We then met up with a walking tour guide for the Third Reich Walking tour. This tour went for about 2 hours and we visited areas in Berlin that were significant sites for Hitler and the Nazis. Due to the massive amount of bombing undertook by the allies in WWII most of these sites no longer exist and if they survived the war then the Soviets destroyed them if they ended up on there side of the wall (i.e Hitler's bunker). Interesting to note that one rather large building that the allies missed was the headquarters of the air force, it has since then be turned into the ministry of finance. After the tour we then had the rest of the afternoon to wander the city before meeting back at checkpoint charlie to get the bus back to the hotel. Right near the checkpoint site there are boards up around vacant blockes that tell much of the history of the wall and the cold war which were quite interesting. With this free time I walked up to main road through Berlin, the Unter der Linden and along it to the Brandenburg gate, probably the most famous image of the city. It was here back in the early 90s that the Hoff (a.k.a David Hasselhoff) sang and through his words the wall finally came down and the eastern bloc countries were free (or maybe that is just how I see it). I then walked up to the Reichstag (the German parliament) and the Soviet monument (which funnily enough ended up on the American side of Berlin). I then walked back along the street to near the Humbolt university and saw the infamous square where Hitler's book burnings took place. I then returned to the bus and then back to the hotel. That night we headed out for dinner as a group and then headed off on an optional pub crawl through Berlin. Some of the pubs we visited were quite different and not the type of places you would usually find yours truly. At each place we would kick off with a shot of something and then have a different type of cocktail. I also used this night to get around and meet the different people on the trip. I found that they were mostly Australians (with a fair chunk of them from South Australia) with a few Americans and everyone was mid to late 20s with a few in the 30s. After about 4 different pubs we decided to give the last place (which seemed to be a night club) a miss as we would miss the public transport back to the hotel.
The next day I woke to the site of rain and a few strong wind gusts so I dressed appropriately, t-shirt and shorts ( what can I say I was too lazy to go back up to the room and change). Today was a completely free day in Berlin so I decided I wanted to see 2 things the Reichstag and the German History Museum. When I arrived back in the centre of town via the underground the weather had got a little worse so I head for the safety of the museum. After buying my ticket I went up the stairs and started learning about the history of Germany starting with the fall of the ancient Roman empire. I found the musuem very interesting as it had been a long time since I had the chance to learn the history of anywhere (this seems to happen when your stuck in a mining town). As I wasn't wearing a watch I didn't notice time was getting away from me and as I started to read about world war 2 the notice came across the speaker system that the museum was closing, I had spent just over 6 hours reading everything I could (that was written in English). If anyone goes to Berlin I recommend a visit to the history museum. I left the museum and took the train back to the hotel where I met up with my room-mate Phil and we grabbed dinner. I found the Phil was a mechanical engineer working with Qantas in Sydney. I finished with another long session on the internet updating this blog and reading the news from home.
The next morning we packed up our bags, had breakfast and then loaded onto the bus for the trip to Prague. We also found out that we would pick up another 9 travellers in Prague to bring our final numbers to 24.

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