From Oktoberfest to Berlin
Trip Start
May 02, 2007
1
34
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Berlin,
Germany
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
If you've never been to Oktoberfest, think of the biggest party you've ever been to, then multiply that by at least a thousand
01.Swing high
. It's absoultely nutty! And we didn't even go inside any of the 14 beer tents (we did a rough addition of the capacity of the tents inside and outside and it was about 80,000 in total). By the time we got in the grounds everything was full and large lineups were already formed. We found a tent and joined in the outside grounds, watching the drunken debauchery unfold around us (including one overzealous drinker puking right beside where we were standing). Oktoberfest is definitely one of those things you just have to see for yourself.On Sunday morning we said goodbye to Kitty, Babette, and Yvonne's mom and hopped our train to Berlin. It was an eight hour ride with a few transfers but it went by quite quickly. A few weeks earlier we used the hospitalityclub.org website to find someone to host us in Berlin (a great way to save money, meet interesting people and learn a thing or two about local culture). We found her apartment easily and were soon in the middle of introductions. Her name is Rhonda and she is a single, 30 year old, wood-carving lesbian who is studying ecology in university and has hopes to go to Antarctica for a year to further her studies (told you it's a good way to meet interesting people!). She lives in the outskirts of Berlin in an area called Staaken. Her ground level apartment is actually across the street from where the Berlin wall once stood and could be seen out the window from the room where we are sleeping in (the previous occupant was a 97 year old lady who lived here for 93 years! Wish we could have spoken with her...).
After a good night's sleep on the hardwood floor (we have our Thermarests and sleeping bags with us, plus she gave us several blankets and pillows) we headed to the Mongolian embassy first thing in the morning
02.Location of our first "mass"
. In contrast to the Russian and Chinese embassies, where there were long queues and long waits, we were happy to find the Mongolian one completely deserted. We were in and out in no time with visas in hand. The rest of our time in Berlin was spent seeing some things that we didn't get to see on our visit here last year (there is so much to see and do here you need several trips to get the full experience). This included seeing the site where the "Fuhrer's Bunker" was and where Hitler committed suicide and had his body burned; the Topography of Terrors - an open-air exhibition at the site of the former Gestapo and secret police headquarters; the Gedenkstatte Deutscher Widerstand - a memorial to the people of the German resistance. The material is in German, but they do provide a free audioguide which I found extremely helpful! This memorial is housed in the building where the attempted assassination of Hitler on July 20, 1944 was planned. The leader of the botched plan, Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, along with three of his accomplices were executed in the courtyard of this building. A movie starring Tom Cruise as von Stauffenberg is being filmed right now about this event (Valkyrie).We wish we had a couple more days here because, like we said, Berlin is just so big and there is so much to see and do here. Tomorrow morning an airplane will be whisking us away to St. Petersburg.
