Max Beer Strasse
I was biking, like a mad Berliner, through a red light at an intersection, around four Mercedes in a row, past a bicycle group of tourists in flip flops, underneath the Brandenburger Tor, and past the car circle to front door of the Reichstag, where the German parliament meets. Both my book and Bee and said I needed to get there early to avoid the two hour line into the dome, so I thought I had it made when I saw the sign declaring the line “30 minutes from this point.” Thirty minutes later I was through security, up the elevator, and at the base of the dome when I saw it was what? Closed for cleaning?
You have got to be kidding me. About twenty guys in yellow uniforms were carefully spraying glass cleaner on every single pane in the dome and squeegeeing it dry. You know, I appreciate that German speaking countries are for the most part, clean. But there is a line that can be crossed, and that line is called hypochondria. Of course, I could easily sum this whole thing up as German anality. If anality isn’t a word, well, it is now. And here I am, hoping and praying that it all doesn’t rub off on me, when I can already tell that my hair starts to stand on end when the bus is two minutes late. Of course this, this closing of my tourist attraction (yes I know it’s a parliament building and they might actually do work there sometimes) was just too much. I absolutely had to go back downstairs and get some apple strudel with vanilla sauce to make up for it.
I didn’t start this Germany adventure with a bike. No, that was the suggestion of a hostel guest I encountered my first morning at breakfast in the downstairs restaurant. Ok, I didn’t actually listen to her the first day, thinking, I can walk this town. Right, and people also walked across the Alaskan land bridge at one time, but that doesn’t mean you should do it. Walking a city is certainly romantic and capitalist. I shop a lot more when I’m walking. The first day I set out from the hostel I hadn’t even made it to the first building listed in my Lonely Planet book when I got sidetracked by a bunch of people selling old books and records. The books were things like Time Life’s History of the Earth from 1959, in Deutsch, filled with weird illustrations of paramecium and erupting volcanoes and lemur-like jungle creatures, as well as oddly drawn children’s books depicting kids taking flight on furry monsters with snaking noses and bad habits, also in Deutsch. I’d loved to have taken one of the Time Life books home with me for some Zurich coffee table madness, but considering how I’d have to lug it around with me my next week in Germany, I woefully put them all back. I did pick up a few old school records with some cover art that I liked, and of course, one token absurdity that I think I might display proudly at the office. I’ll let you guess which one it is.
Every time I try to do one of these Lonely Planet walking tours, I am led astray. I can’t really say that I run off course solely because of the book (the 3-4 hour walk is more like an epic 12 hour sojourn, in part because of the mediocre directions) or only because of the nature of my very short attention span. It’s more an amalgamation of the two plus a sprinkling of me always thinking there’s something more interesting off the beaten path. Sometimes, there is, and sometimes, just the break from the thousands of tourists traveling that same path is the best part of my whole trip. I did make it to various classic sights, as you’ll see in my gallery, including Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate, now a symbol of German reunification), Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), Fernsehturm (a 368m high TV tower), Memorial to the Murdered European Jews (it’s actually called that), Topography of Terror (a pictorial exhibit housed in the foundation of the remains of the old Gestapo headquarters), Palast der Republik (or what’s left of it, the former building used for meetings of the GDR parliament), Checkpoint Charlie (main gateway between east and west Berlin from 1961 to 1990), Gendarmenmarkt square, Nikolaiviertel (old town), and the East Side Gallery (the largest remaining section of wall). Oh and of course, the Berlin H&M, where I bought a whole bunch of frilly underthings on a whim even though there’s no one left to see them but me.
Probably my most interesting decision during my three days in Berlin was to stay at the hostel on Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse. And for the record, people who suggest that I shouldn’t be staying in hostels at the age of thirty-one have, and I guarantee this, never had to go on vacation by themselves. I’m not talking about a business trip; I’m talking about vacation. It may be nice to have your own bathroom, but a bathroom isn’t another person to talk to, and anyhow, I’m at that borderline age where everyone still thinks I’m somewhere between twenty-three and twenty-six, and I still have enough in common with people who are actually in that age group to bluff it. Working at Google doesn’t hurt either, in terms of making good impressions on twenty-somethings.
On night one I met three Korean girls (yes, who I thought were Japanese, and who I thought didn’t speak English, but was wrong on both counts) who were just starting their second month of a two month expedition across Europe. Two of them were in college in Korea studying pharmacology, and one of them was studying nursing in Vancouver, “to learn more English,” she said, “and because university in the U.S. is too expensive.” I’ll second that. They seemed delighted to discover that I 1) worked at Google, and 2) lived in Zurich, as Switzerland was next on their list of places to visit. The most amazing aspect of my entire conversation with them was how impressed they seemed with the places I’d gone and things I’d done, even though I’d had ten extra years time in which to do it. “But you’re in college, traveling across Europe by yourselves for two months!” I pointed out. They acknowledged this, but I’m not sure if they were just being polite or if it was a culture formality I didn’t understand, but they insisted that what I’d done was much cooler. As is typical of me, I didn’t agree, as I kept reviewing the fact that I hadn’t traveled anywhere in undergrad, unless it was to the barn to ride horses. Of course, if this was a race, then maybe they are ahead in that very basic sense, but since it’s not a race, and accomplishments and life adventures can’t be measured on any scale in existence, there was nothing to do except to allow them and myself to be impressed with each other. If you think that you’ve lived the best life that you can under the circumstances, then you probably have.
The second and third nights at the hostel I met two die-hard Obama fans from Boston and the U.K., who had waited five hours for Obama to give his twenty-seven minute speech out by the Siegessäule (Victory Column) in Tiergarten Park. “It was an amazing, awesome speech,” they said to me, even though the next morning I met another girl down at breakfast who said it was “just all right.” It must be a whole different experience to be that committed to politics, or to follow someone so devotedly that you can’t see their flaws. On the other hand, I’m skeptical to the point of weakness, and BigG’s comment in Istanbul about giving people the benefit of the doubt would help me find a balance between uncertainty and blind faith. The good thing is these two guys had interests other than politics, as they instantly wanted to know all about working at Google as soon as I mentioned that that was the reason I was currently living in Zurich.
I guess now you’ll want to know what I think of Berlin. I really liked Berlin, despite its seemingly constant state of construction and destruction, shiny bling and concrete drear. Somehow, the city never quite recovered from WWII and the ensuing split, but here and there are pockets of wealth and glamour, and bits of preserved or restored nostalgic beauty. The sadness of it is, a lot of the city was destroyed by war, or razed by the people in power at various points in history. This means that across the street from a gorgeous neo-Renaissance cathedral is a GDR era monstrosity of concrete and steel (the Palast der Republik) that Berlin only started tearing down in 2006. It looks like this all over the city, the ever slow dismantling of parts of Berlin’s history that many people would probably like to forget. I guess for some odd reason, I like this facet of the city. I like the idea that it’s not a perfect city, that while parts are beautiful other parts are gritty and timeworn and full of memories good and bad. I was particularly drawn to the East Side Gallery, a long stretch of the original wall decorated by artists to commemorate the two Berlins and the line between them. The original art has unfortunately mostly been tagged over by random graffiti, but I guess to me this is as much a part of the city as everything else, planned or unplanned.
There’s also good food to be had here if you know how to avoid sausages (hell, maybe you like sausage), and of course, leave it me, excellent shopping. In fact, I think Berlin might be vying with Montreal for my favorite shopping city on the planet. While you’re not busy eating Kartoffeln Nudeln (this odd edible that is not a noodle and not pasta but made from potatoes that looks something like both), you can shop at every cute boutique store you ever wanted in one city block. Most notable was my discovery of the “one size Italian clothing store.” I walked into this store after seeing some darling dresses in the window, and had just started digging through some long sleeve tops looking for a size medium. Every top seemed to be marked small. That’s when the Asian girl who worked the counter came up behind me and started yelling at me in German.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m looking for a medium.”
“All one size!” she screamed after I had spoken to her in English.
“But these say small on them,” I said, pointing to the tag.
“NICHT SMALL!” she shouted.
I got the idea after that. Basically, if you didn’t fit into the one size offered at this store you didn’t belong in the store. I’m not sure how a store like this would fare in the U.S., but it seemed to be doing just fine here as it was overrun with skinny women. I am pleased to say that I did find a few things I actually fit into, including a silver charmer of a dress that I’m bringing to London with me in August for the first of two summer weddings I have to attend (not my own, so don’t you stalkers worry). So it would appear that chocolately, buttery Europe has not taken complete hold of my pants size yet.
There are always, however, an infinite number of ways to feel bad (and then good) about yourself, and this includes walking around with all your camera equipment on your back, a fat Lonely Planet book, and a bottle of water in the middle of a muggy, German July. I decided to take the train down to Potsdam my last day in the Berlin area before heading to Cologne. Potsdam advertises an ornate yellow palace called Sanssouci with glorious gardens and several other inspiring structures on its grounds. After getting up late (per usual), riding the train, trying to figure out the bus system, and then finally arriving in Potsdam proper, I realized five minutes after the bus pulled away that I’d left my Lonely Planet book on the seat.
There are things about German-speaking countries that are alternately sobering and infuriating. One of these things is the fact that you can go to the tourist office of a small town and ask how to get back something you lost on the bus, be directed to the transit office half a mile away, walk there in the summer heat and damp, and discover a transit worker who seems more than happy to call the bus driver for you to find your lost item. Then, after speaking to said bus driver for no more than five seconds, tell you that there’s no trace of your item on the bus.
“There is only one bus 695 in all of Potsdam?” I ask the worker.
“Yes, one bus,” the guy answers back.
“The driver already looked through the entire bus?” I asked, incredulous that he could scan his entire bus, which was the extended kind with the extra space in the back, in five seconds.
“Yes, already looked,” he said.
He then tried to give me the number of the Lost & Found, at which I could probably find my book on Monday morning, you know, when I was already due to be hundreds of miles away in Cologne. I took the number anyway, thanking him for his ridiculous inability to help, and walked the half mile back through the sweltering weather to the bus stop. While Potsdam’s not a big place, I knew for certain there is no way there could be only one bus 695, otherwise the bus would pretty much only show up once every two hours. So, in that psychotic intensity that only I can produce when I want to prove someone wrong, I proceeded to stand at the bus stop, boarding every 695 and riding it down one stop, then doing the same thing in reverse to get back to the original stop. I asked each and every bus driver if he’d seen “mein Buch.” Most didn’t know what I was talking about. Better yet, some of the drivers pretended I wasn’t even talking to them. I was unmoved. No bus driver in Potsdam needs a Lonely Planet book in English about Germany. I had gotten on six busses at this point before I got on the seventh and there it was, my book sitting on the cash machine next to the driver. “Mein Buch!” I exclaimed, and the driver just smiled as I took it and squeezed back past people crowding through the front door.
So yeah, I did make it to Sanssouci, perhaps several hours later than I expected but this isn’t that atypical where I’m involved. The “palace” itself is nothing grand inside as it’s not actually that large, although I did enjoy the fourth and final guest room which had three-dimensional, carved wooden parrots painted bright colors coming out of every wall, as well as monkeys and other jungle features like swinging vines and enormous flowers. It’s the gardens surrounding this palace that are truly special, even more so when you realize that they’re all completely free to visit, and that if you actually lived anywhere near this magnificent place, you could stroll through the gardens whenever you wanted, or sit and read, or write the next great German novel, or whatever the heck you wanted.
The whole Berlin and Potsdam gallery is here. Oh, and if you don’t believe me about the title of this blog entry, here’s the proof:
