berlin

quick guide to germany

i travelled from paris to germany by the train and experienced difficulties in the germany due to the confusion of trains during the switching process and trains sometimes don't go all the way to your location.

i had to validate my euro pass that allows me to travel within europe up to 15 days of travel within 2 months time period. that was difficult because the people at the train station were given me conflicting information. i got my ticket and got a seat reservation which was a waste of time. it came in handy when i got on the france to koln train at 6 in the morning as i got a seat but it cost me 30 euros which i wont make the same mistake. i would rather sit in a hall or wait for a seat to come free. because there was a delay with the france to koln train which made it so i missed my connecting train from koln to berlin and was forced to squeeze into corridor cos i didn't have a seat. then i figures out in hamburg that the train was not going all the way to berlin and it was switching trains so i had to hurry to get to on the other train where i was again with out and had to stand because had no were to site for a good 5 hours. :( lets just say the day didn't go as smoothly as i would have like but i ended up getting to berlin on 2 hours later that i thought i was going to arrive. then luckily knew roughly where the hostel and what bus to take.

11 hours 4 trains and i found my way to berlin and my hostel called st. christopher’ s inn berlin ( i stayed at the same chain in paris and liked them) the berlin hostel for 3 nights cost 32 euros = how can you beat that price???? it is ridiculous !!! when i got to the hostel i was knackered from a long journey so decided not to go out and do anything. i went on the computer and watched the united match and the spurs match, had a couple beers for 1.75 euros each which is really cheap in europe and i guess it is going to be even cheaper in prague. and i planned my day out on the map. because only have two days to everything in berlin i am going to do the majority of the sites tomorrow rain or shine, sleet or snow.

first day in berlin, you could definitely tell what part of berlin i was staying in from the buildings outside. this was definitely former eastern berlin as the buildings were very soviet and had a communist building with a red star across the street from the hostel. its right outside the u-bahn station of rosa-luxemburg platz. it was minus 8 but didnt feel that cold outside. i first went to alexanderplatz which was the tallest tower in eastern berlin, it was built by the soviets. it is a tv tower. right outside alexanderplatz is neptunes fountain, and it was built by a famous sculpture, medus. then i walked down to berliner dom along karl-liebrnecht-straBe, to museum island. museum island has the berliner dom, atlas museum, neus museum, alte-national galerie, pergamori museum, bode museum. if you have travelled to paris, then i wouldnt bother seeing these museums as they are all german, french, and italian pictures which you can see in other museums. i went next to german history museum which is only good if there is still a hitler exibit on. if not then even this museum is not worth going to. then i went to the reichstag and brandenburger gate and to the holocaust memorial ( i thought people were being really disrespectful at the holocaust memorial taking smiling pictures and playing hide-and-seek in between the columns). i walked past potsdam platz towards the topographie of terror which is the district in which all of the nazi ss, sa, intelligence, police, racial departments were located thus why it is called the terror district and i went in to the museum there, which was really interesting. it started to snow pretty heavily so i stayed in there for a while. walked to checkpoint charlie which was the us boarder guard between the east and the west. it is not the real thing because the real thing was destroyed at the end of the cold war and the german government built a new one afterwards and then went on to the site where hitlers bunker once was, it is now a parking lot. berlin is the city of reading and not seeing anything. a lot of the sites you just read stuff about them as the buildings were either destroyed during world war II or during the cold war period along with a lot of the monuments. so it ruins some of the experience of berlin. and i wouldn't suggest coming to berlin in the winter, especially to eastern berlin as the buildings make it really depressing. the one good thing is, is the food is cheap and the clothing stores all have sales.

i unfortunately didn't get to the olympic stadium because it was so cold. it went down to minus 18 so i wasn't one for walking to much. i walked all the way to the easten berlin wall gallery, which is part of the berlin wall that still stands, that contains work from the eastern berlin feelings made during the 1990’s. this wall was so much better than going to a museum to see artist famous works. these amateur political paintings and graffiti were amazing. then i went to the documentation berliner and also to the new synagogue as the old one was destroyed during krystalnacht. then it was so cold i headed in. i could not live in berlin as it is so dreary, it may be nice in the summer but in the winter, with the communist buildings it makes you feel depressing.

off to prague in the morning.