Berlin, Germany

Friday, September 15 - Saturday, September 16, 2012

After a thirteen hour rail ride from Riva San Vitale, we arrived in the city of Berlin! The first stop on ten day journey greeted us with dreary weather, staying consistent with the mood of grey and dull streets I imagined the city to hold. We stayed at the Circus Hostel, conveniently located next to a metro station that transported us to and from the train station. During our stay we were able to walk everywhere we wanted to go. In the lobby, there was an office set up for a cartoonist working on a project called "Random Sentences..." Living as a nomad, she travels through Europe and writes down sentences she hears from people in conversation. 

Making the most of late night arrival, we visited the local convenience store where Ali and I found our very first cider of the trip. After spending time as a group Dave, Cody and I were the trio to take seats at the hostel bar below our living quarters. Goldman’s Bar offered the company of a Canadian, with whom David engaged in a comparison of health care systems, and two men graduated from the University of Richmond, who spoke to Cody, a Richmond local. Eager to explore, Cody and I left the bar to get a taste of the streets surrounding our hostel. Hungry from only snacking in place of dinner, we found our way into a burger place across the street from the hostel. With a stroke of luck, we found the perfect place. The burger board displayed the one viable option of grub for us: the Pitzburger. Cody, a fellow Steelers fan, shares a love for the city in which his extended family lives.

The following morning, we completed the first of many early morning wake-ups (okay 9:30…) which would occur throughout the ten day trip. Our group’s decision to leave the city early for a Coldplay concert in Prague left us with a huge city to see, and little time to see it. Prompted by this quick stay in the bubbling city of Berlin, we decided to take a walking tour which we found ranked “Best of Berlin” through our hostel. We met our Brewers tour guide, Theo, at 10:30 to embark on a six hour day of history and culture found in the heart of Berlin. Theo, a native Australian, has lived in Berlin for the past six years. He came to Berlin for love. Though his love story lost its luster, he found a new love: a city niched in Northeast Germany, just a thirteen hour train ride from Riva San Vitale. He said the city captured his artistic heart and his mind’s love for history. Berlin attracts the creative mind and stands as Europe’s heart for expressionists next to Paris.  A city rebuilding and reunifying itself ever since the falling of the Berlin wall in November 9, 1989. The mayor of the city characterizes it as, “poor, but sexy.”

Jewish synagogue

In a tour in which we traversed predominately East Berlin, our tour’s first of many stops was to the Jewish synagogue in East. This synagogue was protected from the initial invasions before the heat of World War II by police officers who scared off the oppressors by pointing in the air and firing it. While the synagogue lasted this, it did not survive a later air raid. The synagogue now stands smaller, no longer supporting the original 3,000 seats for worshipers. Before the war, approximately 130,000 Jewish people resided in Berlin and the year after, only 2,000 remained. Police stand guard outside the synagogue as a sign of respect.

The bunker turned bar

En route to our next destination, we passed what used to be one of a thousand bunkers in Berlin. This bunker was one of a number one sixth less than Hitler’s planned number of bunkers if all had been constructed. This bunker turned bar, Zosch, was covered in vines and ivy. The house stands out as the owner continues to maintain the vines in order to display how the buildings that lined and neighbored the bunker used to look in East Berlin. We next arrived in a courtyard encompassed on a side by what used to be horse stables turned shops, Theo drew out a diagram of the division of West and East Berlin and how the city was divided by the victors of World War I. When the Soviet Union drew a line, known as the Iron Curtain, down Germany, Berlin laid an island in what became East Germany. Though the Iron Curtain was not a wall, landmines lined the boundary between West and East Germany. West Berlin remained under allied powers, while the East was controlled by the Soviets. On August 13, 1961, or Barbed Wire Sunday, the Soviets encompassed West Berlin with a wall, which after ten years of construction made up the Berlin Wall. Families were no longer able to see each other, love severed by a wall between them, and East Berlin was stuck. The Soviet Union’s reason for the wall was to stop the brain drain into West Berlin; this plan ultimately backfired as the effort to rescue trapped East Berliners began. West Berlin was able to remain autonomous since it had its own airstrips to counteract East Germany’s refusal to trade. This trade deficit furthered Eastern Germany’s economic downfall. East Berlin attracted artists with its shield from drafting citizens for enlistment.

Stumble stones

 Throughout Berlin, stumbling stones mark the entrances to previous residences of Jewish people who were ripped from their houses and killed under Hitler’s power. Poland was offered to have these same commemorative stones and refused. Poland’s decision to refuse the installment of these stones was because since 5,720,000 Polish people were killed in World War II, the stones would be too frequent and too constant of a reminder of the tyranny bestowed on them in the war.


Exemplifying the artistic atmosphere of the jazzy Berlin, we waltzed into Clarchen’s Ballhaus. Antique mirrors and furniture lined the walls of a building which was thoughtfully preserved. While the upper room hosted concerts and swings, the lower room added a pinch of modern. We entered the room to the sound of Coldplay playing while swing dancers practiced to the rhythm. Hearing this song was just one of many times we garnered enthusiasm for the concert which was to come the following day.

Jumping in front of the Berliner Dom

A walk across a bridge brought us to Museuminsel, the museum isle. The National Museum and Berliner Dom were the most historically and structurally significant buildings I saw in Berlin. I saw a wedding taking place in the center of this perfect-green courtyard. Ironically, sixty years later these two people tied the knot in the same location where Hitler severed German ties with countries of the world. Hitler stood at the National Museum when he gave famous speeches. This building was not chosen without reason; he chose the building because the Greek architecture which comprised it was symbolic of his ideal that he was a superior being, like the gods.

Berliner Dom

The National Museum

Walking past what used to be Hitler’s armory, we learned of the significance the The National Memorial to the Victims of War and Tyranny we were about to see. During the War to End All Wars, women cleaned the city of Berlin with their own hands. This statue represented one of many women, who lost her loved ones to war, yet still rebuilt Berlin.

Further down the road, what at first appeared to be an architecturally aesthetic building, turned out to be Humboldt University. An astounding 27 Nobel Prize winners studied at this university. In front of this institution of knowledge was where the Burning of the Books took place. At the beginning of the war, Hitler ordered the destruction of all Jewish books and bindings filled with conflicting idealisms. The memorial is simple but powerful: a glass window on the ground shows a view of a room full of empty book shelves lining every wall below. The most gripping of the memorial, however, was a quotation from Heinrich Heime, years before Hitler took power, “das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.” This translates to "Wherever they burn books, in the end will also burn human beings."

The Burning of the Books Memorial

 Less than a month from my arrival in Europe, I found solace in reaching the American sector of Berlin. As we stood where Checkpoint Charlie stood, Theo walked us through the journey Berliners faced when attempting, either legally or illegally, to get from East Berlin into West Berlin. The American sector sign stood aside a picture of a general in the military. From East Berlin, the general pictured is German, and vice versa. The purpose of this picture is to invoke the picture of each general standing at their post looking out onto the other side. There were people dressed up as Americans with American flags standing at the U.S. checkpoint; however, my homeland euphoria was fleeting as I realized these men were not fellow countrymen, but merely people in costumes dressed to steal the money of those who stopped and paid for a picture with them.  

Our favorite tour guide, Theo.

Standing in East and West Berlin

After a short break, Theo pointed out to us the line marking East and West Berlin as we headed towards a piece of the wall still standing. We then walked down a city street in East Berlin where we stopped in what I thought was merely a convenient parking lot for Theo to talk about the history filling the air. I was wrong. We were standing atop of where Hitler’s bunker, the one in which he and his love committed suicide, used to lie. He also told the story of how Hitler came to power: in a quick takeaway, if Hitler had been accepted into one of the numerous art schools he had applied to, we would have avoided World War II. In this bunker, he married his long-term lover before they killed themselves. He remained socially independent from this woman as a dictator because he wanted to remain the sole face and only leader for his cause. When Hitler knew his time had run out and his pursuit in war was unreachable, the couple married, first injected the dog with poison, subsequently injecting themselves, then Hitler quickly shot himself in the mouth. The bunker was destroyed and filled in after the war in efforts to ensure it did not become memorial site for Neo-Nazis.

What used to be Hitler's Bunker

The Berlin Wall

In sight of the parking lot stretched the Jewish victim memorial. Here, 2,711 blocks spaced equidistantly apart spanned the block. As I walked through it, I felt an eerie sense of isolation and loneliness while I knew  I was surrounded by members of my group. The blocks, which are all different heights but heighten as one walks from one side to the end, evoke the idea of solidarity that Jewish people experienced throughout the turmoil they face in World War II. The number of blocks is meaningless; the Jewish architect wanted to fit as many as he could in the space he was given.

Jewish Memorial

Ironically, the entry gate to Berlin, the Brandenburg Gate, was the stopping point of our tour and time with Theo. The view from the gate of the streets of Berlin was incredible as sunset began to take place in the sky above me.  Almost adjacent to the gates was the U.S. Embassy. What should have been a bittersweet piece of home was disconcerting as we reflected on the recent act of terror in Libya. Bidding our Aussie mate farewell, we were all in agreement that the 10 Euro tour, which bought a long day of walking with the ideal tour guide, was money well spent.

The Brandenburg Gate

A late Saturday night left us with an incredible sense of Berlin night life. We ate at brewhaus where we met some friendly London boys. I enjoyed both the singing from one and discovering a linguistic difference in the word solicitor from another. He told me he was studying to be a solicitor, which I associated with as a door-to-door salesperson; turns out a solicitor is really a lawyer… sounds familiar now that I say it out loud.  We then returned to the bunker bar, Zosch, only to find that we were unable to stay because a band was performing.  We then went to an awesome night club. In this club, each huge dance room played a different genre of music. With the attempt of not looking at my clock nor thinking about what time I would have to get up in the morning, we made our way back for one last night of sleep at the Circus Hostel.