Berlin: December 21 - 26

My train ride from Munich to Berlin was interesting in that I was sitting in the very, very back of the train, and all that was separating me from the steering wheel was a large glass wall with a glass door. The strange thing about this wall, however, was it's ability to switch back and forth from transparent to translucent. It still boggles my mind and I have no idea what sort of witchcraft was used to accomplish this feat, but this wall would go from crystal clear glass to being the sort of tempered glass that only allows you to see foggy shapes in literally an instant. And the way it switched on and off gave some hint of computer interference, almost like a glitch hinted that there was something inside the glass that could be activated. The best part was when, after having stopped in some random town, the train went in the reverse direction, so I was suddenly at the front of the train. Some father brought his little boy up to the front to watch the conductor drive the train. After a while, both of them were distracted by something and the glass switched, and when they turned their attention back, both were utterly confounded and had no idea what had happened. The son tried to wipe the fog away with his sleeve, when the illusion suddenly disappeared and it was clear again. The look on their faces was priceless.

It was my friend Mikel's birthday the day I headed to Berlin, so I called him from the train and talked to him for a few minutes before my phone finally ran out of credit - which turns out to have been a slight annoyance the rest of the trip since I couldn't get a hold of anyone after that. I had started to get a cold in Munich, and so the whole train to Berlin I was sneezing and sniffling. Eventually, some old lady got on at some random stop and ended up having the seat reservaton right next to me. I think she was afraid of my germs because she scooted a little farther away from me when I kept sneezing. She was very polite, however, and offered me a tissue. I felt awkward since I was listening to music and was too intimidated to start a conversation, so I sat listening to my music and she did a crossword puzzle and ate little sandwiches that she had packed in her bag.

I was kind of excited to be in seat #13, my favorite number.

I arrived in the Berlin Hauptbahnhof and found my way to our hostel relatively easily. When I checked into the hostel, I found that once again the room we had booked was empty for the first night. Due to some confusion, I had thought that Ciara wasn't arriving until the next day, but a few hours later I got frantic text messages from her because her train from Paris to Berlin had broken down and she didn't speak any German so she had no idea what was going on. It turns out that they had to get off of the train and climb into a new train, via a ladder, before continuing. She informed me that she would be a few hours late, but to my surprise she was still getting into Berlin the same night as me, so I headed back to the train station to wait for her. By the time she got in, it was already semi-late, and seeing how we both had been up early and traveled all day, it's not so surprising that we went immediately back to the hostel and fell asleep.

Sledding down the man-made hill in Potsdamer Platz.

Ciara and I make a pretty laid-back tourist team, so I'm not sure how chronologically accurate the rest of these entries will be. The days tended to blur together a little bit because they weren't very structured, and I wrote in my diary less so it's harder for me to remember what we did on which days. We usually got a pretty easy start whenever we happened to wake up, and we would wander around, try to do a few things per day, and stop to eat or shop whenever we got too cold to stay outside anymore. I've never really experienced being a tourist in the winter time, so it turns out that a lot of it is just bouncing from place to place, hoping for heat. Our first day, we didn't do too much. We met up with my friend Nasko who is studying in Berlin at the moment. He introduced us to some of his friends and we all had some Indian food before wandering around Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Center for a little bit. Nasko was kind and patient enough to be like a mini-tour guide and bring us to cheap stores to stock up on stuff like travel-sized shampoo. Since we had met up with him pretty late in the day, we only got a few hours to chill with Nasko before he had to go, since he was heading to his sister's for Christmas the next day. So we ended our night at a Starbucks to get a little taste of Seattle, and then Ciara and I headed back to our hostel.

Me with Nasko - a friend of mine who was an exchange student at UW my freshman year.

Ciara and I with Nasko, our tourguide for the day.

We couldn't resist a little taste of Seattle while abroad.

The next day, Ciara and I spent just about the whole day at the zoo. Since Ciara works at the zoo back home, it was her request that we visit the zoos in Berlin and London, and since I'm all for cute, fuzzy animals, I had no problem with it. All zoos seem basically the same, but I forget how much I am intrigued by animals, so I actually ended up taking way more pictures than I thought. We walked around for a long time and looked at just about all the animals, including Knut the polar bear who was famous when he was born at the zoo a few years back. The odd thing is, despite being a polar bear, Knut is brown... I think maybe he was just really dirty or something, but we saw him before and thought he was a different bear, so we found the polar bear exhibit where there was a sign that told us to go back where we were to see Knut... it was disappointing, really... all this fuss for a polar bear who is brown. He probably just got tired of being so famous. The cool thing about the Berlin Zoo is that it has a ridiculously HUGE playground in the middle, and we really wanted to go play on it, but since there were kids and parents around, it felt kinda awkward so we settled for just taking pictures on a dolphin sculpture. If you want to see a slideshow of all the animal pictures, click here.

Los Angeles? We are seriously lost.

Knut, the mysteriously brown polar bear.

After the zoo, we decided to try to find the KaDeWe, which is essentially a gigantic department store. It's like the Harrod's of Germany. The only problem is that we didn't know exactly where it was, so we went off a hunch and wandered down the Kurfürstendamm, which is a big shopping street. In retrospect, I think we might have wandered in the wrong direction, but it didn't matter because it was so cold that we eventually decided that it wasn't worth it and we sought the warmth of the U-bahn. The next day, we decided to do some vintage shopping, so we found this store called The Garage, where I bought a pair of really amazing, boots for 20 euros. I'm really glad I did, actually, because not only are they cool looking, but it turns out that later on in the trip, everyone else was freezing except for me because I had these awesomely warm boots, which are covered in fur. We decided to go back to the hostel and try to look up the KaDeWe so that we could actually find it, but it turns out that it was closed after 2pm, so by the time we got back to our hostel to look up directions, it was already closed. And since it was Christmas Eve, it was obviously going to be closed the next day, but to my surprise it was also closed on the 26th, so we ended up not going to the KaDeWe at all.

A beautiful view of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche (Memorial Church) from the Berlin Christmas Market.

On Christmas Day, we got up in time to go catch a free walking tour, which started at the Brandenburg Gate. It was crazy because we didn't know that there were going to be so many people, and when we arrived, there was a veritable mob of people all taking a number and lining up, waiting for their tour to start. It was a very good tour, our guide was from Ireland and he was pretty funny and informative. We started at the Brandenburg Gate where he gave us a basic run down of all of Germany's history, and then we saw the Reichstag, the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, Hitler's Bunker, the Luftwaffe Headquarters, remnants of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie. After we saw Checkpoint Charlie, we had a half an hour lunch break, and upon entering the cafe, Ciara and I decided that it was too cold outside to continue with the tour. (A testament to the power of the boots - Ciara wanted to stop because her feet were freezing in her converse which, until I bought the boots, were the only kind of shoes I had. My feet were toasty warm.) So when the group got up to leave, I awkwardly told the guide that we weren't going to continue, and gave him all the change we could scrape together. He seemed slightly perturbed, you're not really supposed to drop out of these things halfway, and I'm sure that people usually give him more than we did, but there were plenty of other people in the group, so I didn't feel too bad.

Me in front of the Brandenburg Gate, getting ready for the walking tour.

Brandenburg Gate on Christmas Day - I'm proud of this picture because I took it while walking.

Inside the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It's eerie and moving.

After making sure the group had gone to avoid awkward run-ins, Ciara and I left the cafe we were at and decided to do a little bit of touring on our own. It was absolutely freezing, and the weather made a valiant effort to snow, but never really quite managed anything more than a few barely visible flakes before throwing in the proverbial towel. We wandered back towards Checkpoint Charlie, and stopped by the booth of a Russian man selling what was supposed to be 'antiques' from the Soviet Union... I haggled with him and bought a hat for Ciara for Christmas, and a gift for my sister and brother in law that I won't describe just in case they're reading this. Haggling with these guys is both entertaining and very easy. Last time I was in Berlin, I talked a guy down to ten euros for a 'soviet' pocket watch which I still have somewhere in one of my drawers at home. This time, I saw Ciara admiring the hat, and I knew what I wanted, and all I had to do was ask how much they were and then say "oh really?" and the guy automatically started lowering prices. He said that the hat alone was worth 40, and the other mystery item was worth 20, and the bag it came in was worth 10, but eventually with minimal effort on my part, I walked away with everything for 40 euros altogether. He even threw in some free 'soviet' pins to make it more authentic. You can find pictures of Ciara wearing her hat later on in the post about London.

Apparently, Hitler's bunker is about 10m underground here, and the only thing to mark it is this sign.

Me in front of some remnants of the Berlin Wall.

Me and my buddy, the Berlin Bear (not the fuzzy boots).

The rest of our Christmas Day was mostly spent wandering around, we sat in a Starbucks for a while, mostly for the warmth. We finally ended up at the Christmas Market at Alexanderplatz where we looked at ornaments and bought delicious sweets. There was also an ice-skating rink in Alexanderplatz, so we stood around and watched people skating for a bit. We wanted to go to the Galeria Kaufhof, since there's a huge one right on the Alexanderplatz, but unfortunately it was closed. So we eventually got too cold and headed back to our hostel, and then went in search of food. We had been told that there was a really good place to get kebabs nearby, so we asked the guy at the front desk where to find it, but it turns out that this guy was the master of vague directions, we ended up wandering around for twenty minutes, and went back to ask again. Upon arriving at the desk, the guy asked how our food was, and we told him we didn't find any. So he told us that the place was probably closed by then, but he recommended a really good pizza place that even we could find. So it turns out that Ciara and I had a delicious Christmas Dinner consisting of pizza and soda. When we went back to the hostel, I tried to call my family from the computer in our hostel that had Skype, and for some reason, my microphone wasn't working, despite the fact that I had used the same one to call my mom just the day before. So I didn't even really get to talk to my family on Christmas, but I did get to see and hear them, since my parents finally sprung for a webcam. So despite the fact that my Christmas was relatively relative-less, it was still pleasant and relaxed. In fact, upon reflection, that's the exact opposite of how Christmas usually is at our house.

The World Clock at Alexanderplatz. I love this clock because it reminds me of one of my favorite movies, "Good Bye, Lenin!"

Santa watching over Alexanderplatz with the TV Tower poking out in the background.

Our last day in Berlin was the 26th, and we had to check out by 10 in the morning but our plane didn't leave until about 11 at night. So we left our stuff in the luggage room at the hostel and took the train out to the suburb of Potsdam to see the Sans Souci Palace. I had been to Sans Souci with my exchange group when I was 16, and although I remember the palace very well, I must have completely forgotten the journey there because it was way longer than I thought. We took the S-bahn for almost 45 minutes Westward, and then once we got to the Potsdam Hauptbahnhof, we had to catch a bus. For some reason, my mind erased the entire memory of that when I was 16 and we had somehow arrived at Sans Souci magically and immediately.

Havin' a Mezzo Mix in the Potsdam Hauptbahnhof on our way to Sans Souci.

The first time I ever went to Berlin, my favorite part had been the Schloss Sans Souci. I remember it was July and we spent hours walking around in the beautiful gardens, looking at the statues, and we sat to put our feet in the fountain and watch the fish swim under them. Two of my favorite pictures from my trip in summer of 2004 are from Sans Souci, the first is a picture of one of the statues in the garden with the palace in the background, and this picture was used in our high school newspaper for a story about summer exchange trips. The second picture is a picture looking down at my feet in the water of the fountain, with streaks of orange under the water, the shadows of giant goldfish swimming underneath.

One of the aforementioned pictures, taken in July 2004. (I can't find the other one.)

Unfortunately, Sans Souci in December has a much different feeling than in July, it's almost somber. During the winter, all the statues are covered in bulky wooden boxes, and no fish were to be seen in the fountain, which now has a tiny perimeter around it so you can't sit on the edge. (Not that I'd want to dip my feet in there in the winter, anyway!) But despite the freezing cold, there were still a bunch of cheerful ducks paddling around in the water, so that cheered it up quite a bit. Despite the overcast sky and the biting cold, it's still a beautiful place. Ciara and I actually explored a little more than I remember seeing last time, we followed a few obscure pathways to find little hidden treasures like an old sealed up building surrounded by statues that weren't covered up. We tried our luck in the gift shop after we had thoroughly frozen ourselves, but to no avail. It turns out that the gift shop there is basically a hallway filled with merchandise, and when more than a few people try to fit in there, it gets hectic. So we abandoned ship and found our way to the warm sanctuary of the cafe across the street. After warming ourselves up with some hot chocolate, we headed back to the hostel, picked up our stuff, and trekked to the airport for our late night flight to London.

Freezing in front of Sans Souci.

Courageous ducks, swimming in the fountain in December.

Walking around in the gardens of Sans Souci.

I still think that Berlin is one of my favorite cities in the world. Every time I've been there, it's only been for a couple of days and upon leaving, I've felt like there's so much more I could've seen. It really has something for everyone, lots of history, lots of nightclubs, lots of awe-inspiring sights. If I ever improved my German enough to feel comfortable living in Germany, I'd pick Berlin for sure. Unfotunately, I didn't get a chance to see my good friend Peter who lives there, but luckly, this gives me a good excuse to go back sometime soon.

And as always, if you want to see a slideshow of the rest of my pictures from Berlin, click here.

Thanks so much for reading, and if you're interested in reading more about my trip, it continues in the next entry named London: December 26 - January 3.