Spencer's Semester Abroad: Berlin (January 6th-January 8th)

This past weekend my friend Jake, Chris, and I decided to take our first trip outside the UK. Since we were waiting for our friends to arrive in a few other cities and since none of us knew people in Germany anyway, we picked Berlin as our destination. As soon as we landed there was definite culture shock. The airport had messages coming over the loud speaker in German and it just sounded like someone yelling at you all the time. As soon as we got in the cab, I had to show the driver the address of our hostel since none of us could pronounce it. The cab driver was a big German dude with two hooped earrings. He barely spoke English so he would say a few random buzzwords and then look back at us. We just sat their, smiling and nodding but not understanding a word.

We stayed at the EastSeven hostel. The area around the hostel was not the most inviting. There were blocked type buildings with graffiti everywhere in sight. When we walked in the hostel, the reception area was like a blast from the past. But luckily, we reserved a private room for the three of us, which ended up being pretty nice. We put our stuff down and began to wander the city in search of food before a taking a tour. After walking around for a few minutes, I realized that although the entire area looked really shitty, it wasn’t dangerous. There were a ton of restaurants and stores, and we must have past a dozen moms pushing babies around in strollers. We only later learned that our hostel was located in East Berlin, which was under the Soviets control. Since the wall was only torn down in 1989, there was still plenty of evidence its former days.

A little later, we joined a walking tour in English led by Theo, our Australian tour guide. There were a ton of students from the US, Australia, and Canada on this particular tour. The tour ended up being really interesting and a great way to spend the day. The only downside was that it was absolutely freezing. Just by walking through, Berlin really did prove to be a fascinating place with a ton of history. The architecture and buildings were amazing. According to Theo, Berlin has more museums than Paris and London combined. After getting a brief overview of Germany’s recent, dark history (WWII to present), we got a much better feel for Berlin and why it is the way it is. Before this visit, I definitely felt that Germany would want to avoid talking about and acknowledging the Holocaust, but it was very apparent that Germany owned up to its history and had tons of memorials and places commemorating the people they massacred.

After the walking tour on the first day, we went on a pub-crawl later that night. The guy who led the crawl was a small, weird, long-haired German who wore suspenders and a hoodie. The crawl started a normal pub where we tried German beer. The second stop on the journey was an Absinthe Bar, where we tried two different types (180 proof and 90 proof). At this bar, I actually met two guys who went to Maine South and had friends at Wash U and at the Cass Business School. Small World.

After that, we went to a rock club called Dazzle. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was blaring heavy metal in German, as if their language wasn’t angry enough.

Finally, we moved on to the next bar called the “Last Cathedral” which instantly surpassed dazzle as the worst moment in my life. The Last Cathedral was a Goth club. If you can imagine this, imagine terrible music you don’t understand in a black club with skeletons, black dildos, tombstones, etc. for decorations. The clientele, minus the people on our pub-crawl, wore all black, chains, holes in shirts, weird makeup. I’ve never felt so uncomfortable. The three of us stood, in our peacoats and scarves in the corner of the bar, pinned up against the wall and avoiding everyone’s eye contact. Lastly we went to a club in a formerly bombed out warehouse district. But having been so traumatized by the Goth club, we left very quickly.

The other thing that shocked me about Berlin was just how much influence America has seen to have on it. For every sign that there was in German, there was also one in English. Everywhere we went we were able to communicate and get by just speaking English. There were American companies all over the place; our music was in all the pubs/clubs.

Intersection near our hostel

Telekom Tower (Alexanderplatz)

We saw this Apple store with a shattered door, pretty nerve-racking to start

Jewish Cemetery

When we saw this cracked tombstone, I was peering in it when Chris threw his hands on my shoulders. It scared the shit out of me.

Old Jewish Synagogue

Standing on the bridge to museum island overlooking the Berlin Dome Cathedral

Soldiers memorial

Bullet holes from the Battle of Berlin on the war memorial

Berlin is constructing a ton of new buildings like this to make them fit in and look older than they really are

Memorial for the women and children of victims of fallen soldiers

Frederick the Great (little Fritzy)

Checkpoint Charlie

Berlin Wall Museum

Everything in German has the word Die in it. So cynical.

Topography of Terrors. Formerly where the Gestapo Headquarter was, now a Holocaust Museum

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall in the Background

Holocaust Memorial

In the middle of the Holocaust Memorial, the columns are close together so only one person can walk through at a time, its isolated and dark. These make you feel alone, which was the architects intention to commemorate the Holocaust victims.