Wandering Around Germany: Berlin

There is still a lot more to talk about in Rhineland-Pfalz, but today lets talk about the Deutsche Haupstadt, Berlin.

I’ll skip the account of multiple GPS debacles in favor of this photo of us eating french fries at the Hauptbahnhof at 10:00 at night:

We walked out the door and were greeted by a guy playing guitar and a bunch of people standing around. He was singing in English.

Then we made our way (on foot) back to the Gasthaus. I’ve honestly never felt so safe in my life. The city was quiet, although there were few people here and there as we made the half hour trip back to the Mauerpark area (the old Wall was literally right outside our guest house). As we walked I felt like I was drinking in the city. When we arrived at our room, we got ready for bed and I was in tears knowing that we had one day left on our trip, and only one day to spend in this amazing place that I had originally been somewhat apprehensive about.

Why was I apprehensive about it? I guess I had pictured Berlin to be a place that was fraught with poverty, racial tension and, like many capital cities, an overwhelming sense of chaos, noise and confusion in general.

While I’m sure those things exist, that was no longer my perception of Berlin. Sure, there are poorer areas that we did not have the opportunity to explore (we did enter the city in Wedding, which is one of the historically poorer districts), but the city seemed safe and well ordered, as you would expect any German city to be. It was peaceful. And as we walked through the streets at night, it was even quiet.

Like many major metropolitan areas, Berlin is extremely diverse. I’ve ready many times that the German capital is not very German. In some ways this may be true, but it didn’t strike me as vastly different from other parts of Germany that also have a wide diversity of peoples and languages. I heard many different languages in Munich, for example.

Berlin does have the largest Turkish population in the world outside of Turkey itself. That has given way to a major German street food tradition called Döner. I found this ersatz recipe from German Girl in America, which is quite good, but you haven’t had Döner until you’ve had it in Germany! It has permeated every German City and many towns, so by the time we arrived in Berlin we didn’t feel the need to have it again, but I’m quite sure this is where to get the best.

We did, however, have Currywurst. It’s not hard to make at home. Apparently you just mix curry in with your ketchup and spread it over a white Bratwurst.

For the 36 hours we spent there, I certainly felt like I became intimately acquainted with this storied city. “You can go to many places in Europe and see a beautiful city, but when you go to Berlin you see an incredible amount of history which took place in a very short period of time.” I can’t take credit for that sentiment: it came from our tour guide, Tom. An expat from Ohio who immediately finished my sentence when I said “We’re from Roch–,” he’s been living in Germany for over 20 years and has definitely become a European. Further, he probably knows the ins and outs of the city better than most Berliners.

Here are some highlights from our only day in Berlin, and our fabulous tour:

We ended up in a small tour group of about six people including our guide. He started off the tour by sitting us down on the bank of the Spree and giving us an extended explanation of German history dating back centuries. While I’ve been busy immersing myself in German history for over a year and a half now, he has decades of study under his belt and yet synthesized it in an animated, fascinating, humorous, and yet respectful way, helping us to understand the Germans better as a people group.

Because of the not-so-distant past (which was little more than 12 years out of two thousand years of history) Germans have learned to tread lightly when it comes to being proud of who they are. But truly, theirs is a vast and rich history, much of which is overlooked by outsiders, yet should not be.

Not only did we take a walking tour that became far more than we paid for and ended in us taking our tour guide out to lunch, we opted for going around on foot instead of trying to figure out the public transportation system. I may have gotten lost and taken us on a very roundabout route back to the Brandenburger Tor, but it was nice to get to see more of the city. Unfortunately, when we did circle back, we were prevented from getting a decent shot of the Gate by a routine cleaning…

We’d have to come back later. Continuing our zig zagging through Berlin, we decided to spend a couple of hours at the Topographie des Terrors (besides the Mauer, this was the one thing I had pinpointed wanting to see as I cut down our time in the Hauptstadt by 3 days in favor of lingering at other locations. I don’t regret giving up time in Berlin, it just encourages me to come back.)

The Topographie is a former Gestapo and SS headquarters that was excavated and preserved as a place of teaching. There is an immense research library that I did not have time to visit, but also indoor and outdoor exhibits. My poor husband, who was exhausted by this time, spent a good deal of time sitting at a table in the cafe figuring out the best way to get from our guest house to the airport the next morning since we’d already turned in our rental car. I walked around the exhibit some more.

We also passed a parking lot full of old Trabants which deserves mention. For those who don’t know, the Trabant was the iconic East German car.

A section of the Wall also exists adjacent to the Topographie.

When we finally headed back to the Brandenburg Gate, thank God, our timing was perfect. And I do mean perfect ❤️

Alas, I wanted to save time for the Wall, and therefore, we headed back toward our Gasthaus and spent some time in the park across the street. It was very surreal to walk so easily through a place where you could have once been shot for trying to do so.

I long for Berlin. I am sure that part of it is because I have been reading a book that is set in Berlin in 1961, the year the Wall went up. Recently, I read a scene that takes place at the Soviet War Memorial. I remembered so vividly standing right in the midst of that memorial, then walking back through the Gate, and down Unter den Linden. If you know me, you know I started tearing up.

If you want to familiarize yourself with this part of history, I highly recommend this book:

Berliners is written with young adults in mind but it is captivating for an adult reader, and it is well-researched. The author also included some of her beautiful illustrations. I’m only about halfway through but I’ve been enjoying an online book club with the author and about ten other people where we talk about it in depth. It has been of great value. She presents history with honesty through the lives of two teenage boys, Rudi and Peter, as well as examining the past through the lives of the parents of their parents, Rudolf and Ilse, who met during the final days of the Third Reich. This book was just released in October and I believe it’s going to be hugely successful.

I mentioned Wedding earlier. As I said, we didn’t take time in that part of the city. It has always been a poor area, and was even a slum back in the early part of the last century. From what I’ve read, and feel free to correct me if I’m way off, it sounds like it is experiencing a little bit of urban revival because rent is cheap and younger professionals are able to afford to move in, and others come in to start businesses.

I don’t know if this would be a place conducive to starting a little coffee/tea shop, but allow me to indulge while I fantasize about renting a space and doing just that, including a little stage where people can play music and read poetry. Maybe I would name it CofTea (or KafTee) like I used to talk about with my Uncle Kevin. Maybe we could have a little language club where people could practice their English. Oh, and a corner for a little church to meet, a la the Gemeinde in The Prodigal Sons, although not in a living room…

But I digress. Thank you for indulging me. Moving to Germany may not be in the plan, but returning is.

Until next time, readers! Auf wiedersehen!