Have Holiday, Will Travel

...sounds like a good philosophy to me! :-)

Mid-November rolled around and a random Czech holiday had nearly snuck up on me. November 17th is The Struggle For Freedom & Independence holiday here in CR, and this year it fell on a Friday. My classes for Thursday had also been cancelled, so this left our young protagonist with a very rare and precious 4-day weekend. What’s a boy to do when he’s got four days off from work and no prior commitments?

He goes to Berlin, that’s what he does! ;-)

I’ve got a good friend who I hadn’t seen in ages living in Berlin, and with the German capital being only a short 5-hour train ride away from Prague, this was an opportunity too good to give up. For all of you committed h-core bloggies, you’ll remember my friends Clara and Maddie – two German girls that I met during my hellish 3-day journey by land from rural remote northern Laos to middle-of-nowhere Vietnam last August during Project Wanderlust. Well I’ve stayed in touch with the girls, and Clara was very kind to offer up her place for me to say. Woohoo!

I boarded the train at Hlavni Nadrazi (Czech for ‘Main Station’) and thoroughly enjoyed the ride to Berlin. The train journey was smooth and very relaxing – and also very scenic. The whole leg from Prague to the Czech/German border followed along the winding Vltava River in a steep valley, and I was awarded with fine river views on this beautiful day. Crossing the border was a breeze, and with two more stamps added into my passport (Score! Let’s rack ‘em up! My brand new passport is far too empty and virgin-like…) I crossed into Deutschland just like that. The rest of the ride was through flat countryside, but it was very green and serene. And full of way-cool wind farms!

On a side note, you may be interested to know that Germany is one of Europe’s leaders in providing alternative sources of energy for its citizens. I saw literally dozens upon dozens of huge wind mills all along the way – quite graceful and pretty in their own way, if you ask me – and it was inspiring to see a country be so dedicated to renewable energy. I wish that the Czech Republic – and Canada for that matter! – put more of an effort into green energy. Go Germany!

The journey to Berlin may have been smooth and peaceful, but my arrival was not. Prior to departing Prague, I had made arrangements with Clara to meet her at Zoo Station. Berlin’s got several large train stations throughout the city, and not knowing which one my train would arrive in, we chose the mainish station that was most convenient for her. Well you know what they say about ‘best-laid plans’ and all that jazz…

The train rolled into Huptbaunhof – Berlin’s brand spanking new Central Station (why hadn’t we thought of meeting here?? Oh the irony of logic sometimes!) Clara was not in sight, and I was not able to reach her on my mobile (which had ceases operational status upon entry in Germany). So, being the intrepid and independent traveller that I am, I thought I’d be uber-savvy and find my own way to Zoo Station to meet her. Zoo Station was only three stops away on the S-Bahn (an elevated train, quite similar to Vancouver’s SkyTrain) and on the way there I was so proud of myself for finding my own there and figuring out the colourful snakes-and-ladders network that is Berlin’s mass transit. Sometimes I’m so clever I even impress myself!

Hmmm…don’t be so quick to pat yourself on the back, Scotty!

I arrived at Zoo and was slightly confused when I couldn’t find Clara there either. Turns out that she had realized our station mix-up quite a while before I did, and had gone to the Central Station to meet me! Somehow in the chaos of the station we didn’t see each other on the platform, and thinking that I had accidentally stayed on the train, she hopped on the s-Bahn herself to chase the train to one of Berlin’s northern stations. And, unsurprisingly, couldn’t find Scotty there either!

It was at this point that I decided to swallow the bitter pill of defeat and attempt to use a German public phone to give Clara a ring. This proved to be more difficult than I anticipated, and was only successful I garnering angry recorded messages from the German Operator Lady. Hmmm….now what?

After receiving some rather confusing instructions from the young boy working at the station’s info desk, I gave the payphone another go and this time it worked. A relieved Clara instructed me very specifically to meet her at the McDonald’s at Zoo and to not go anywhere else, and so that I did.

Twenty minutes later Clara showed up, and it was so wonderful to see her. She looked so fresh and clean and stylish – quite a contrast from the last time I saw her, where we had been awake all night on a god-awful tourist bus in Vietnam, and lord knows when we had last showered at that point… It’s a wonder what giving someone a shower, some make-up, and putting them in fashionable non-backpacker clothes can do to change one’s appearance!

Clara then brought me to her English class at Berlin Free University where she studies Business. It was pretty cool actually – her fellow students were all very bright and friendly, and had an excellent command of English. I was a bit of a ‘special guest’, and got to mix and mingle with the students while they were working in their discussion groups. Cool stuff. Both of us felt pretty beat, so after class went back to Clara’s for some pizza delivery and crashed early.

The next day was a fantastic and fun-filled day! Clara had school all day so this gave Scotty the chance to take another stab at being the intrepid, independent traveller. I dusted off my ‘Scotty Takes On Berlin’ cap and headed out for a full day in the city all on my own.

Berlin turned out to be a truly fabulous city, and won me over immediately. Berlin is not at all what you would expect. Most people I know have images of the German capital as being this somewhat boring, stuffy, grey, dirty, concrete Communist sprawl, lacking the sparkle and glitter of other European capitals. Well, those images are completely wrong. Berlin may have had shades of those stereotypes at one time, but certainly not now. Berlin is a city that has come so far in such a short time. The city is a true survivor, and has reinvented itself a number of times. Left completely devastated and in total ruin after The Second World War, the city has managed to pull the pieces back together, and become one of the continent’s – no, the world’s – most cosmopolitan, vibrant, and dynamic urban centres. Berlin may have been bombed to hell and burnt to the ground, fought over and ripped apart, divided and split, conquered and liberated, shattered apart and torn to shreds thanks to the woes and whims of war and larger powers, but the city, like a phoenix rising out of the ashes (such a cliché, I know, but completely and perfectly appropriate for here) has been reborn as something new. Berlin may still have many scars left from her past, but she now wears them with honour, proud of what she’s become, and determined to move on – but never forget- her terrible past.

Sprinkled with as many modern architectural wonders as historical treasures, Berlin is a grand city with wide, sweeping boulevards, beautiful monuments from times past, enough world-class museums to rival London or Paris, an exciting nightlife that could keep pace with New York, and more greenery than almost any other European capital. Determined to see as much of this grandeur as I could, I set out on an ambitious agenda.

Beginning with a morning walk along the river, I ended up at Reischstag – the German parliament and Berlin’s most popular landmark. The Reischstag is a microcosm of Berlin herself. Having been burnt and destroyed in fires and war, the building received a new lease on life when Berlin was made the capital again after reunification, and reconstructed with a truly magnificent glass and steel dome designed by world-famous starchitect Sir Norman Foster. The dome offers stunning vistas of the whole city, and I took more pictures of the dazzling dome than I dare count.

Just a stone’s throw from the Reischstag is the Brandenburg Gate – Berlin’s other mega-popular landmark. The Brandenburg has somehow managed to escape war and division relatively unscathed, even with the fact that the Berlin Wall curtained her off from the West just a few metres away. With The Wall having been torn down, The Gate has regained her status as a central focal point for the city.

I took a few pictures here, and then turned around to see a – be still my beating heart – a real, honest-to-goodness Starbucks. Oh there is a god! Prague is sadly sans-Starbucks, and after my six-month employment stint for the corporate giant earlier this year, I’ve become quite addicted – and therefore in constant caramel macchiato withdrawal here in the Czech Republic. Well, some addictions you never give up, and this is one I was ready to jump back into, headfirst. And Oh My God did my cara-mac ever taste sinfully delicious! It was like the milk, espresso, vanilla, and caramel were having some kind of coffee orgy in my mouth. Oh please don’t stop now, oh yeah, that’s the spot. Mmmm….

After my defuckinglicious coffee treat I was tempted to have a cigarette, but passed up on the urge. Instead I made my way to Potsdamer Platz, another prime example of the city’s determination to rebuild. Potsdamer Platz was Europe’s busiest square – and one of Berlin’s poshest addresses – until WW2 came along. The square was blown apart and completely wiped off the map during the bombing, and then when the city was divided up by the powers that be, Potsdamer became a hellish no-man’s land where no one dared venture - unless they had a death wish. After reunification, Berlin was left with an urban wasteland right in the middle of the city, a disgusting blank space of an eyesore – and an urban planning opportunity like no other. The city took this chance to completely redesign a whole new old neighbourhood from scratch. Determined to make Potsdamer Platz the place to be again, PP was turned into Europe’s largest construction site. Fastforward a decade or so and today you’re left with an exciting, glittering, modern square full of offices and shops, parks and fountains, classy hotels, designer boutiques, and a full range of cafes and restaurants. And most importantly, people – lots and lots of people. Life has returned to PP in a big way, and no visit to Berlin is complete without a visit to this still-growing neighbourhood. Given my urban planning academic past, my pulse quickened upon nearing the square, and I spent a good part of the day just wandering around, taking it all in.

After Potsdamer I wandered around the city for a while longer, before making my way to Museum Island. Museum Island is just that – a small island in the river that is chock full of museums, all of which are large, gorgeous, and overflowing with paintings, sculptures, archaeological artefacts from every corner of the globe, and anything and everything else one would hope to find in a museum. I’m not sure how many museums there are in total, but the whole area now remains under the protection of UNESCO. I could only choose to visit one, and so I chose the grand-daddy of all museums – the Pergamon. The Pergamon is an archaeologist’s dream, and is full of antiquities from the world-over. It’s also mind-blowingly large, and in two hours I only had enough time to cover a small part of it. I took full advantage of the self-guided listening tour, and felt myself being drawn back in time as I meandered through the Ancient Greece wing. It was amazing!

I sadly had to depart the Pergamon much earlier than I would have liked (one could easily spend days and days there) and went to meet up with Clara at the Central Station again. We were meeting there cause Maddie, the third point in our lil German lovenest triangle, was coming in from Bremen to visit us for the weekend. After our happy reunion, we dropped off Maddie’s stuff at the flat and then went out for a delicious Persian dinner. Later on we met up with two of Clara’s schoolmates at a hot new nightclub, Magnet, for drinks and dancing. Magnet’s a rock club, and the five of us had quite a few beers and danced our asses off to the big rock hits. Good times had by all. I felt completely exhausted by the time we left, and it took forever and a day to get back to the flat. When we finally did I crashed and slept like the dead.

Clara and I woke up like around noon and so therefore had quite a late start to the day. When we finally dragged our butts out of the house we decided to go hang around Kurfurstendamm, or Kudamm as the locals call it. The Kudamm is a shopping mecca, and was absolutely packed with weekend shoppers when we were there. At the top end of Kudamm, near Zoo Station, is one of Berlin’s other more famous landmarks. It is here that lie the ruins of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtniskirche, or Memorial Church. This was one of Berlin’s largest places of worship prior to the war. The church was hit directly during a bombing raid, but only partially destroyed. The skeletal remains of the church have been left standing untouched as a war memorial – and a reminder to all about some of the horrors of the city’s not-so-distant past. A very sobering and haunting landmark looming high over such a blatantly consumerist shopping area.

We also went to go and check out Checkpoint Charlie, which is in another area of the city. Checkpoint Charlie was one of the gates of the Berlin Wall where troops could pass between the two sides, and it was near here where many people tried to escape over the wall. Not a lot of the actual site remains, but nearby is a small but remarkable museum dedicated to the struggles that people had in trying to get out, by any means possible, of East Berlin. Some of the stories of creative ways that people tried to escape were quite unbelievable, ranging from digging long tunnels under the wall, to having secret compartments in cars for smuggling passengers, to families building their own hot air balloons to sail over the border into safe countries. We met up with Maddie later on and went to a birthday party of a friend of Clara’s. It was a Mexican restaurant and we enjoyed our meal while delving into some pretty deep philosophical conversations over dinner. We stayed til quite late and the headed home to sleep.

The next day, Sunday, was my last in town, and we decided to take it pretty easy. We went out for lunch to have kebaps – Persian meaty wrap-like things – quite tasty! We wandered around some cool neighbourhoods not far from the station, and Clara showed me some more traditional German hofs – small courtyard-like squares built inside buildings – that Berlin is known for. We of course made time for a Starbucks break, and then it was time for me to catch my train. I said goodbye to the lovely Clara and then enjoyed the quiet ride back to Prague. It was dark most of the way but a nice journey nonetheless.

I arrived back in Prague around 9:30pm at night and it was time to head home. Back to work tomorrow…bummer! But, it was truly a wonderful holiday, and I’d love to go back to Berlin again sometime. In my four days there I only touched a small part of the city’s sights, and I’d love to see more. And I absolutely love the fact that I am now living in a part of the world where for long weekends I get to go to cool places like Berlin! It sure as hell beats weekend trips to Duluth or Nipigon! Haha! ;-) I wonder where I’ll end up on the next long weekend?

And oh yeah, photos will follow soon! And there'll be a lot. A LOT.