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I arrived at Wombat's Hostel in Berlin at noon on Friday, dropped my luggage off, and took a long walk around the city. I didn't know where anything was but saw the huge GDR television tower in the near distance, so I headed that way. As I walked I came across a variety of street artists and musicians followed by a very alternative crowd that was already sloshed from day drinking. I met a bulldog on a skateboard which made me laugh out loud. Then I discovered a series of trampolines embedded in the pavement upon which I gleefully bounced.
I arrived in Alexanderplatz, where the Christmas market was being built, and entered St. Marienkirche. It appears as old as the churches in any other European city, but most of Berlin was destroyed in the Second World War so any sense of ancient architecture here is mostly facade. For dinner I went to a restaurant across the street from the hostel called Good Morning Vietnam. When it gets crowded they seat single people together, so I had my meal with a local Berliner of few English words but with a friendly disposition. Back at the hostel I met my bunkmates, three men and a woman all from Greece, but traveling in pairs; the pairs had just met each other too.
The man and woman traveling together were very friendly and made an effort to speak in English to include me in conversation. The other men didn't seem to speak much English or perhaps just didn't care to communicate with me, but clearly understood me when I spoke to them. We had a private bathroom in a 6 bed heated dorm at $13.84 per night. I went to sleep around 1am, and woke up briefly in the night to see our room a haze of combined tobacco and marijuana smoke as music blasted and my toasted bunkmates merrily sang along. We all woke up around noon the next day, although clearly their excuse for sleeping late is better than mine! I got dressed quickly and headed out to the Brandenburg Gate to catch a free tour of the city.
The tour guide took us to see many of the major historical sites of the city, including the nondescript parking lot directly above Hitler's suicide bunker, the Reichstag building, town hall, Humboldt University (site of the first nazi book burning), a couple of old palaces, the last standing nazi building, a memorial stretch of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie (a tourist trap), Memorial to the Jews of Berlin, the Berlin Cathedral, Neue Wache (a memorial to loss in war), and much more. On the tour I met Lorenzo from Seattle, and afterward we went to a cafe to warm up. He told me about what it was like to arrive in Paris two days after the terrorist attack. He considered changing his travel plans when the attack happened, but decided that no place has more intense protective security than directly after a terrorist attack. He was sitting in a cafe enjoying a drink when the quiet was pierced by sounds of explosion, and the windows of the cafe shattered. Everyone ran to the bathroom where they huddled together in the dark, crying and hushing each other in case an attacker was nearby. As it turned out, some idiots had thrown firecrackers at the cafe just to rile people up. Clearly, someone had a sick sense of humor.
By the time I got back to my hostel, my Grecian roommates had woken up and were ready to go out partying again. They asked if I'd come with them, but I wasn't much in the mood. I took a shower as they got ready to go. They were gone when I emerged from the shower, and right as I was about to climb onto my top bunk I noticed a small brown speck scurrying across my comforter. BEDBUG!!!!
I squealed, smushed it, and wrapped it in a square of toilet paper. I brought it down to the front desk, where I plopped it down and named it. "Oh no," said the receptionist. He gave me a key to a new room, and advised that I not go to my new room until I treat all of my belongings for bugs in the dryer. He said the hostel would pay for me to wash and dry everything, and apologized for the inconvenience.
When I got back to the room, the Greek men were lighting one up. I told them about the bedbug and they showed me their bite marks. We talked about it and concluded that we may as well sleep there that night and treat our stuff tomorrow so we wouldn't contaminate our new rooms. I fell into an uneasy sleep, and when I awoke the next day I found about 30 swollen, oozing, painful bites all over my body.
I spent the better part of the next day going through my stuff and dealing with my laundry. Anything that couldn't be washed in the machine I spilled into a big plastic garbage bag: my art supplies, toiletries, makeup, medicine. Everything else went into the washer and dryer. I knew that it takes 90 minutes at 118 degree heat to kill the bugs, and the dryer only went for 45 minutes, so I put everything through twice. My backpack didn't fit, so the front desk agreed to heat it and freeze it the following day.
I was stuck at the hostel as my laundry went through because all my coats were in there, and it was cold outside. Finally I was hungry enough to brave the cold and run across the street to Good Morning Vietnam, where I had a bowl of very mediocre pho. While I ate it started snowing- my first time seeing snow fall- and after my meal I had to run back through it in my flimsy t-shirt with no coat. When all my stuff was done in the laundry and I had finished switching rooms, I threw on my coat and went for a long walk to enjoy the snow.
At this point, my foot was in a lot of pain and it hurt badly to walk. The day I arrived in Berlin, I developed a nasty blister between my toes. I had ignored it up until now that the blister was lined with a dark bruise that extended halfway down the top of my foot. As I walked I leaned on the outside of my foot to try to avoid putting pressure on the blister.
The next morning I would wake up with painful tendinitis in my left leg for compensating my gait that way for several days. But in the moment I only had the blister and the bedbug bites, so I was blissfully unaware of the impending tendinitis. I tried to let go of the itchiness and just enjoy the snow flakes falling on my head. It was absolutely beautiful outside as the bare trees shimmered with water droplets, and the television tower turned white with frost. As I stuck out my tongue to try to catch a snowflake, I passed by a child doing the same, and we put our tongues back in our mouths long enough to smile at each other.
Back at the hostel I met my new roommates. I had been moved to the "Pink Wing" for women only. The women in my room were from Australia, England, Chile, Greece, and Korea, and they were all traveling solo. We talked about where we've been and where we're going, our favorite places so far and those places where we've felt less safe to be alone. That night I found myself unable to sleep. The bedbug bites were swelling into ever larger weeping welts that burned and itched, and my leg was starting to throb with pain from tendinitis.
I stayed up so late that it became early. I watched the sun rise through the clouds, and took advantage of the budget breakfast at the hostel. German breakfast buffets (I had it in Leipzig too) consist of a variety of hearty breads, a platter of meats and cheese, tomatoes and cucumbers. After having breakfast that tasted like lunch, I went back to the room and sat on the bed for what was meant to be just a few minutes. I woke up at 4:00pm to hear one of my roommates quietly ask another, "do you think it will wake her up if I turn the light on?" The other replied "It should be okay because the sun just went down; it was light in here all day anyway."
I sat up in bed, surprised that I had slept until sundown, and told the girls to go ahead and turn on the light. I explained that I sleep like a bear in hibernation anyway, and that they could practically have a rave while I'm sleeping without it bothering me. I asked if I had been sleep talking, because I had had some really strange and vivid dreams. They told me I had been mumbling for the past hour or so, and asked what I dreamt about. I recalled my dream of becoming possessed, coloring my entire face with a black eyeliner pencil, my little brother (I don't have one in real life) being kidnapped, and it ended with me swinging from a chandelier. Welcome to my bizarre mind.
The moment I became conscious, my bug bites started burning and throbbing again. I decided I needed to go to the pharmacy and get something to help with the itch, and to eat so I could take Advil for my leg. The front desk gave me money to buy cream for the bites. When I asked for cream for bites at the local apothek, the lady on duty had no idea what I meant. I pantomimed scratching and she looked confused, so I tried acting out bugs crawling and biting, which left her totally stumped. Finally I pulled down my collar and showed her the row of bites along my neck, to which she said "OHHH" and handed me lotion for the itch.
The Christmas Market had just opened that day, so I headed over there for my first Christmas Market experience. The environment was bustling with holiday cheer. Children rode on kiddy-rides; adults consumed hot liquor; street musicians played holiday tunes; ice skaters glided around; vendors happily sold their holiday wares. I went to a hot food stand where the menu was all in German. I tried asking what something was but the lady didn't understand me, so I chose a menu item at random. I carefully tried to pronounce it in my best German accent, including Bitte und Danke (please and thank you). Some young German girls behind me in line giggled at my terrible pronunciation.
I turned out to have ordered pork goulash with noodles, which was not what I would have chosen, but it was pretty good. I decided to try some hot eggnog (eirspunsch) afterward because I've only tried it once in my life, but it was super strong and I could only manage to drink a few sips. I walked around for a while, watched the ice skaters, and looked around the shops. Finally when it became too difficult not to scratch the bites under my clothing anymore, I decided to head back to the hostel.
Back at the hostel I showered, changed to pajamas, put lotion on my very painful bites, and face-timed my mom. There's something about seeing my mother's face when I'm going through even a minor hardship that makes me regress in a way. Whenever I'm sick or sad and feeling sorry for myself, I utterly ache for my mother to take care of me. I've been living on my own for 7 years, so I've obviously learned how to stay strong and take care of myself. Maybe it sounds bratty that here I am living the travel dream, and still manage to feel sorry for myself from time to time. But this is the record of my journey, and that is how I felt.
My mother (bless her heart) advised that I put Neosporin on my bug bites and blisters. Neosporin is an antibiotic cream that my mom has used for any ailment for as long as I can remember. For those of you who have watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," my mother is about Neoporin the way that father is about Windex. I put it on my wounds, not expecting it to make much of a difference, wiped away the tears in my eyes, and said goodbye.
As I got off the phone, my Greek bunkmate said she was headed to the hostel's pub upstairs and asked if I wanted to join her. I was about to say no because I was already in PJ's and feeling pathetic. But I had spent all day sleeping, and I knew that only I could force myself out of my funk by changing my attitude. I agreed, quickly got dressed, and we headed upstairs together.
We got free beers with coupons from the hostel, and sat down to talk and drink. Eliz got her Master's Degree in American Literature, so we spent a while discussing our favorite authors, politics, and the eerie overlap between literature and politics (for example, George Orwell's 1984 in comparison to the GDR Stasi). As I had hoped, this small outing did the trick to start pulling me out of my funk. And as my mom predicted, the Neosporin had already begun to reduce the swelling of my worst blistering bites.
The next morning I woke up late (are you noticing a pattern yet?). My Australian bunkmate Amy and I decided to go out together to the Topography of Terror museum. The museum was very intense. It took an in depth look at some of the evil masterminds at the top ranks of the nazi party without going too deep into the actual atrocities they committed. I was especially disheartened to see that so few of them served more than a few years prison sentence. It felt to me that the nazis were much better commemorated at this museum than there was respect paid to their victims.
In any case, I was grateful not to have done the museum on my own as planned. It was nice to have someone to talk about it afterward, and Amy proved to be great company. We saw the memorial for the homosexuals killed in the holocaust, which was a small dark structure with a little window. When you peer through the window you see a short film of two attractive men kissing, on repeat. I found it interesting that you can't see the image inside until you step right up to it. It was a public display of affection hidden away. I hypothesized about the meaning of this, and of the memorial for the Jews of Berlin which I saw next.
The memorial for the Jews consists of a city block filled with 2,711 concrete slabs of uniform length and width but varying height that starts low and rises high toward the center. Even though I was there with Amy, all I had to do was turn a corner and I felt completely alone, all except for the comforting click-clack of her suede boots. After that we walked along the street, through Paris Plaza (which has a memorial of fresh flowers and candles for the recent attacks) to Brandenburg Gate. On our way back to the hostel we stopped for hot chocolate and a nice long talk about all we had seen that day.
The next day I went with Eliz to the East Side Gallery. It's the longest standing stretch of Berlin Wall, which has been painted over by 20 international artists in the years 1990 and 2009. This is the landmark that I was perhaps most excited to see on my Eurotrip. I was surprised when I arrived to see that the wall is plagued by illegal tagging, such as huge spray painted silver bubble-letters masking the beautiful and famous murals. The city put up a fence apparently in the past week or so as a measure to prevent this, but really it's too late- the damage is done- and the fence just adds a 4D layer to the eyesore. People had said that the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen would be the most disappointing tourist attraction, but perhaps because of how much I built it up, I was most disappointed by this stretch of wall. The Little Mermaid at least exists as the artist envisioned her, whereas the East Side Gallery artists' work has been destroyed by thoughtless vagabonds. Again, I was glad not to be alone. It was nice to discuss it with Eliz rather than just shake my head and mutter to myself.
After the wall we went to Kulturbrauerei, which Steffen (from Leipzig) had recommended as similar to Spinnerei. We saw a couple of free art galleries there and enjoyed an afternoon cappuccino. Then we checked out the Lucia Christmas Market, which features Scandinavian kiosks. Later that night I went to a carnival themed Christmas market by the GDR Television Tower. I went on the Ferris wheel to get a good view of the city, and it was beautiful. I also enjoyed a very delicious cup of apfelpunsch, which is basically alcoholic hot apple cider, and a mandarin orange dipped in white chocolate. I've never been so much in the Christmas spirit!
I started my day on Thursday by heading to the central train station to get my tickets for the next few cities. In total it looks like I'll use my rail pass only six times, so the amount I paid for the pass averages out to $67 per ride, and I don't think any of the trains I've taken were that expensive. So it was a waste of money, but I guess it at least gave me some feeling of security months ago when I was planning my trip, for whatever that's worth.
I went from the train station to Orienburgerstraße, which was the old Jewish quarter that now has a bunch of cool street art. I checked out the art as I walked to the New Synagogue. I figured I've been in 20 churches by this point, so it was only fitting for me to go to a synagogue now too. The synagogue was protected by three police officers at the front. They kept their eye on me as I took a picture before following an elderly couple through the doors. Upon entering, one must put all their belongings through a metal detector. As it turned out, it was not a synagogue at all, just a museum. Apparently it used to be a synagogue before the war but now only the facade remains, and they never rebuilt the prayer room. I wasn't going to pay to see a fake synagogue, so I moved on.
At 2:30pm I caught the alternative street art tour from Brandenburg Gate. We learned about the local street artists to look out for in Berlin, and once you know what to look for, you can recognize the art everywhere. There was even one artist that tour guide told us about who we saw painting a new piece 20 minutes later down a side-street. This tour was one of the best things I did in Berlin, but I think it is better described through pictures than words, so I'll leave you at this point to look at my awesome facebook photos. For dinner I went to the Christmas market with an Israeli guy I met on the tour and we got currywurst (like a chopped up hotdog marinated in red curry) over 'fries' (read: thinly sliced baked potato, covered in currywurst).
The tour guide told us about a website called abandonedberlin.com, which describes derelict abandoned buildings and offers tips on how to successfully trespass. The next day, I picked out Säuglings Kinderkrankenhaus from the website, and I went out there. It's an abandoned children's hospital that has been non-operational for decades, and as it rots away the graffiti artists come in and decorate floor to ceiling. Jumping the fence was nerve-racking (not to mention I tore up my hand on a bit of rusty metal), but once I got in I saw at least 4 other people wandering around who must have had the same idea. This was the best day of my ten in Berlin. The art was incredible. The site was super spooky (it's earned the nickname "Zombie Hospital"), but as long as I paid attention to my surroundings (don't walk under areas where the roof is clearly rotting, watch out for the uncovered manholes) I felt safe enough. It was unlike anything we do back home, but I had a strong sense that this type of exploration is authentically part of what life can be like in Berlin.
I left just before sundown, and leaving the place proved to be more difficult than getting in. I tried several different ways to get out before I found a chain on the ground, used it to rig a foothold, and boosted myself out that way. For dinner I went to a place called Burrito Dolores. The decor was a map of San Francisco printed on the walls, and besides that it looked like a replica of one of our taquerias by Dolores Park back home. I got a burrito, not expecting much, but it tasted almost like a real San Franciscan burrito! I had agua frescas to drink: juice with strawberry, cucumber, and ginger.
My best day in Berlin turned into the best night as I got a taste of Berlin nightlife. I had been in the city for a week, and it seems like many of the locals party late every night, but I'm just not a party girl and wasn't inclined to do it. I promised myself I would check out the nightlife this weekend though, so I did. There's a certain community I'm involved in back home, and the club I went to on Friday night is the same type of community for Berliners. Although it's a German club, I found enough people happy to speak English with me. The club was as good if not better than the clubs we have in our community back home. Like my Greek roommates last week and many local Berliners, I didn't make it back to the hostel from my night of partying until 6:30am.
I spent most of the next day sleeping and watching snow fall from the window next to my bed. I went to a restaurant called Qua Phe for lunch, a combination of Vietnamese food and a cafe. I walked along the Spree river until I got to the Christmas market the locals have been telling me about at Jannowitzbrücke. It was similar to a carnival complete with many rides, spook houses, fun houses, arcades, and giant mechanical Santa Clauses that caused more than one child to burst into terrified tears as I watched.
I decided to bite the bullet and finally try gluihwein, the popular German Christmas drink of hot mulled wine and spices that people have been advising I try for weeks. Hot wine sounds atrocious to me, so I was surprised to find it light, fruity, and very tasty. Along with it I had champaniogns, a German Christmas delicacy consisting of roasted mushrooms with herbs and garlic sauce. Here I met a very drunken German woman and her son (about my age) who told me all the things I must do tomorrow for my last day in Berlin (all the things actually being only one thing, repeated ten times). From there I walked through two more Christmas markets that were in view on my way back to the hostel. Even though it was Saturday night in Berlin, I didn't feel like dressing up in the same clothes I wore yesterday to wait in a line trying to get into a club. I decided to take it easy back at the hostel that night.
The next day I packed up and took the train to Dresden. It was hard to leave Berlin; it's another city where I could imagine happily living. I met wonderful people there, and felt so at home with the culture. One day, I hope to spend more time in Berlin.
- comments
Mom Neosporin! What a great read, Jack. It sounds like a great city.