Berlin! Berlin!

Day 4

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Checked out the East Side Gallery today. It's a shame that vandals have had no respect for the paintings. They are apparently gonna repaint it with the original artists later this year but how they will be able to prevent the same thing happening again is beyond me.

Went on the highly recommended alternative tour. The Berlin street art and graffiti scene is pretty cool, but again many bits from (in)famous artists like Banksy have been stolen. Adam led us from Auguststrasse (August street!) through upmarket Hackescher Markt to the slums and squatter areas near the river. Would have enjoyed it more if my face was not frozen.


Day 3

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Woke up early to check out a few places before the tour at 11. Bloody cold and snowing to boot. But I'll take snow over rain any day. Went up the Reichstag glass dome, and also walked around Tiergarten for a bit.

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was a model camp that others were built after. Natasha led us through the entire camp, and I learned a lot from her. The triangle shape for example, was a control theory thingy that minimises the number of guards to watch over the maximum number of prisoners. Day by day, the prisoners were practically destroyed physically and mentally by prison guards from hell. I honestly do not know how some people survived through that era. I pray that we will never let this happen again, and that the departed rest in peace.

After the doom and gloom, I went for the pub crawl. And here I was wondering where the Aussies were in Europe. Haha obviously drinking themselves silly at every opportunity! Met sisters from Doncaster, guy from near Glen, girl from Canberra, even the guides were from Melbourne! Also hung out with some Brits from between Manchester and Liverpool. One of the guys, a truckie actually had drinks with Ronaldinho and Puyol at a bar in Barcelona! How cool is that! But he said Liverpool will win 12-0 against Real Madrid haha we shall see about that =) Hopped through 4 bars and ended the night at Matrix.


Day 2

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Picked a great day to go on a walking tour! It started raining almost as soon as we begun our journey from the Brandenburg Gate. And the weather got progressively worse with every hour.

Lewis the history buff was my guide for today. I learnt a lot about Germany, and in particular Berlin today and it is amazing how much change has occured here just in the last few decades alone. This country has pretty much tried every political ideology known to man: monarchy, democracy, socialism, communism. All in all a very entertaining 3.5 hours, ending at the Berlin Dom with the story of the big Schabowski. Poor dude!

Decided to check out Pergamon Museum to duck out of the rain. The exhibits are impressive, and the audio guides are very informative.

Probably will check out the concentration camp tomorrow, and maybe the pub crawl! =)


Day 1

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Checked in to retro East Seven hostel! Place looks awesome =)

Later I went out to the city and took the #100 and #200 buses that go round many of the sights. Made a pit stop at Potsdam Platz to check out the Sony Centre... damn it's huge! Also noticed that the Berlin International Film Festival is in town; perhaps I will bump into some Hollywood stars on my free New Berlin tour tomorrow? Haha

Had a bit of a weird night haha! My roomies Sean, John (Canada) and Okan (Turkey) were leaving the next day so I joined them in the lounge for beer and whiskey. They really wanted to check out the Berlin night scene so we headed out. Okan asked the girl at reception and she recommended number 2 and 6 on our map (the rest were closed). But Sean said to head out to the subway, cause "that's where the action is". So we did.

Then, we took a train to Alexanderplatz because on Saturday he saw heaps of people hanging out and drinking at the station. Obviously too drunk to realise that today was Monday! It was deserted haha. Had a cheeseburger at Burger King before heading back to our stop. So the rest of us were getting hyped up to check out 2 or 6, Sean went up and talked to a local girl. She told him to go to the next station, cause "there's thousands of bars there." Right. So off we went.

Again, there was NOTHING there. At this point, I left the bunch and went back to the hostel. In conclusion, I stepped out for a cheeseburger last night.