Berlin

Gillian, Christoph

I was really worried that Berlin was going to be over-hyped for me. Everyone told me I would love it, that it would be my kind of city, awesome to go to, yadda yadda yadda. And I was worried it wouldn’t live up to expectations.

But it did. Except for maybe London, I don’t think I’ve been in a city with that much energy, creativity, culture, and history. Berlin has a huge, deep-rooted artist community and a rich, fascinating history. And on top of that, it is just an awesome fun place to be. It also, like London, had gross, rainy weather.

On Monday, Gillian and I took the Berlin city tour. In a way, the weather matched the mood of the tour. We had a really passionate tour guide from Australia (with German ancestry), Anique, who was really cool. This really helped me fall in love with the city. To hear the history behind the Brandenburg Gate, to listen to what went on in the parliament buildings over the decades/centuries, to stand on Hitler’s bunker at the spot where his body was burned, to stand at the edge of the Berlin Wall, to wander among the blocks of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews, to hover over the Burned Books Memorial (an underground empty library with shelf space for exactly all the books that were burned), to see... how this city and, to an extent, country developed itself over the years... It was really fantastic.

And AMPELMANN! We fell in love with Ampelmann! He was this traffic light character in East Berlin during the Cold War. Instead of the regular-looking traffic person, he had a hat on (a “working class” hat), and when he was green he was in this “easy-going stroll” position and when he was red he had his arms out to the sides in a protective stance that kinda made him look like Jesus on the cross. It was really cool - when the Berlin Wall came down, everyone was like “yes you can get rid of the wall” and “yes please get rid of the Stazi (sp?)” but then they also were all like “don’t you dare take our Ampelmann!”

And so there’s still Ampelmann in the pedestrian traffic lights in East Berlin, there are Ampelmann souvenir/memorabilia stores, and they even had an Ampelmann cartoon at one point.

(Quick note: Christoph also hooked Gillian and me up with a cool party that his sister was organising to promote this awesome new health drink called Ocoo that can be used in cocktails. Gillian even came up with a name for a cocktail, which maaaybe they’ll use, or at least a variation of the name, which would be sweeeet! And Till Schweiger from Inglourious Basterds was there - :D)

Back to Berlin, the city - I really got into it. The atmosphere, the aura, was really cool and the people there were so nice. Gillian and I were looking around trying to figure out which direction to go at Potsdamer Platz and a woman came up to us and asked us if we needed help. And combined with the really cool hostel we stayed at (where we met some really cool Georgia Tech students), it was a really nice experience for me. Except the weather was shitty. And Hamburg’s supposed to be better, so:

We shall see, Christoph... we shall see...