Berlin: the Arrival

Berlin, Germany: 5-10 November 2009

Part I

As always happens with such things, the one trip that we planned out way in advance turned out to be during mid-terms week. But we all really wanted to go to Berlin for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall and so we made arrangements with professors and caught an early flight from Cork to Berlin on 5 Nov. (The airport bar opened at 6am and while Joanne got an overpriced breakfast sandwich, some gentlemen were lining up for a drink to start the day. Probably Irish coffee...)

From the air, we could see that Berlin was infinitely bigger than Cork and it was a little overwhelming. But as we learned, only a fraction of the city is actually inhabited and used on a regular basis and the area (mostly East Berlin) with all the cool old stuff is relatively small and walkable. And of course the subway/train system (U-bahn and S-bahn) is quite excellent and with the purchase of a Berlin welcome card from the airport, we could ride them for all 5 days and not worry about fare-cards.

Anna was off on her own German adventure for the first few days, so the rest of us took the S-bahn from the airport into the city center. I stared in amazement at the brown trees and brown grass. 'It's a real fall', I exclaimed. It pleased me inordinately to see the 'dead' colours I usually associate with fall instead of the permanently lush green grass of Ireland. We got off the subway pretty close to the hostel where we would be staying, but as we emerged in the middle of the street from the underground station, we weren't quite sure which way to go. I'm sure we looked confused and American, so a little old lady helped us with her thick accent to figure out which way to go.

Two blocks later, feeling inspired and overwhelmed by the tall buildings, we found the shabby-looking door to our hostel. Despite its tiny size and sketchy front, it was a very nice hostel. Because of the size of our group and everyone's different plans, it took a while to sort out the reservations and over the course of our stay, we were in a total of, I think, 3 different rooms. Finally that was sorted and we learned the code to the door and went around the corner for some lunch. Beverly bravely navigated the negotiations for ordering as she had some German and the waiter didn't seem to have a very good grasp of English. We successfully ordered the sausage of the day (I don't remember now what it was called) and beers for two members of the group. The beers were quite class and the meal was deliciously German and filling. After lunch, Keavy and Joanne split off to catch their train to Leipzig, leaving Beverly, Ellen and myself to do a little exploring with what was left of the afternoon.

We took the hostel owner's advice and walked a couple of blocks west to where one of the largest sections of the Berlin wall remains standing. There was construction all around in preparation for a new park there and a fence prevented anyone from chipping off any more bits of the wall. Not far up the road was a very interesting chapel built in the 1990s on the site of what was a regular church built in the 1800s. The original ended up being in the Death Strip between the walls of the Berlin wall, so it was abandoned for a while, then destroyed by the communists to prevent anyone from trying to use it to get across. The bells were the only things salvaged and they have it on display right next to the chapel. The picture is of the outer part of the chapel. It is very hard to describe, but the wooded part on the right is open to the outside and it encircles the chapel on the left. It is round and inside the ceiling is very high with a sky light that shines on the altar and the walls are made of that white cement stuff.

We walked back to the hostel a different way than we had come, walked through a little park with a pond, and stopped at a grocery-looking store to pick up some pasta, sauce, and rolls for supper and some breakfast things. (Travellers live off of pasta, mostly. Poor travellers, anyway.) After dinner we went back out to investigate Alexander Platz (Square). I forget what we exactly we went there looking for, maybe it wasn't anything in particular, but what we found was St. Marien (St. Mary) - a Lutheran church. It was very old and full of art from the early days of the Reformation. I was quite excited and found all the signs in English and read almost all of them, though the others got tired of it before I was ready to leave, so I skimmed a bunch. I learned quite a bit about art in relation to Lutherans, Calvinists, and the Hohenzollerans.

We headed home through an open-air market that was closing up for the night and ended up taking the long way around, but at last we got back and though it wasn't late, we got ready for bed. I got a little reading done for my Edmund Spenser class and we made some plans for the next few days before turning out the light.