Ich Bin Ein Berliner

I really struggled with whether I should "get political" with this post (which is one of the reasons this post took so long). 

I wanted to keep my blog focused on my travels, I wanted it to be a happy place where my readers can come and live vicariously through me and my adventures.

But truthfulness is very important to me as well; that's why I relate my mishaps as well as my triumphs here. It's all part of my experience. So, in the interest of truthfulness, I have to talk a little bit about the presidential election and my thoughts and feelings about it, because they did play a part in my experience in Berlin.

I hope this won't deter anyone from reading this post, but if it does, well, I hope you have a nice day. I can't blame you for being sick of all the political talk.

For those who are sticking with me...

I went to sleep in Berlin pretty early in the evening of November 8th. I slept pretty well, secure in the belief that, though it would be a close race, in the end Hillary Clinton would be our 45th President, not Donald Trump.

I woke up in a very different world than the one I went to sleep in. I checked the election results and felt as if the floor had fallen out from under me. I felt so very wrong-footed and naïve for having believed that there was no way my fellow Americans would really choose Trump and his hateful, divisive rhetoric, no matter how appealing his attitude towards economic reform.

I was scared to leave my hostel room and face the people from other countries. In my travels, every European, every Asian, every Australian that I've spoken to has expressed their dislike for and fear of Donald Trump. I was afraid of how I would be judged as an American now that Trump was our President-elect.

But I made myself go out into the city anyway, making a little extra effort to blend in. I headed to the Brandenburg Gate, where my free walking tour would depart at 10am. I was a little early, and I was shocked to see a crowd of reporters all around the square, until I noticed that all of the cameras were pointed at the American embassy.

At the Brandenburg Gate bright and early

I joined the group of people waiting for the tour, and got to chatting with the tour guide, another friendly Australian who, upon discovering that I was American, half-jokingly offered me the Canadian flag pin he wore. But he was sympathetic to me, apparently the only American brave enough to show up that day, and promised to hold off on making his usual jokes about the US on his tour.

There is a lot of history in Berlin, including of course the Berlin Wall. (Which was actually comprised of an inner wall and an outer wall, with the area in between known as the "death strip," for reasons which should be fairly obvious.) The tour guide related several stories of escape from East Berlin to West, including one family who crossed the wall using a makeshift zipline. In making their getaway, the family was observed by guards at the Wall, who didn't shoot at the escapees because they thought that surely they were East German spies sneaking over to West Berlin for reconnaissance.

We also visited Checkpoint Charlie, the site of a standoff between Soviet troops and American troops during the Berlin Wall era, a standoff that nearly heated up the Cold War into World War 3. Checkpoint Charlie was destroyed when the Berlin Wall came down, but was rebuilt and manned with actors to meet the demands of tourists to Berlin who wanted to see it.

It was funny that my first day in Berlin was the 9th of November. As the tour guide explained, November 9th has earned the nickname Schickalstag, or "Day of Fate," a bit of black humor among Germans. Apparently almost everything of significance in Germany occurs on this date. For example:
--1848: Robert Blum, a major player in the push for German democracy, was executed (which put a damper on the democratic movement for a while)
--1918: Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated, and the Weimar Republic was established, unifying Germany
--1923: Munich Beer Hall Putsch, the first, unsuccessful attempt by the National Socialist (Nazi) Party to seize power in Munich
--1938: Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass
--1989: the Berlin Wall opens, reuniting East Berlin and West Berlin

After the tour, I made my way to the Ritter Sport store, which was a mistake. Why? Because Ritter Sport is chocolate and I hadn't eaten lunch. I managed not to lose my head completely and demonstrated admirable restraint in not spending €8 to design my own chocolate bar. That being said, I did still drop a decent chunk of change there (but mostly on gifts, I swear).

So. Much. Chocolate.

I then decided that lunch should be the next item on my agenda, so I found an Imbiss (the German equivalent of a hot-dog stand) and managed not only to order a bratwurst and fries, but also to make small talk with the woman working the Imbiss, entirely in German! 🎉

You can't tell me that doesn't make your mouth water.

Next stop was the Topography of Terror, a museum located near the longest remaining segment of the outer Berlin Wall. The Topography of Terror features exhibits about what life was truly like in Berlin under the Nazi regime, and some of the reasoning behind the strategies that the Nazis used.

Pretty heavy stuff, so, as I'm sure you can imagine, I felt like my day was pretty much done after that. I walked back across town to my hostel, stopping to grab a salad for dinner on the way (my body was really jonesing for some veggies after the bratwurst and fries).

After a night of tossing and turning, I got up and went for a run (both for my sanity and to put the brakes on my downward spiral into out-of-shapeness).

I ran through Berlin's main park, the Tiergarten, and found myself at the foot of the Victoria statue.

It was then, taking a short stretching break in the shadow of the monument, that I noticed the sole of my right running shoe was peeling away from the upper. That, combined with the stench emanating from my shoes when I pulled them off three kilometers later, made me think that maybe I should invest in a new pair of running shoes.

Luckily, my German was sufficient enough to navigate the shoe section of a department store without incident, and I emerged half an hour later with clearance-rack Asics. Score.

My mission for footwear successfully accomplished, I meandered around the city in the sunshine, stopping to grab some Chinese food for a late lunch/early dinner as it got dark. It was a bit of a hike back to my hostel from where I'd wandered to, so I had to make a pit stop for provisions (coffee and some sort of chocolate-caramel-almond concoction) on my way.

By the time I got back to my hostel, I was feeling the need to socialize, so I headed downstairs to my hostel's bar, where I got myself a liter of beer--because Germany--and introduced myself to a couple of people who clearly shared my opinion that a stein of beer sounded good.

A liter of beer makes for a great conversation starter, or so I'm learning.

I spent most of the next day at the Berlin Zoo, which has over 20,500 individual animals of 1,500 different species, making it the most diverse zoo in the world.

I had a blast.

My inner child was thrilled to be outside looking at animals of all shapes and sizes, rather than inside staring at more boring paintings and fiddly things behind glass in yet another museum. I stayed at the zoo from open to close.

Llamas! (Or maybe alpacas. I forget.)

Fish face!

The next day, I'd planned to do an "alternative" tour of the city, featuring some of the hot spots for graffiti and the more hipster bars in Berlin. But when I arrived 15 minutes before the tour was scheduled to begin, I was told that the tour was completely booked up. Though I was glad to have an excuse not to shell out 13 Euros, I was a bit crestfallen. I perked up, though, when the tour guide offered to mark on my map some of the more interesting stops on the tour route, so I could check them out on my own.

One of those places was the East Side Gallery. After only a brief detour through a street market (I was distracted by the shiny things), I headed to the metro station. Thinking ahead, I purchased two tickets--one for the ride there, and one for the ride back--and jetted off to a new part of the city.

The East Side Gallery is the longest remaining section of the inner Berlin Wall, which has now been converted into a street art gallery. I spent almost two hours walking along the wall, studying the graffiti and murals, some of which have been there for almost three decades now, and many of which were painted by local art students. Here are a few of my favorites:

My plan then was to head back towards my hostel, and get off a stop early to walk by one of the other places suggested by the tour guide. So I walked toward the nearest metro station, and just barely managed to catch the next train going the direction that I needed.

If only I'd waited seven minutes for the next one.

In my rush to catch the train, I'd forgotten to validate my second metro ticket. I didn't realize this until a ticket inspector came around at the stop before the one I was getting off at.

With a sinking feeling in my stomach and tears welling up in my eyes, I produced my unvalidated ticket, and was asked to step off the train. On the platform, I pulled out the ticket that I had remembered to validate earlier that day, and, in a rush of tears, explained my mistake. The guy was extremely nice and very sympathetic, and probably would have let me off with a warning, had his supervisor not been standing right there. So, hiccuping through my tears, I coughed up the €60 fine.

After the ticket inspectors had departed on another train, I collapsed onto a bench to try to pull myself together. Out of the corner of my tear-filled eye, I saw an elderly couple approach. Apparently they'd witnessed the entire incident, and wanted to help me out. After one polite refusal, I gratefully accepted the €30 (and the tissue) that they offered.

I opted for the long way back to my hostel, on foot, through the Tiergarten. I needed it to calm down. I also needed a beer, so I ordered one with my kebap when I finally got to the block where my hostel was located.

Exhausted by the turn my day had taken, I went to bed pretty early that night. Which was also a good decision because I had an early train back to Bad Kreuznach the next day. It was time for a few days at my home away from home before my next adventure: Paris!