Getting to Berlin is not particularly cheap by plane or train, but there is a great website called Mitfahrgelegenheit which is a ride-share website that is very commonly used and trusted throughout Germany. After making a profile, you type in your starting location, your final destination, the date of travel, and your preferred time of departure. It then lists all of the drivers registered on this website who have the same travel plans as you as well as space in their car. I decided to give this a go as it was roughly 15 euros cheaper and 4 hours faster than taking regional trains. And when you're trying to travel on an au pair's salary, both time and money are sacred. The only strange thing about this (for me, at least), is that the driver chooses the location to meet- generally very public and very close to an U-bahn station. I showed up at the meeting spot, which was the parking lot of an Aldi supermarket, to find that every resident of Munich as well as their sisters, brothers, and children decided to go grocery shopping at the precise time that I was supposed to meet my driver and the other passengers. It was absolute chaos in this parking lot and I had no idea how I was supposed to differentiate between Alexander's silver station wagon and the 97 other silver station wagons. Luckily I spotted another man with luggage, and after taking roughly 3 minutes to rehearse the question in my head, I worked up the courage to ask, "Are you also going to Berlin?" I really need to get over my fear of speaking German to strangers sober. He said yes, and shortly afterwards we found our driver.
We made it to Berlin in less than 6 hours, and I'm fairly certain we were averaging a minimum of 150 mph on the Autobahn. It was terrifying and awesome. He dropped us off at the Ostbahnhof (East train station) in Berlin, at which point we needed to pay him. Online he wrote that it would cost 25 euros per passenger. In typical Sammy fashion, I only brought 50 euro bills with me, not considering the fact that he probably would not have exact change. He only had a 20 to give back to me, so I had to quickly accept the (easily avoidable) loss of 5 entire euros, and told him to keep the 30. I will never forget to bring exact change ever again. For anything. 5 euros is a fortune in the eyes of an au pair.
From Ostbahnhof I bought a public transport ticket and got on the S-bahn headed towards my hostel. I stayed in a hostel in former East Berlin, and when I walked out of the train station out into the open, the first impression that I got of this area of East Berlin was amazing. It was right down the road from the famous Karl-Marx Allee, which is a big boulevard built by the Soviet Union-controlled GDR. I felt like I had been sent back to the 50s or 60s, because very little new real estate has been built since the fall of the Berlin Wall and much of the area is still very underdeveloped and just seems very empty. This was the first thing that I saw when I walked out of the train station-
Moskau Cafe
There was no question I was in East Berlin. The walk to my hostel was quiet and uneventful, but the hostel was beautiful. It was more like a hotel, and since it is in a part of the city that doesn't have any kind of nightlife or tourist attractions, it was very cheap. I settled into my 8-bed dorm-style room, which I was the only person staying in that night, and then decided to venture out to a spoken word poetry performance that I had read about online. It was at a small cafe in north Berlin, and it was one of the best live performances I've ever seen in any medium. I can't remember the name of the poet now, but he was from New York and he was incredible.
On Friday morning I went to the German parliament building and took the elevator up to the glass dome built by Norman Foster after Reunification. Afterwards I took a free walking tour of the city and saw all of the major attractions- the Brandenburg gate, Holocaust memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, sections of the Wall, location of Hitler's suicide, Museum Island, etc. I met an awesome Spanish girl, Naiara, on the tour who was also traveling by herself, and we became friends with the tour guide as well, so I had some friends to hang out with while I was there! After the tour, Naiara and I went to see the East Side Gallery, which is a huge section of the Berlin wall that was painted by actual international artists after reunification and relocated to serve as a public gallery along the river in East Berlin. There are a lot of celebratory images as well as many images of repression and confusion. It was awesome. Here is an example of one painting:
I like this painting because the night before I left for Berlin, Stef told me that there were a lot of items that weren't available to buy in East Berlin, and bananas were one of them. If she hadn't told me that, I definitely would not have understood the significance of this painting.
After seeing the East Side Gallery, Naiara and I went to a grocery store, and I bought 6 euros worth of groceries that lasted me 2 and a half days! We met up with our tour guide friends that night and experienced some of the bar nightlife in Berlin. It was great aside from the thick haze of smoke inside every bar we went to. I definitely took for granted that smoking is not allowed in bars or restaurants in Munich. On Saturday it rained, snowed, and hailed, so I decided that Saturday would be my museum day. I went to see the Pergamon museum first, which houses the Pergamon temple, the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, and an awesome Islamic art collection. It is a world famous museum and was one of my favorite museums ever. Afterwards I went to the Alte Nationalgalerie which houses primarily 19th century paintings. There were some really famous Caspar David Friedrich paintings that I wasn't expecting to see there, so that was really awesome for me. After that I went to the Neues Museum, which I found mostly interesting because of the history of the building and the renovations done to it only recently after much of it was damaged during WWII. There is also an impressive collection of egyptian sarcophagi and papyrus scrolls, as well as the famous bust of Nefertiti.
Sunday I went to the Jewish Museum, which left more of an impression on me than any other museum I've been to. Everything from the architecture to the photographs and prints to the layout of the exhibitions and all of the information within them was incredible. It's a museum everyone should go to. Afterwards I met up with an awesome Australian guy that I met in my hostel and we went to the Mauerpark flea market- one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. This was an enormous flea market set up in a park right next to a big hill, and at the top of the hill were giant swings overlooking the flea market activities below. There was live music, people playing soccer, hippies strolling, students bargaining... it was a perfect end to a fantastic weekend. Monday I ventured back home on regional trains for a total of 42 euros... it took about 9 and a half hours. It was a beautiful train ride though, and luckily I had downloaded both Superbad and a Ricky Gervais standup show onto my iPhone before I left, so it was a pretty good day despite 5 transfers.
I think my next trip will be Zürich, Switzerland sometime in May.
Also- MIMI USES THE TOILET AT KINDERGARTEN NOW!!! I haven't had to change or wash pee-peed-pants in over 3 weeks! She's the best. I'm also getting really good at pretending I am a crane, because we play "construction site" every day.
Thanks for reading!
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