Berlin: Day 1 (9/09/19)
Big city equals big plans1 Well, a plan to do lots but without any actual plan. But its the mindset that matters!
Left a little before 10:00 to catch the subway towards the Holocaust Memorial, but before that I stopped by a small general store in search of more Cliff Bars since as I’m down to my last one. No luck, but I did find some rice crackers covered in chocolate on sale which I think will substitute fine for now. It was a cold, rainy day but I’ve got the itch for exploration and a polka dot umbrella so I basically can’t be stopped. (Though I should have grabbed my jacket, its a wee chilly.)
I visited the memorial and found it surprisingly striking. The uneven ground drops away as you wander in making the pillars grow from ankle height to towering above you in a tightly spaced claustrophobic tangle. The street noise also disappears so it’s just you and silent gray walls to keep you company. I found it powerful and unsettling, as it should be.
From the memorial I walked to the Berlin Wall Monument/Topography of Terror which is where the Gestapo HQ was located. Another powerful experience with a lot of information and depth. I then walked along a preserved part of the wall that served as an outdoor exhibit about Warsaw’s destruction. I never knew that Warsaw was intentionally reduced to rubble by the Nazis to eliminate “inferior cultures”. It went from a city of 1.3 million to under 1000 people living in ruins by the end of the war. And it was mostly left to fend for itself, receiving little aid over the course of the war.
After reaching the end of the wall segment/exhibit I worked my way over to Checkpoint Charlie. I got a picture of course but it felt pretty touristy and superficial to me. The nearby museum was also pretty crap. The one thing I did find surprising though was that they were selling pieces of the wall, which I did not know was a thing. At that point I was totally exhausted and hiked back to the hostel, grabbing a shrimp sandwich on the way for lunch, and passed out for a couple hours.
Woke up around 7pm and went to eat at an Italian place but after seating me nobody showed up to give me a menu or anything for 15 minutes so eventually I just left and went back to Zur Gerichtslaub again. And boy was that the right choice! It was packed and I got seated across from a guy from San Diego named Philip. He’s a recently retired bureaucrat that was just finishing his trip through Germany. We had a lovely chat about good food, the joys of travel, and little cultural hiccups we had experienced during our journeys. All over a Prussian sausage platter that was absolutely killer! I had never had sausage like that before and it blew me away! I also didn’t know you aren’t supposed to eat the casing until the waiter teased me about it, she was fun and poked fun at the two of us occasionally.
Philip was super cool though, we got along great and had a great time. At the end of the meal he even passed me a 50 euro bill saying he didn’t need it anymore since he was flying out the next morning. Score! We parted ways and I realized that I had forgotten my umbrella at the Italian place earlier…queue an agonizing retrieval from the waiter who sat me and was NOT pleased I left. A good day though, I did tons and sated my wanderlust from this morning.
