just b & me

Before I begin, I short note on traveling:
Me and trains are beginning to have an awkward relationship. Every time I step out of one I seem to feel like it was the worst idea ever and that I should just hop right back on. It’s a love hate thing. I hate it when I’m on the train but as soon as I step on the platform I realize that I love the train more than I love being lost in a new city.
I feel like everytime I walk into a new city I start off feeling unsure, helpless and alone, but by the end of my stay, no matter how short, I feel like one of the locals, like I was born to find this city, born to discover the things I discovered and experience what I had just experienced. The switch of these two drastic emotions does a number on your brain, and if you play your cards right, you just trick yourself into thinking you know what you’re doing until you actually do know what the hell is going on.

Berlin:
Berlin stared with my hood up and my back hunched trying to cover my map from the rain as I tried to find my way to my hostel. The first hostel was full but I was referred to another and made an easy switch over to the next hostel a few blocks away. After dropping my stuff off I headed down to the more main area of town to where my tour was going to start. I was a tad early so I waited for about half an hour and then joined the group following or tour guide Kenny. It was a pretty cold day, so as I tried to focus despite the nipping wind my heart thought of Munich. Munich was smaller and had history and had a personality of its own and yet Berlin had barely caught my interest yet.

I continued to follow the group and found myself at the place where one of the famous book burnings happened. This is ironically across the street from one of the worlds most prestigious universities, having had Albert Einstein as a student and produced over 20 graduates that would later go on to become Nobel Prize winners. As I followed along I wondered how the same place with such education, could also be the home to an act filled with such ignorance and lack of education to the subject of human rights. There are so many tough and unanswerable questions that come up when traveling through the history of Germany but as you learn more about the history a city holds you are able to then feel like a part of the city. Berlin has a past like anything or anyone and as I got to know this history I was able to better enjoy the city.

After a quick break to grad some tea/coffee my hands followed the lead of my heart and began to warm up. We moved on from our break to Check Point Charlie and to sections of the Berlin Wall. I learned about East vs. West Berlin and about the propaganda that surrounded it all. I learned about injustice and I learned about the incredible resilience of the human spirit.

Unfortunately I had to leave the tour early to head to the next tour I was planning on taking, so I ducked out of the wind and into the subway station and away I went. Trying to figure out the subway map while running to my subway track, I knew it would be a close call whether or not I would make it on time for the next tour. Running from track to track, switching subways lines and trying to gage how long it would take to get half way across the city, I managed to make it there with a few minutes to spare. I saw the sign for the tour company and was greeted warmly by a rather eccentric girl named Summer (our tour guide). Summer was really nice and was dressed in sparkly tights, plaid shorts and a turtleneck with a checkered bag to match. I was beginning to have a very good feeling about Summer and how the rest of the day would go.
To clarify, the tour I was about to embark on was called the Alternative Berlin tour. This tour showed you Berlin’s graffiti and modern culture. We walked about in some of Berlin’s artsy areas, learning about the squatters living about Berlin, about the graffiti culture and about some of the main graffiti groups and artists. We went to a small art showing of one of the local graffiti artists (just going on for a few days so it was kind of spur of the moment), to a old Natzi office turned artist project/artisan shop, to the East side gallery (The longest standing stretch of the Berlin wall, painted by famous artists and graffiti artists) and other art projects and interesting places. Two of my favorite places were, a preserved alley that was still in the original shape it was pre world war 2 and an abandoned soap factory. The old alley-way held a restaurant, a coffee shop, a small Anne Frank memorial museum and an artist’s store/gallery. It had all the original brick work it had before the war, and was kept preserved by a group of artists to make sure people never forgot what was there before all the developers came in and started to reconstruct the area. The abandoned soap factory is a bit of a story in itself. It is not officially apart of the tour because for 1. Summer is not legally allowed to bring people there as it is private property and 2. it is fenced off so in order to check it out you have to climb over or under a fence. (Summer is the only one currently doing the “Alternative Berlin” tour so she gets to try out new stuff on different groups). So, on a “break” in the tour where we were allowed to get coffee etc., Summer instead showed us how to get into the fenced off area. Once inside we walked about this gutted old factory looking at all walls that were coved from ceiling to floor in some of the best graffiti.

After this exciting tour I headed back to the hostel. By this time I was allowed to go into my room and unpack my stuff. In my room I met up with a girl, also traveling alone, who was traveling home from Spain back to England. We grabbed a drink together at the hostel’s bar on the top floor and then grabbed dinner. (We found this small bar a few blocks away and order bagel-salami sandwiches and a beer, best sandwich I have literally had in my entire life and it was 6 euro for the drink and sandwich. Amazing! ). We headed back up to the hostel bar and met some other travelers from the US and from Australia and even another Canadian. Much to my own surprise I was one of the people who knew the subway system best so I helped find our way to a club a new subway stops away from our hostel. After a long day I was more than ready to go to bed so some of us headed back to the hostel “early” (past 3 in the morning) and went to sleep.

The next day began at 9:30, as I had to check-out by 10. (This day turned out to colder than the first.) My uncle’s cousin and her 2 daughters and niece came to pick me up around 10:30 ( I have never met them before) and, just as I was fully waking up, my day began. We drove to a flee market not too far away where you can buy handmade or used clothing, jewelry, furniture, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. I was just beginning to see Berlin’s Hidden corners and characteristics but alas I had a train. They first took me to a vintage decorated waffle shop and after having an amazing lunch, they dropped me off at the train station.

My Berlin trip was grinding to a very sudden and unwanted halt. Most people thought I was crazy for trying to tour Berlin in less than 48 hours and although in the end I consider the whole trip a success I know I barely scratched the surface of the interworking of Berlin. One of the things Berlin has taught me is that the best way to travel is to start with a map and then follow your heart. It sounds cheesy but I wouldn’t have seen half the things I did if I didn’t go with my gut, or decide to just give something a try. I spent a whole weekend with total strangers and yet with these strangers I created memories and stories that will last me life time.

Today: waffles, maps, cardigans, lots and lots of tea

p.s the pictures are in the soap factory