Berliner Dezember!
(-------------------note: I, rather stupidly, left my laptop in Bielefeld over the two week holiday break. I had intended to post this but hadn’t before I left to Hannover, thinking I could just post it in Hannover…only to realize upon arrival that my laptop was not with me. SO. This is late, and doesn’t even cover Christmas! I am shaming myself. My apologies.)
December has been a great 3 weeks so far. It’s been funny seeing all my Juneau friends’ excited post on Facebook and knowing that their semester is already over, it seems crazy! My semester technically doesn’t end until February, so we have 2 weeks off of school for now for the holidays. What was really nice about this not being the end of the semester was that I’m not freaking out about finals before I enjoy the holiday!
On the first of December, some of my friends and I went to the nearby city of Münster to check out the Christmas market there. We’d traveled there earlier this semester, so we didn’t visit the churches or anything again. Francesca and I were determined to get another Christmas market cup! Every market has their own cup that glühwein is served in, and they’re all really cute. Münster is a beautiful city, and the Christmas market sprawled throughout the city just made it even more so!
A couple days later, since I don’t have classes on Tuesday, I went shopping in another nearby town, Dortmund, with my friend and neighbor Alejandro. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but since we were going to Berlin later that week, he was looking for some warm boots and a new coat. The shopping was fun, if exhausting. We visited that Christmas market too! We especially wanted to see Dortmund’s Christmas market because it has what is supposedly the largest Christmas tree in the world- but it’s actually a huge Christmas tree creation that is lots of small trees stacked to make a giant one!
On Wednesday, the International Office had arranged a “Nikolaus Abend” for us, a Christmas party! The university has a restaurant inside of it, and that’s where we had our Christmas party. We all brought gifts, and put the gifts in a giant sack as we entered the party. Dinner wouldn’t be served for a while, so we chatted and drank glühwein. My friend from Lyon suddenly tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I just met someone from America here!” and I almost fell out of my chair! I had been told there was someone from California, but I think he’s a master’s student and I’ve literally never seen him. She introduced me to Chase, who is from Alabama! He just finished his bachelor’s and is teaching with the Fullbright program but is registered as a student at Bielefeld, and hadn’t been to any of the international office’s events, so that’s why I hadn’t met him before. It was SO fun and nice to hang out with a fellow American. His German is much, much better than mine though. Some of my friends thought that the difference between our accents was hilarious.
Muge and I at the Nikolaud Abend!
AMERICANS! (I think we even look a little alike...weird.)
Finally, after dinner, Santa himself came! But to “encourage him to come”, we had to sing Christmas carols. I don’t care how old you are, if you are told to sing to make Santa come, you will sing! The International Office had passed out papers with different Christmas songs on them in different languages, and they had someone at the front of the room with a guitar to accompany them. When we sang the French song, the French students went to the front and led the carol, and so on with the German, Polish, Spanish (who actually insisted on singing a song after “Feliz Navidad because it’s as much an English song as a Spanish song) and Italian songs. Eventually they called the English speakers to the front. There were just 3 of us: me, Chase, and Warren, from Ireland. Chase and I had been hoping this entire time that we wouldn’t have to because we actually had never heard this carol before! The song was “Mary’s Boy Child” or something, a song neither of us knew. When they called us to the front, Warren confessed he didn’t know it either. We were laughing at ourselves and everyone thought it was funny that we didn’t know our own carol. We decided to sing jingle bells instead. Hilarity struck again because we only knew the first verses and choruses, and were surprised when the music kept playing! We were all laughing, as were the other students.
The next morning, we woke up bright and early to head to BERLIN!
I was so excited to visit the capitol city, and even more excited to share the experience with my friends! 13 of us went, and if you’ve never travelled in a group before, then let me tell you: it is fun, but it is difficult.
The cheapest way to get there was to take regional trains, which was about a 5-6 hour train ride, with us switching trains almost every hour and a half. We were all so tired but could never sleep for long! Our friends from Bielefeld were texting us that the university had been shut down and “evacuated” for the winter storm/hurricane (the European definition of hurricane) warning that had been announced that morning. We were glad to be away from that mess, thinking we were heading away from the storm. Boy, were we wrong…
When we first arrived at the main train station, I was struck by its size: it is huge! It’s like a shopping mall, with all the shops and restaurants you could want, but with trains. The first thing we did was buy a “welcome package” which gave us discounts on some museums and most importantly, free transportation on all trams and busses. We figured out how to get to our hostel, which involved a lot of searching in the train station for the right platform, and once we found our tram, we were on our way! As the S-bahn made its way through the city, I was beyond tickled to see the lights of Berlin. We passed a beautiful, flashing Christmas market. After a couple more traipses through two more tram stops, we made it to our hostel. The weather, which upon arrival we had thought to be fine, had turned out to be HORRID. The wind was ripping through the city, buffeting us with cold rain. We were so relieved to find our hostel and get settled in. It was a nice hostel, and we all praised my flatmate Elisa for doing the booking. Since we were 13, we had two rooms of 4 people and one room of 5. There were 10 girls and 3 boys, and we literally were arguing over who had to sleep with the boys! Luckily, I did not have to sleep in their room ;)
I was in a room with Tena, Artemis, and Momoko. Upon arriving, however, Momoko informed us that she was going to an orchestra concert and bid us goodbye! We were really surprised, and made sure she had someone’s number and a map. After she left, we met with the others, who asked where Momoko was (we often have to check on Momoko or ask her if she has her train ticket, etc). We told Elisa that she’d left for a concert. Elisa’s eyes grew huge as she exclaimed, “…And you LET her?!” It was humorous, but we really were a little worried about her being alone.
We went out that first night to find dinner. Of course, none of us knew Berlin (except for Tena, who had lived there for a month one summer but still didn’t know it too well) so we were wandering around and eventually settled on an Asian food restaurant. I was starving, so I had no objections.
Huge Hauptbahnhof!
I think we look so tired! All day switching trains can really take it out of you.
After dinner, we wanted to find one of Berlin's many Christmas markets. The weather was absolutely miserable though! Since we were walking a lot, we were soaked and freezing by the time we got to the Christmas market…which turned out to be closed due to the bad weather. We did see the Berliner Dom on our freezing venture, though! It had been raining all evening, accompanied by blasting wind. Frustrated and cold, we figured a pub would be a fun (and warm) alternative. At that point, the rain turned to hail. My face was numb and I was really questioning our decision to go out. After calculating that we would have to walk another 20 minutes to the next platz, and realizing that our hostel had a pretty nice bar in it, we threw in the towel and started the long trek to the tram station. After switching two trains, we arrived back at the hostel. The hail had turned to angry wind-driven snow, and we ran for cover. I may be from Alaska, but I know cold when I feel it, and it was a COLD night!
I walked into our room and collapsed on my bed, which was next to the heater. I peeled off my wet socks and began to thaw. I met the others down in the bar, ordered a drink, and to my delight found out that the hostel had a free snack bar, complete with Berliners! A Berliner is a really delicious pastry/donut that you pour chocolate sauce on. I did not regret our decision to come back at all. Around 11, Momoko arrived, safe and raving about the concert.
We woke early the next day to find snow falling, cold and wet. The weather had not improved, but we didn’t want to let the day go to waste. It was the 6th of December, and in Germany, that’s the day that Nikolaus (Santa) comes! He comes on the 6th and leaves the good children little presents in their shoes. I woke up that morning to some Christmas magic: my boots had a small gift with little candies in them! Tena had played Nikolaus in our room and it was so cute!
We visited the historic Checkpoint Charlie, where the American sector of Berlin used to be. Checkpoint Charlie (Checkpoint C) was the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War. There are men in uniform at the checkpoint, mostly serving as actors. The museum at Checkpoint Charlie shows the history of the wall and the stories of those it affected. I saw and read about failed and successful escape attempts, and learned about the many creative ways people succeeded. I didn’t have enough time there! The group was ready to move on and I didn’t want to be left behind. The Cold War is one of the subjects I remember least from high school and always was muddy in my mind, so I really enjoyed learning more about the Berlin Wall.
So tired after museum-ing.
After lunch, we checked out two Christmas markets. The first had a nice indoor area, which we flocked to. The wind had been tearing straight through my pants all day and I felt like my legs were blocks of ice. This Christmas market sat between two churches, which were very similar in appearance (a tour guide later told us the story of the churches: the Protestant and Catholics had started building the churches at the same time, but the Catholics finished first so the Protestants made their steeple a few centimeters taller!). It was an odd Christmas market because we had to pay one euro, which I hadn’t had to do in the previous ones I’d visited. It also wasn't very colorful and rather small.
The Christmas market and one of the twin churches.
After the strange Christmas market, we (speed) walked to Alexanderplatz so that we could catch the bus tour we wanted to do. It was a 15-20 minute walk, and when we got to the place where the tour picked up, they told us that the last tour of the day had already left (we thought the last tour left at 4, but it had left at 3:45). Cold and disappointed, we stayed at Alexanderplatz. The Christmas market there, however, was beautiful and cheery! At Alexanderplatz, there was a large shopping center that we took shelter in to drink a coffee. We got distracted by the shops though, and had fun exploring the enormous mall! We secretly bought presents for Tena because it was her birthday the next day. A large sledding hill of fake snow had also been built at Alexanderplatz, and people were tubing down it!! I thought it was hilarious, being from Alaska. After our shopping adventure, we wanted to see Brandenburger Tor by night. We set out from Alexanderplatz, took the train to Potsdamerplatz, and did some walking. We passed through the famous Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, with its huge grey slabs standing in the light snowfall. We passed a fragment of the Berlin wall, its sections painted on. We made it to Brandenburger Tor, a beacon of light on the cold night. In front of the Tor was a giant candelabrum lit up, and an enormous Christmas tree as well. Even in the dark, in freezing temperatures, tourists were everywhere and my hands grew numb taking pictures for other groups of people. We snapped our pictures and shuffled on frozen feet for an Italian restaurant.
Tena and I at the Alexanderplatz Christmas market!
At the mall, there was a nice balcony overlooking the Christmas market.
Hey the Berlin Wall has my name on it!
We returned to our hostel to thaw out and relax for a few hours. At midnight, we celebrated Tena’s birthday and sang to her before remembering the time and that we had probably woken our neighbors.
Saturday was our last full day (and my favorite) in Berlin. Again, we were up early to meet for a free walking tour of the city! I was so thankful to look out my window that day and see a sunny day with the faintest of breezes, all traces of the winter storm having vanished. The guide met us in the lobby of our hostel and took us to on a short tram ride (on which we’d discovered that we’d been taking a longer route to the station through the awful weather) and after a bus ride we arrived at the meeting place for the tours: Brandenburger Tor. There were tours in many different languages, and Francesca, Elisa, and I ended up in the same English tour. Also in our group was a girl I recognized from our hostel. Upon introducing ourselves, we realized we were both from America! (She had actually heard me talking at the hostel and had known it then). It was the craziest thing to meet her- she was from the area of Washington where my grandparents live, and studies at the university I wanted to study at before I decided on Juneau! We had a lot in common and it was SO FUN to hang out with her during the tour. She was studying in England and just in Berlin for the weekend. On our tour were a few others from America, but I didn’t talk to them much.
The tour was three hours of walking around Berlin, led by our EXCELLENT and very knowledgeable guide. He was from Australia (and made hilarious jokes about French people). The day was clear and not too cold, which made the tour even more enjoyable. We started and ended at the Brandenburger Tor, and passed through the Memorial to the Murderd Jews of Europe again, which I was glad for so I could see them again in daylight. He told history like a story, which I loved, and gave us a very condensed “History of Berlin” lecture in just 15 minutes! At one point we were two stories above where Hitler’s bunker had been, and he explained the rather sad story of the fall of the Third Reich , the the way the rise of the Third Reich had seemed to hold so much promise for Germany, only in the end to find its leaders fleeing and committing suicide. It was a serious moment in the tour and made us all kind of quiet and I know it made me thoughtful. His description of Hitler’s last hours was also really sad and touching. Despite the heavy subjects, the rest of the tour was really fun and our guide was funny, describing a chocolate shop as “the remainder of Berlin’s days of sin and indulgence”. I really enjoyed the tour, which was a kind of “pay as you want” deal.
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The slabs ranged in height, some were even taller than me!
The ground isn't even, and some of the slabs look smaller than they are.
This picture shows the height of the slabs better,they dwarf me!
According to our tour guide, this street was know to be a street of "sin and indulgence" in Berlin.
One of the remainders of the Berlin Wall
The building of the German Ministry of Aviation during Nazi Germany, namely the Luftwaffe. This building was in the movie Valkyrie. Also was one of the top administrative buildings of Soviet Occupation Zone.
Standing next to this playground, our tour guide told us that we were two stories above where Hitler's bunker had been. Where the Nazi regime ended.
Brandenburger Tor by day! Me, Elisa, Tena, and Francesca.
At the end of the tour, I bid goodbye to Jayla, the other American, and thinking that I would see her later at the hostel. Sadly, we never met back up, but it was really fun to have met her, we had so much in common! Us English tour-ers joined the other half of the group who had taken their tour in Spanish to decide what to do. The group wanted to take a city sightseeing bus tour, which I was against, but in the end I didn’t want to lose the group so I went along. And I must say…that was the biggest waste of 10 euros. We were on the second story of the bus, and the wind rattled the ceiling and it was so noisy I could hardly hear, let alone understand the guide speaking. After three hours of walking, we were all really tired as well, and almost all of us fell asleep at some point on the bus. It was already about 3:30 or so when the tour started, so it wasn’t long before it was dark, which wasn’t great for sightseeing. On top of all that, the bus was FREEZING COLD.
A picture I took while still conscious on the bus tour…the men are PEDDLING this mobile bar, which I thought was so awesomely German and hilarious!
We decided to visit the museum that is underneath the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. We got there a minute before they stopped letting visitors in, and in less than an hour the museum closed. I was frustrated because I could have spent SO much longer there, and I would much rather have been there than on the bus.
At the memorial museum, there was a picture from Bielefeld.
We wanted to go out on our last night in Berlin and for Tena’s birthday, now that it wasn’t hailing with hurricane-force winds. Unfortunately for us girls, the three guys we were…well, pretty intoxicated before we even got on the tram. It was not very entertaining to walk around with them, and once we found the street of pubs that had been suggested to us, we didn’t want to go in any of them with the guys, who probably wouldn’t have been let in anyways. In the end, the guy separated from us for a while and we found a nice pub to have some drinks in. I am constantly asked to show my ID to prove that I’m over 18…which is humorous if annoying. Girls are usually asked for their IDs more frequently than boys anyways, but I had been in a group of girls, and the server asking me had done the mental math wrong, so she had still insisted I was under 18. I pointed out again that I was 19 and she apologized. I ordered a Berliner Weiße, of course! It is a kind of sour beer with raspberry or woodruff syrup that used to be the most popular in Berlin and is rumored to have been called “The Champagne of the North” by Napoleon. The boys stumbled shortly into the pub, and we left soon with them after to go home. It was not the typical “crazy night out experiencing the Berlin nightlife” but I thought it was fine to be with my friends in a quieter pub.
Berliners and the birthday girl! (It was odd that it was served with a straw)
On our last day in Berlin, we ate Tena’s birthday cake we hadn’t eaten the day before and checked out of the hostel. We dropped our luggage off at the Hauptbahnhof and split into two groups. One group went to see the East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall, and the other to the Topography of Terror museum. I chose to go to the museum, which documented the rise of the Third Reich and Hitler’s regime and is built on the site where the buildings for the S.S. and Gestapo were stood during Nazi Germany. The Gestapo basement remains.. I was always interested in this, and did my big IB History research paper on the Holocaust, so I thought it was a great and educational museum. It’s definitely a topic I could read on and on about, and of course I didn’t get through the museum by the time my friends were ready to leave. Part of the Berlin Wall, the longest part that would have been visible to West Berliners, still stands there. On our way back to the Hauptbahnhof, we stopped at the chocolate shop our tour guide had pointed out.
Basement of the Gestapo and the Berlin wall in the midground.
the Hotel Adlon, where Michael Jackson dangled his infant son from a window.
Basement of the Gestapo
All made out of chocolate!! The horses were actually so detailed!
Our train left at 5pm, and after an uneventful train ride, we arrived back in Bielefeld around midnight. As soon as we stepped off our tram stop at our dorm, we were exclaiming how warm it was! It was so much warmer than Berlin and it felt so good!
To me, Berlin was an intriguing city with so much history and much to learn about. I could easily spend another week there, just visiting the museums and learning about its role in Germany’s history. I was always the last in the group out of the museums. It was an enormous city, I don’t think I’ve experienced such a large city before. But after being in Berlin, I was glad to be doing my studying abroad in a much smaller city like Bielefeld. In Berlin, I didn’t experience anything especially “German”…it was very international, and I heard English spoken all around me, on the trams, in the street, etc…which never happens in Bielefeld unless I’m with my exchange student friends. I know there are culturally unique things about Berlin, but my experience was that it was a big city-and big cities are usually alike. I’m sure studying in Berlin would be a really interesting and awesome year too, but it made me really appreciate Bielefeld. It was an exhausting trip-getting up early every day and all the walking and museums made it more like a school trip.
One of the best part of the trip was arriving back at Bielefeld Hauptbahnhof, walking up the stairs and going outside. We were sighing with exhaustion and happiness, saying how nice it was to be back. I found myself reveling in that simple joyful feeling you get after returning home after a trip-before realizing that I think of Bielefeld as home. It felt perfectly natural to say “It’s so good to be home!”.
Now I'm happy to be done with my last week of classes before Christmas! I only have two weeks of Christmas break, since our semester doesn’t end until February, and then I’ll have a glorious 6 weeks off! I’m spending the holidays with Felix and his family in Hannover, and I’m so excited to relax and experience a real German Christmas!
