Chapter 3: Berlin: The weather could not have been wurst.

Our train pulled into Berlin’s central station not long after the schedule arrival time, despite the initial delay in leaving Wroclaw. The first priority in our new country was to withdraw some Euros. It took maybe 10 minutes of wandering through multiple levels of the station before locating an ATM, but after withdrawing some cash, I immediately went to a convenience store and bought a 1.5 liter bottle of water and began to chug unrelentingly. The combination of two nights of heavy drinking in Poland and no money to purchase any water before our departure had made the 5 hour trip to Berlin one of the most miserable train rides of my life. I spent much of the time in a dehydrated daze, fantasizing about anything water related, and even pondered stealing the beverage of the man sitting across from me while he was in the bathroom. It was not my proudest moment.

Having come from a smaller Polish city, the size and scope of Berlin was immediately awe inducing. Even just a look at the transportation map posted on the wall of the station and it was clear that we had entered a new level of modern city. The dozens of train lines (both Ubahn and Sbahn, of which I did not understand the difference at all) were drawn out on the system map in a cryptic maze of lines and dots, accentuated with a plethora of stereotypically sounding German names ending in platz and straße. An anxiety attack was not an out of the ordinary reaction to such a map one would guess.

I stared blankly at the map for 5 minutes, with neither an idea of where we were, nor where we were supposed to be heading. Trains continued to arrive and depart from the five stories of tracks almost continuously, then darting off in the next direction just as quickly as they had arrived. It was an airport of a train station. For the first 20 minutes after we arrived, I was overwhelmed by Berlin, a sentiment I rarely admit to having in foreign cities.

Perhaps that was a slight exaggeration, as a mere 30 minutes later everything had begun to take focus. We were sitting on a Sbahn train (though I still didn’t know what the difference was), headed towards the home of our host in the southern part of Berlin. The act of locating and orientating yourself can provide such a simplifying and pacifying influence on your perception of being in a new city.

We managed to meet up with our host, Matthias, that evening despite some international dialing difficulties, and headed out to a neighborhood pub for a few drinks and some darts. Like most instances where two groups of people from entirely different parts of the world are meeting for the first time, the conversation was slow and focused on travel stories and pleasantries, and the games of darts long and imprecise. After another round the conversation picked up and we engaged in a couple heated games of cricket, with our Team USA pulling out a few key victories over the Germans. Neither Mike nor I is considered to be much for dart players, but with the help of a few drinks we managed to emerge victorious. Matthias even taught us the German word that for the first couple drinks to get the skill going, which translates literally to “aiming water”, though alas as I forgot the actual word. It was very like the Germans to have a such a word.

The evening had began with hopes of venturing out to explore the nightlife of Berlin, but after a few beers it became apparent that our late nights in Poland, accompanied by the usual unfulfilling sleep one can expect following several hours of overconsumption, had taken their toll. Neither of us could summon the energy to get on the train and ride back into the city to explore, and so we decided to head back and call it an early night, figuring the full nights rest would do us good. And besides, there was still Saturday night to be ready for.

Saturday brought the return of rain, not so much as a real storm like in Poland but the kind of gentle, persistent rain that continues for hours and offers a gentle “fuck you” to any plans you might have had for the day.

We got off the Sbahn at Potsdamerplatz in order to peer through the haze and mist at the Jewish War Memorial, Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, Unter Der Linden: all nice but in some way lacking any specific draw or unifying force. The Jewish War Memorial was the most powerful, but haunting as well, which was probably the intention of its designer. The stark monuments, symbolic of coffins but with irregular sizes and heights to give uniqueness and personality to each, as I imagined the artist had intended to give individual tribute to millions of people who were thoughtlessly murdered en masse.

Despite my favor of the Jewish War Memorial, I still found the sights of Berlin a modest thrill at best, mostly relevant only to the politically charged, war ravaged and economically unstable history of the city in the first half of the twentieth century. Berlin was not a great sightseeing city, nor was it a particularly beautiful city, but yet still the visitors arrive.

It was a phenomenon I could not explain, and did not particularly care to worry about either. Instead, after about 90 minutes of walking in the rain through central Berlin, we decided to hop into a nearby restaurant for some food and a liter of beer, which seemed about as German of an idea as anything else at that point.

I ordered a bowl of hearty potato soup, which hit the spot quite well on an unfortunate July day with temps in the low 60s. It was simple: based merely on broth, potato, sausage, and aromatics and spices, but still quite wonderful. Paired with a tall, German Lager that went down fast on a dreary, wet day, I felt we had made the most of our situation. To pass the time, we struck up some conversation with a group of girls sitting at a nearby table; all 3 of them were visiting for the weekend from London, though two were originally from the US and the third from Scotland.

The two American girls almost immediately showed themselves to be the type of expats who, as soon as they left America, began to look back at their home country with a sort of annoyed disdain, as if they really had to admit that they came from a place where people shoved Big Macs into their faces at an ever increasingly alarming rate and watching the Blue Collar Comedy Tour was considered a cultural experience.

They seemed fairly surprised when we proved capable of holding a few short conversations regarding Bauhaus design and Moma, the newly crowned best restaurant in the world in Copenhagen. I wanted to instantly ignore them for their readily snobbish attitude, but at the same time it was nice to be holding a conversation about anything, be it Molecular Gastronomy or the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, with someone besides Mike.

We managed to keep drinking through the afternoon well enough to necessitate heading back in order to take a late afternoon nap before heading out for the night. When we were finally up and ready to go again it was almost 10pm. This did not concern us, as if Europe is known for one thing, it’s that they will party until the sun comes up, and then they will continue just the same.

First we required a stop at Curry 36, which had been recommended to us by several people as the best place to get Berlin’s famous Currywurst.

The stand was still busy at 10:30PM, and after a couple bites I could see why. The currywurst was crisp and flavorful, and yes it is the curry flavored sausage experience it sounds like. The frittes were excellent as well. It was at this meal that I began to realize I was starting to like the European combination of mayo and ketchup on my fries. Like most Americans, for years I had detested the concept of putting mayo on fries, but yet here I was, beginning to enjoy the concept. McCarthy would have assuredly proclaimed me a communist on the spot.

After our meal we decided to walk in the general direction of Kreuzberg, the hip neighborhood we were told would be filled with bars, clubs and the other sorts of attractions that people in their 20s like to look for in their free time. This proved to be a poor decision, as not only was the walk much longer than we had anticipated, but the neighborhood through which we were walking was nothing more than blocks and blocks quiet residential buildings. By the time we finally arrived in an area that had some activity we had been walking for well over half an hour through a light rain.

We walked by several bars and restaurants but none seemed to be particularly busy on a Saturday night, and so we continued on. Finally, tired of walking and in desperate need of a drink, we stopped into a bar that was showing the big boxing match that evening between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye. The place was packed and everyone seemed heavily interested in the fight, something I was not anticipating on encountering We had a few drinks and watched the end of the fight, engaged with the rest of the crowd, but afterwards the place began to clear out almost immediately, though it was only 1am in a city where the nightlife supposedly never stops.

We paid our bill and moved on, deciding to hop back on the train and head towards the area around Curry 36, which seemed to at least be full of people when we were there earlier in the evening. This area as well yielded very little, and after another half hour of walking, the reluctant decision was made to cut our losses and head back to head home. We admitted defeat. We had not managed to find a decent bar in Berlin on a Saturday night. I had never been more ashamed.

Sunday the weather was no better, but there was little we could besides just bitch a little bit, grab our stuff, and head out. I was already disappointed with how much use I was getting out of my cheap tourist umbrella with “Berlin” written on it over and over in a whimsical font which I had purchased at the Jewish War Memorial.

We started the day at Checkpoint Charlie, the main crossing point between East and West Berlin throughout the decades of separation. Mike had insisted on visiting the spot, but I had been less excited about the prospects, figuring it would just be a gigantic tourist trap. And it was. But the visit turned into a pleasant surprise as the walls surrounding the area were covered with a gallery depicting many pictures of the Cold War and telling the history of the wall and the divide between East and West Germany.

Standing there, reading the history of everything that had happened, the full weight of what the Berlin Wall had meant and its impact not only on the people who lived in the city, but on the rest of the world, began to dawn on me. The realization that it had been only a little over 20 years since the wall had come down, and how much the city had changed since then, was astounding.

Being a millennial, my generation represents the first for which the Cold War has always seemed like a past event, something from the history books. But there in the rain, reading about the incredible successful and tragic failed escape attempts, and the Berlin airlift, and President Kennedy’s famous (or infamous?) speech, it was this moment at which the Cold War became real for me.

It was an awakening, though not quite enough of one to compel me to pay five Euros to get my picture taken with the actors in American army apparel who were “manning” the checkpoint.

From Check Point Charlie we hoped on the Ubahn to visit the East Side Gallery, where a multitude of artists have painted a series of large murals along one of the largest stretches of the wall that remains. Once again, the rain seemed appropriate for such a location, and we strolled along, looking at the series of murals and taking in their political and cultural messages. All of them had been repainted only 2 years ago (the originals murals were painted shortly after the fall of the wall) and still looked striking and vibrant against the grey surroundings of the city. I couldn’t pretend to understand the context and meaning behind the murals, but I felt I could appreciate the significance of each on the day it was painted.

Our afternoon walk took us back through Kreuzberg, where I realized that we had actually walked down several of the same streets the previous night. There seemed to be just as many people out on a Sunday afternoon as there were on Saturday night, and I began to think that perhaps the rain had played a role in our difficulties of finding a good place to get a drink. That was, at least, what I wanted to believe.

We stopped in for a couple beers when the rain picked up, and then moved on once it abated, our standard course of action for almost our entire visit in Berlin. We would wander around until a point in which we needed a break from the rain, and then we would stop into the closest bar and sample whatever German beer they had on tap. At this pub it was Erdinger, a German hefeweizen that instantly became one of Mike and my favorite beers in Germany. It was a balanced hefeweizen that was full bodied and did not taste like a bowl of lemons. I enjoyed it tremendously.

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Our next destination was Lubeck, a Hanseatic city on the northern coast of Germany. I didn’t know what Hanseatic meant, but I figured we would figure it out once we got there. Lubeck was a small city by comparison, only 250,000 people, which would be a nice change from the size and scale of Berlin.

Despite the poor weather and other difficulties we had encountered there, I still enjoyed my time in Berlin. I did realize though, that we had approached the city in the wrong way.

Berlin is not a city you visit for a weekend, at least not if you want to do it right. You need two days just to get your bearings and start to get a feel for where things are. As much as Prague was a great city for a weekend getaway, to systematically visit the main sites in the center of town and then be off, Berlin is a city to wander through for a week, getting lost in its neighborhoods and looking for unknown bars, restaurants, and street art.

I knew, as soon as we left, that I would be back to Berlin sometime later in my life in order to make a proper visit.

Lubeck was miniscule by comparison, especially since most visitors remain within the old center of town, which is separated from the mainland by a small, lazy river, and compact enough to traverse by foot alone. It was refreshing that after one day there we knew our way around the entire area.

Lubeck was the first stop on our trip where we did not have lodging arrangements made beforehand, and so we had to venture out and find a hostel for our time there. Luck was on our side, as we were able to find lodging at a nice hostel, and though we paid a rate for a 5 bunk room, we were the only two there and thus had a private room for all intents and purposes.

We spent the evening wandering through several of the cobbled, narrow streets. I felt the calm and quiet of the city were exactly what we needed following the past week of never ending touring, drinking and traveling. Eventually, we became famished enough to settle on a restaurant, opting for one of three places stretched along the river guiding the western border of the old part of town.

While the waiter did speak some English, the menus were in German only, leaving us scrambling for something to order that sounded exotic… but not too exotic. I chose the special, sauerfleisch, that was written on the chalkboard on the wall, figuring it was special enough to merit advertizing, and therefore had to be good. I had no idea what I had just ordered, and when the ham steak arrived, topped with an slightly salty and sour aspic, the two together served slightly chilled, I realized I had gotten what I wanted, in a roundabout sense.

Actually, the meal turned out quite good, despite my initial reservations. Gelatin is a texture we rarely consume in day to day eating in America, but enjoyed it quite a bit, and actually thought the bold and enhanced flavor it brought to the pork made it well worth the adventure. The fact that it was served chilled though did not sit well given the mild and dropping temperatures.

Even for northern Germany I supposed that this was still probably unseasonably cool weather. Later that evening, as we sat drinking a few beers on the patio of a bar we had to sit next to the large portable heaters in order to stay warm. We weren’t exactly in the Arctic Circle, but I was beginning to suspect that we had entered the part of the world where one should almost always bring a jacket, no matter what time of year.

Tuesday was our only full day in Lubeck, but already it felt as if we had explored a sizeable portion of the city. I started the day with some coffee and a croissant, which hit the spot in an indescribable way. Mike was not a coffee drinker, so I was oftentimes on my own for getting coffee and any form of breakfast in the morning. It felt a shame as this was often such a wonderful experience in Europe, to merely sit back and slowly wake up to the day. Granted for us this occurred at 11AM rather than 6AM, but we weren’t that old yet.

We explored around the old part of town once more for the early part of the day, observing again some of the immense, towering churches that appear ready to tumble over at any moment. Lubeck had enjoyed its most golden years earlier than the other cities we had visited on the trip, and so the age and architecture of the buildings gave it an even strong historical sense. The age of the buildings, combined with the swampy sea level marsh upon which they were built, had led to many of the towers and steeples beginning to lean and tilt quite preciously. It made me uneasy to see such large and ancient structures tilted at angles anyone could recognize as not being part of the original design, but without any kind of modern support structure to keep them stabilized. It wasn’t quite the leaning tower of Pisa, but it had the same visual effect.

By 2pm we had already exhausted just about everything there was to see in Lubeck. The plan of visiting a place that would be easy to cover had worked too well, so we hopped on a bus and headed for Travemunde, a seaside resort about 15 km away. Lubeck itself was not actually on the open sea, but instead connected by a large inlet and river to the North Atlantic. Travemunde was the actual seaside location, with beaches, a boardwalk, and a ferry terminal from which ferries to other Northern European Destinations departed.

I was surprised at the amount of development catering towards tourists that existed in Travemunde, given how small of a weather window must exist there for good beach going conditions. Even today, the 5^th of July, the skies were overcast and swimming seemed like an idea only for the slightly insane or fully inebriated. But still, it had all the makings of a summer resort town, and there were scores of people milling around to support this claim. I guess when you live in this part of the world it’s nice to have a beach you can visit within a short commute as opposed to flying off to Ibiza, even if the weather’s not the same and there aren’t nearly as many Spanish women in bikinis.

Late Wednesday morning began our final travel day of the trip, a 5 hour train ride from Lubeck to Copenhagen. Our last evening in Lubeck had been pleasant, with clear skies and warm temperatures for the first time in days, but aside from attempting to describe the serenity of sitting in the courtyard of our in the late, North German summer evening, there was little of consequence to write about. Even pictures could not do justice to sanguinity of the evening, and really I can only leave my lack of exposition as description enough.

On our ultimate leg of the trip we finally learned to plan ahead by purchasing provisions for the train ride. Some juice, fruit, brie, and a loaf of fresh baked bread made it a much more enjoyable journey than that fateful trip from Poland during which I would have gladly pushed an old lady off the moving train for half a glass of water.

We were already in good spirits when the announcement came over the PA system, first in German and then repeated in English, that our train would be boarding the ferry at Puttgarden for a 45 minute ride over to Denmark.

It was true! All along, our ambition of traveling from Northern Germany to Copenhagen had involved the idea of a ferry. I had decided originally that this would be our means of arrival without actually investigating whether it was possible; however, when I told our host in Copenhagen that we were planning on arriving by ferry, he commented back that we would most likely then be taking a train into Copenhagen. At first I did not understand, until I discovered that no ferries actually served the route from Lubeck to Copenhagen, as it is much too accessible by land based transportation.

Disappointed at first, I then read in my investigation that the ICE trains made their route by way of the Puttgarden ferry, and that the train itself was loaded on for the 45 minute crossing. I was hesitant to believe this until the announcement finally was made. This was even better: we were on a train that was going onto a ferry. How many people can claim to have done that?

Well perhaps it wasn’t as interesting as it sounds now that I’ve sufficiently built up the experience. The train was loaded onto the car deck along much the same as the other vehicles, and we were required to move to the passenger deck as were all the other automobile-based travelers. Our train was in effect just one gigantic SUV, crammed into the hull of a large ferry. But still, we were on a train: on a ferry!

Photos