Day 1 in Berlin

Berlin is probably the place I’ve been most interested in going so far. Took us almost 5 hours to get here by train (30 minutes+ in delays!) and when we did get here, the weather, and the general feel of the place, remains me a great deal of Melbourne. As we walked from the station to our hotel, and crossed the Spree, we found a plaque, telling us of a number of attempted border crossings at this particular bridge. It dawned on us that we would be staying in what was East Berlin, and at the same time, that this was a city that used to be divided, and it’s only really been what it is for the past 20 years or so. That hasn’t stopped it from becoming a vast, modern city.

One of the most striking things about Berlin is there’s no altstadt the way the other German cities have had so far. That is naturally because it was destroyed, both during the final days of the war, and then further during the separation era. The next thing we noticed is that it’s big. To compare to everywhere else we’ve been so far, it’s like Rome in terms of size. All the other cities haven’t seemed so big. This is probably to fit in all the buildings that are also big, impressive and powerful, the way the Roman buildings were big.

The other major thing you notice is the cobble-stoned line through out the city, that shows where the wall used to be. There’s not so much signs of socialist lifestyle any more – the big concrete block buildings and so on, but there’s definitely parts of the wall remaining, with information plaques telling you the stories and so on. It was while we were at Checkpoint Charlie that I remembered mum has been to Berlin, and that it would have looked nothing like it does now. That she couldn’t just walk around freely the way we have done. It’s one of those things that makes you realise we are pretty lucky to be living when we live, and where we live.

We had dinner at a little restaurant across the road from our hotel (after an abortive attempt at a cheaper one) a traditional german sort of dish of meatballs in a creamy mushroom sauce with fried potatoes for me, and a veal and mushroom creamy pasta for Rhiannon. Tomorrow, we’re going to the Zoo.