Weekend Travels Part 4: Berlin

Last weekend I went to BERLIN!

We should all take a moment to thank Abbie, whose excellent idea it was to go and see Laura Marling in concert on the Saturday night. This motivated us to schedule the weekend in Berlin which an amazing seven of the eight of us in our house next year were able to attend. I was lucky in that I had the second shortest journey; it only takes two and a half hours or so to get to Berlin from Chemnitz. Poor Dan drew the short straw; his coach from Freiburg to Berlin took eleven hours. GOD.

Anyway, after a certain amount of organisation and quite a lot more faffing around and ignoring the fact that we actually had to arrange something at some point, astonishingly all seven of us made it to Berlin by Friday evening. Five of us shared an Airbnb in Schöneberg (again, found by Abbie - THANK YOU) which was a lovely first experience of this setup for me. Airbnb allows people to rent out their rooms for a night, several nights, or an extended period of time, but is nicer than a hostel, as you deal directly with the people who live there and they're usually friendly and eager to help. Our flat had a dance studio in which one of the guys gave Latin dance lessons, as well as a customised bar cunningly hidden behind the studio, and a very relaxed attitude to bedtime/waking up time/literally everything.

The dance studio

On our way out of the flat on Saturday evening we had an impromptu tango lesson with the very friendly flatmate and two of his pupils. All of them were from South America, and we heard at least one Australian voice in the flat too; I don't think there were any Germans living there, unless I just completely missed them. It turns out that tangoing is really fun - there's something about being pressed against a stranger and moving in a sensual manner while trying to pretend you're not feeling intensely awkward that is truly like nothing else - and inspired us to take up ballroom dancing when we get back to Manchester. Watch this space! (Although not too carefully, as we've also vowed to join about ten other societies next year. I fear it may not happen.)

The Reichstag looking majestic as always

Lots of Friday afternoon was spent lying on the grass in the sun by the Hauptbahnhof, having wandered along and seen the Reichstag, the cathedral, and a few other sights while we waited for Dan to arrive. We found an amazing Indian restaurant in the evening; I've been told that German curry is terrible and to be avoided at all costs, but it was delicious. We attempted to go the the temptingly named Weinerei beforehand, where you pay a small entrance fee, drink as much wine as you want, and donate however much you feel you should on your way out. Unfortunately it was incredibly busy, and by the time we'd finished eating it was closing, so instead we headed to a bar that made the strongest cocktails I have ever seen in my life. It was also here that we did the room draw for the house next year, first ensuring that everyone had drunk enough to make it truly difficult to pay attention.

The only issue with the Airbnb was its location - on Friday night we didn't get back until 4 in the morning, due to just missing a train and having to wait half an hour in the cold with only Wikipedia and a game of guessing the size and population of various cities to amuse us. It was then that I realised I have no idea how big my own home town is, despite doing at least two lessons on it this year in school, and that my general grasp of geography is exceedingly poor. My guess that the entirety of Berlin was 35 square kilometres was a particular low point.

Brandenburger Tor selfie - a partial success

Saturday morning got off to an unsurprisingly slow start but we eventually met for brunch in the Hackescher Markt where we were revived by coffee, eggs and bacon. We wandered up towards the Brandenburger Tor, pausing to enthusiastically photograph the cathedral and anything else that looked interesting, and then went to the Holocaust memorial which was as moving this time around as it was last time. 

Come on.

We then headed to the Naturkunde Museum, otherwise known as the Dinosaur Museum, which was just brilliant. It had everything a museum should have: loads of super cool dinosaur skeletons; interactive viewpoint things where you could see what the dinosaurs looked like when they were alive; a circular screen on the ceiling where we watched a short film about the history of the universe, some of us not being aware that the screen was slowly being lowered until it was only about a metre away from our faces, having previously been at least fifteen metres away; some hilariously stuffed animals including an example of bad taxidermy, a photo of which was on my ticket which I thought was very funny for the infamous German sense of humour; a massive room full of embryos in jars that felt weirdly like the Department of Mysteries; an interactive map showing the movement of the continents through time; and a beautiful (but sadly very dead) tiger which made up for the disappointing size of the other inaccurately named 'big cats' in the exhibition - who knew that cheetahs were so small?

Invigorated by the museum, we followed Harry to his favourite Brauhaus in Hasckescher Markt, which he not only found without trouble, defying his history of 'I know where this place is, it's just round here' scenarios, but also had delicious food and a lovely atmosphere, and lots of interesting beer for those who find beer interesting.

The Laura Marling concert itself was in Heimathafen Neukoelln and was frankly delightful. She is an adorable person and although, as was discussed roughly a hundred times, her newer music is harder to have an instant connection with than her older stuff, it was still brilliant and she played some older songs too, and it was basically just fab. I'm even more excited to see her again this summer at Latitude now.

After the concert we staggered back to our Airbnb, pausing only to buy some snacks and wine, and proceeded to be ridiculous, some more than others, until the early hours of the morning when we finally went to sleep. Abbie and James had an early train on Sunday so their unwelcome alarm at 7 interrupted our peaceful slumber, but the lucky ones (Dan and I) were able to go back to sleep (bad luck, Zoe!).

After seeing Zoe off a little bit later at the Hauptbahnhof, Dan and I wandered back to Alexanderplatz which was incredibly nostalgic for me; we walked past all the places that I went to every day when I was in Berlin two years ago. I did a work experience placement in the summer with Bertelsmann for three weeks, which was not particularly successful in itself, as my German was bad and I was not overly enthused by the job. However it was a great experience being in Berlin alone for three weeks and definitely made me more independent and aware of my capabilities.

The good old Fernsehturm

After stopping to buy a few postcards and marvel at the Fernsehturm - "That's pretty damn big" - Dan, 2015 - we met our remaining friends in Alexanderplatz and went to a cafe for brunch/lunch, which happened to be the same one I went to every morning last time to buy a bagel for breakfast. The bagels were as good as I remembered and the company decidedly better. I then smugly went to catch my train at just before 3, meaning I got back to Chemnitz at 5.30, just as Dan was setting off on his overnight bus journey back to Freiburg (it doesn't bear thinking about).

All in all - well done, Berlin! The trend seems to indicate that Germany's delightful capital city improves the more you visit, and is also one of the relatively few cities in which I'm not too panic-stricken by not seeing every single 'important' sight because I know I'll go back at some point. I'm already looking forward to the next visit.