Barb and Baden’s Excellent German Adventure – Part 2
Greetings from Berlin!
We have been in Berlin for a few days now and things have been going quite well. Barb’s dad Joe (who is staying in Berlin for a few weeks) met us at the train station and we are now staying at the Pension (guest house) that he stays at. Our room is simple but nice and close to the local U-Bahn (pronounced ooo-bahn) station which is the subway. The bathroom is certainly interesting as it measures about 4ft x 2.5ft with a 24″ square stand up shower.
So far we have seen some of the sights and gone to some Weinachtsmarkts just about every night we’ve been here. Weinachtsmarkts are Christmas Markets which are outside and have these stands selling all kinds of food and Christmas trinkets. One of the popular items on sale here is Glüwein (pronounced glue-vine). This is basically a hot drink made up mostly of red wine and spices and really hits the spot when walking around the markets on a cold night.
Berlin is a fascinating city and truly one of Europe’s great cities. The unfortunate part is that while Berlin has a rich history, much of Berlin is less that 50 years old as about 75% of it was destroyed during world war 2. Berlin is in the middle of a huge redevelopment after the reunification with East Germany about 10 years ago. There are easily 50 cranes visible on the horizon as new buildings are being brought up all the time. In about 10 years, much of Berlin will probably be brand new.
Today we went to visit the remaining part of the Berlin wall and then onto the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. This shows the rise and fall of the Berlin wall and significant detail of the exploits of people who tried (and sometimes failed) to escape out of East Germany. Coming from a country where free travel is a given, it’s hard to really imagine what would happen if one day you were told that you had to live where you were told couldn’t move about freely. This is basically what happened to the Germans who happened to end up on the “wrong side” of the country after the allies and Soviets conquered Germany in WW2.
We’re both really glad that we came to Germany at this time of year as Berlin is really well lit up for Christmas and people are out on the streets at all hours even on weeknights. We’ll both really miss having to leave but in a few days we will pack up and take a 8 hour train down to Münich. We have been told that the Bavaria part of Germany (in the south) is quite different in flavour to the north so we shall have to see if we can notice such difference.
I’ll probably check in in about 5 or 6 days for my next update.
Our best to everyone.
Baden & Barb
Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent German Adventure – Part 3
