The Behrens Venture

For our third and final day in Berlin, we checked out some of the more interesting things we had noticed from yesterday’s tour of the city. We started out going to the Egyptian Museum to check out the different collections. The top floor was the actual Egyptian part and the bottom was more Greek/Roman relics. I tried doing the audio tour, with the personal device and headphones, which turned out to be really helpful. I loved the bust of Queen Nerfertiti the most, it is probably the most famous artifact the museum has, it dates back to 1350 BC. We toured the bottom part of the museum too, and then wandered around some more.

Eventually we made it over to the Deutsches Technikmuseum which was simply amazing. German technical museums are simply the best I’ve ever seen, the building was like 6 stories high and HUGE! They had an entire Norwegian viking ship inside, multiple boats, planes, trains, everything. Everything has notes cataloging and explaining itself, although they were in German, they still helped. You can walk inside and touch everything too. They had a brewery too, but it was already closed by the time we came. I would highly recommend this place.

From there, we headed to the Sony Plaza, some giant half indoors/outdoors plaza that Sony built or something. They had a Sony store, along with lots of cafes and lights, but our main reason was to see an IMAX 3D show. We ended up going to see the Cirque du Soleil show. I would love to see it live, but 3D was almost as good. German IMAX theaters are another great experience that I would really suggest, the huge screen, booming speakers, and of course 3D, are awesome.

It was growing dark by that time, so we tried to find a party! Our German friends in Heidelberg had given us a “Berlin Culture Guide” from like the 80s, in full German mind you. I managed to decipher where some bars/clubs were in town, so we headed to the way outskirts of town. We found some random place with music playing, we knocked on the door, and got buzzed in. We walk in and we are the only ones there! After grabbing a beer, we talk with the bartender and learn a really important lesson: parties really don’t start in Germany until like 12-2AM and then go until the sunrises. It was already like 11:30PM, but we couldn’t stay up anymore. We head back to our hostel and crash. In the morning, we woke up, took our time, and headed to Munich for Oktoberfest!

We left Monday morning for Berlin. We hadn’t really planned to go to Berlin, but we had 3 days to spare and a train ticket to use! We used the German ICE(Inter City Express) trains for the first time, they are awesome trains. They get up to like 250-300KM an hour, everything outside is just flying by, but the train is completely still. We also found out that the tickets we had did not include seat reservations! Standing around the entire ride was annoying, but bearable since it was only 4 hours maybe. We learned our lesson quickly.

We pulled into the main train station late in the afternoon and used a taxi to find our hostel. It was some random place we found on the internet, 20 Euros a night. We showed up, called the manager, he showed up 15 minutes later, we paid in full, we got keys, and then he left. It was very sketchy, but we had our room for cheap, so we were happy. We walked around for a few hours while daylight was left, went to the giant Television Tower which was impossible to miss, and grabbed dinner at typical German beergarden. A beergarden is just an empty yard with lights, a bunch of collapsable tables and benches, and lots of cheap beer. You can just relax and enjoy your beer in the company of friends, they are great.

Tuesday morning we woke up early and headed up to the Television Tower first. We did some research on getting around the city and picked up a “CityTourCard” for 15 Euros which gave us unlimited travel on the subway and buses for 2 days. It also granted many discounts on touristy things, which was perfect because we immediately used the card to buy a cheap ticket for an all day bus tour of the city! The bus tour took us around, showing us everything of interest while we learned the layout of the city. The busses came every 20 minutes, so we could hop off at a location of interest, check it out, and get on the next bus! By 8PM we were pretty tired, but we had seen all the main tourist points, Checkpoint Charlie, the remains of the Berlin Wall, the Brandenburg Gate, Museum Island, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

The Memorial was one of the most interesting things to me, it just recently built between 2003 and 2005 by Peter Eisenman. it consists of a giant grid of 2,711 concrete blocks of different heights and lengths which you can walk through and find your own way. I was just amazed and totally confused by this at first, but then I found that at the far back corner of this monument was the entrance to a museum! The ground beneath the blocks was hollow, with a museum underneath, detailing the unique lives and journeys of several different groups of Jewish people during the Holocaust. It has many different diary accounts from people, detailed family history, and stories that I have never heard of. This place was very interesting and one of the things I remember best about Berlin.

For the next couple days, Erik and I just toured all over, checking out random things in Heidelberg and seeing how things had changed. One of the biggest differences were the military bases. The military was the reason I was originally in Germany, my Dad worked for them, so I knew all of them well. There are 3 main military bases: MTV(Mark Twain Village), PHV(Patrick Henry Village), and Campbell Barracks, way off in the woods. MTV was where my Dad worked and also where I went to school for 1st through 5th grades.

The big difference was that all the bases are now walled up and barricaded all over. MTV is more of a residential base, it has many apartment buildings that formerly just sat out in the community interspersed with other German buildings. Now they all had 8 foot tall walls with barbed wire. The main reason is probably 9/11 and the government freaking out. I know we have to protect ourselves, but walling ourselves off from everyone else seems a bit extreme… I also found that I can no longer get inside the base! They used to have American MPs(military police) guarding the entrances, now there are German security forces. You need a military ID to get on the base, they used to let you take guests with you or use your passport to get on, but not anymore. I was really disappointed that I wasn’t allowed back inside the base…

Friday night, there was a whole group of us hanging out, Gregor, Daniel, their friend, Erik, and I. We went and bought a case of beer at the local store. The cheapest beer available was called Oettinger, so cheap that the Pfand(bottle deposit) was almost as much as the beer itself! We also found out, none of our German friends knew what beer pong was, so we just had to show them!

For those who don’t know, beer pong is like table tennis, but with cups and beer. We played beer pong for awhile, waiting for the sun to set and the night to come alive. Once it was dark, we grabbed the beer and headed downtown. Germany has no open beverage laws, which let us drink where ever we pleased. One of the popular spots in Heidelberg is down by the Neckar river which runs through the city, the Neckarwiese(river side). There were about 200-300 people just hanging out and drinking, it was a great way to practice my German and just talk casually with people my age. I had a great time!

The next day Erik and I tried to get up early, I was thinking 10AMish, but we failed miserably. By 12AM, we had finally woken up and headed downtown for touring! We grabbed breakfast at a local Bäckerei(bakery), I had my first Dampfnudle(yeast dumpling?) They are delicious rolls, very soft and doughy, with a hardened baked bottom. I will get pictures sometime soon…

One thing to mention is the bakery. Bakeries are a staple of German life, they are more prevalent than Starbucks in America. Everyone has their “own” local bakery that bakes a different type of bread or has a different selection of breads. They are all over, whether you want a quick snack to grab and go, or if you want to sit, have some coffee and enjoy the paper. Every piece of bread you get is put into a paper bag and every bakery has their own unique paper bags. It’s very German.

We head downtown using the Straßenbahn(street train), basically an above ground subway car. They have train tracks on the street, so the car can go pretty much anywhere. They stop every few blocks, but you can get almost anywhere in the city pretty fast. I immediately head to a Deutsche Bank location when we get there. Deutsche Bank(DB) is one of the main banks in Germany, they have pretty extensive international partnerships. This is great for me because DB allows me to pull money from my American Bank of America account with no fees and gives me the best exchange rate! With money in my hand, we head off down the Fußgangerzone(walking zone).

Heidelberg has one of the longest Fußgangerzones in Germany, it takes about 45 minutes to fully walk it! At the end, is the main church for the city and some municipal buildings. A few more blocks after that is the way up to the castle! You can see the castle from anywhere, but just standing right under it is an amazing sight.

Erik and I walked up, it’s a steep walk but not that bad. Entry is about 3 Euro for students. We wandered around for a few hours inside, the inner courtyard for the castle is very nice. One of the most interesting things the castle holds is the largest barrel in the world! It can hold like 220,000 Liters, it’s HUGE! I don’t believe it’s ever been fully filled, but it’s a nice thing to have around.

We wandered around some more after this, went outside to the castle grounds. They really let you wander all over the castle, no one is really watching anything. Next, we headed back down into the city, to the Altebrücke(old bridge). It’s a really old bridge, it’s been around for hundreds of years. On the side of bridge is a list of marks from high floods, it’s crazy how high the water got sometimes, along with how long ago the the floods were.

After the bridge, it was getting late, so we headed home. Heidelberg is a beautiful city!

For my first official day in Germany, I really didn’t do that much! After arriving at Gisela’s house, me and Erik settled into the basement. The house is a 3 story row house with a basement, but it’s divided so that the basement can be completely separate; another house. Both levels share the front door, you can use the house fine even if you don’t rent it out. We both pretty much just passed out, we were dead tired from the time difference and the flight.

We woke up later in the day, around 6ish, and were still pretty out of it. I went upstairs and greeted my friend Gregor for the first time. Gregor Schmiedel was one of my two best friends from my time in Germany, living across the street from me. My other friend, Daniel Fuchs, lived next door to Gregor. Not seeing a person in 6 years is quite a shock, especially during the teenage times, when we change so much. It was great to see him, thinks hadn’t changed between us at all. Erik woke up, we grabbed some dinner together, and talked for a while about everything that had changed.

Later that night we went over to Daniel’s house and hung out for the rest of the night. It was great to see him as well and catch up. Both of my friends are now in a band together, we talked about music a lot. All of our tastes in music had changed, but we all still liked the same stuff. I think I started yawning and getting really tired around 11pm, so me and Erik went to sleep early, the jet lag was killing us. I got some great sleep that night…