Berlin Weekend
Wednesday 20 June 2007, 12:04am

I spent a fantastic long weekend in Berlin with some friends. I had a really great time and learnt so much about the history there.

We groggily arrived on a hot Friday morning having dragged ourselves out of bed at 3am to make the 6.30am flight. And what was the first thing we did after checking into our hotel? We went to the zoo! Berlin Zoo is home to a wide range of animals including elephants, tigers, penguins, monkeys and more famously... Knut the adorable baby polar bear! You may have heard of him!

Afterwards we were delighted to find the sales were on, so we spent the rest of the day shopping and finally ended up in the large department store KaDeWe where we had a delicious pasta meal in their sumptuous food hall which they claim contains 2 football fields of food! I don't doubt it!

The next day after a good nights sleep we went on one of the free walking tours of the city. It turned out to be the highlight of the trip! Our American guide Charlie was so informative and entertaining and passionate about Berlin that we hardly even noticed when our 3.5 hour tour ran 1.5 hours over schedule.

We learnt all about Paris Square, The Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Hitler's Bunker where he committed suicide (they purposely disregard him as this is nothing but a parking lot these days), The Nazi Airforce Building (now the Tax Department), The Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, The Book Burning Memorial, The TV Tower, Museum Island and a whole lot more! Our guide ended the tour with a very entertaining story of how the Berlin Wall fell.

The main thing I took away from the tour was just how great Germans are at addressing their history - more so than any other country. Rather than trying to hide or cover things up they take full responsibility for anything they've ever done as a country. They commemorate and build memorials and leave evidence of the past (e.g. church roof damaged by bombing un-repaired, prime land where torture chambers were found never to be used again). And in doing so, they hope ensure evil never rises up again. If you're ever in Berlin, I'd highly recommend New Berlin Tours for their free walking tour - definitely worthwhile!

We'd heard Berlin has great nightlife and so in the evening after a tasty dinner of Thai food we headed off clubbing at Weekend, which was on the 12th Floor of a building and had great views of the city.

On our final day, we headed to the glass dome at the top of The Reichstag (Parliament) for some more fantastic views of the city. Afterwards we went on a tour of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp which was one of the first camps and designed to be the model camp for which other camps were to look to for example. Here we heard the stories of what went on and saw the layout of the camp, the barracks where the prisoners stayed, the death chambers and crematorium, and the labs where prisoners were forced to undergo horrific scientific experiments. It was very upsetting to see that one of the commemorative barracks to the victims had recently been burnt by modern day neo-Nazis. But it just goes to show we're still fighting against racism to this day. It was all extremely depressing needless to say but served as a grim reminder to not let the past repeat itself.

Now on a brighter note, what blog entry of mine would be complete without a mention of the culinary delights of the city? When it came to food Berlin had some fantastic variety from all corners of the globe. On the street our hotel was on I counted plenty of different eateries including Jamaican, Indian, Mexican, Vietnamese, Italian, Chinese, Thai as well as German Bakeries. Speaking of the bakeries we had some seriously delicious cakes full of sponge and cream! My dad would have loved it! I've also become quite a fan of the humble bratwurst and managed to have currywurst (which is basically bratwurst covered in ketchup and curry powder) twice!

For photos from our trip check out my Berlin Weekend album!

Feature Photo

Knut

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About Me

Hi! I'm Leanne and like many Kiwis in their mid 20s, I am living and working in London. Since I'm not so hot at keeping in touch, the purpose of this website is to keep my friends and family located on other parts of the globe updated...
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