Upon waking up at a normal hour finally on Monday morning, we knew this was the day to properly tour the German capital. We stopped off at a ticket office to reserve a spot for a Berlin Underground Tunnel tour that would happen later.
A quick tram and train ride dropped us right off by Brandenburger Tor, or Brandenburg Gate which is a famous symbol of the city. Adjacent to the gate was the Reichstag Building, home to their parliament with a massive German flag waving out front. We didn't go into the building's scenic glass dome because we are cheapskates. Despite these being some of the most touristy sites in Berlin, there were very few people out and about for some reason.
We then hopped on Lime electric scooters (which have a very touchy throttle I quickly learned) and yeeted over to the Victory Column which the French reluctantly left standing when they conquered Berlin, albeit they shot at the building and there are still bullet holes on the facade. We paid 2.5 euros to walk the hundreds of spiraling steps to the top for a lovely view of the Tiergarden, the main surrounding park full of Linden trees, all without their leaves because it was January. This was a really good choice and though we didn't go up any skyscrapers in Berlin, this was probably a shorter but more unique view of the city.
It started to rain and we were very hungry so we strolled through the park until we got to the more commercial West Berlin area, where we warmed up over a nice Chinese food buffet. Here we learned the sad fact that water is not free in European restaurants unless you explicitly ask from tap, and they don't really like that. Other than that, the meal was awesome. The indoor shopping area here also had a clock that worked by displacing liquids every minute to keep the time in a really cool visual that we watched for a few minutes.
We then stopped into the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church briefly which was severely bombed in war times and they left it that way as a memorial, which is pretty intense. We briefly read their little museum displays for free and then we were on our way to Alexanderplatz, the most trademark tourist place in Berlin.
Here we saw Checkpoint Charlie, which is actually not a memorial to a person named Charlie, it's actually the third of the Berlin Wall checkpoints (A, B, and C for Charlie) during the Cold War era. While the wall is not intact in this intersection, you can see a little monument to mark the space and we really appreciated some of the histories in the nearby display. At this point, Berlin's frigid weather had worn us out again and we got some yummy coffee as we passed time until our afternoon tour of the Berlin Wall underground tunnels.
This was an amazing tour and only 12.5 euros for 2 hours with the student discount, we learned about the Berlin Wall, about East and West Germany and the politics of it all, and most importantly we got to go underground, between the streets and the subway, to see some of the tunnels that people dug in the 1960s in an attempt to cross into West Berlin when they had been separated from their family and loved ones overnight when the wall was suddenly put up. This was so very cool and important to learn about, especially considering how recent history this is.
When we got out, it was about dinner time and we wanted the classic German fare at Hofbräuhaus with beer from the proper glasses and all the traditional foods. I had a fat potato meal and got my picture with my beer glass woohoo! DID I MENTION I love salted pretzels and it's not uncommon to see them for as little as 80 cents! Wow!
We finished off the night by strolling along the main road there and ending up at one more cocktail bar. Finally, we ventured back to Brandenburger Tor to see the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, probably the most compelling display of art/history I've ever seen. We intentionally went at night when the thousands of stone boxes symbolizing graves cast haunting shadows. There is no way to describe it, but as you approach this plaza of stones it appears to be all on one level, but as you walk you recognize it as an optical illusion and the inner stones soar over your head, with rows and rows in every direction perhaps trying to resemble the confinement and eeriness of the concentration camps themselves.
We walked a bit more to Potsdamer Platz where there were a few standing portions of the wall and the Sony Center which was a massive outdoor shopping area that almost felt like the circus. After a long day with lots of mileage we headed home, but not without getting one more döner for good measure. The following morning we took our time to get to the main Berlin train station for our next destination as a group: Prague!
A few other cultural differences that I think are good to add: glasses from finished beverages are worth 25 cents if you return them to recycle! They use this letter ß which is basically just the equivalent of ss in English. Since people throughout Germany are generally Caucasian, we weren't obvious tourists and people often talked to us as such and we had no idea how to respond. Toiletries were crazy cheap (1.50 euro deodorants!) and gas was just as cheap, and there were much fewer cars because the transit was so good. You can also drink in public legally, and nothing is open on Sundays and the pace is a little slower than 'Merica. Okay that is all danke schön.
