When I was in South Korea, I met a bunch of nice people and one of them was Joseph. He’s from Canada, but being a Korean-Canadian we share the similar culture being foreign in our residential country and together in Korea :) I was quite busy with a lot of things so we didn’t have the chance to hang around a lot plus he was not living in the dorms. For socializing a lot, that was probably quite good.
Anyways, before I left Korea he told me that he would be studying his next semester abroad, too. Though it was not Germany, France is not that far so we tried to stay in contact. June came and his trip in Europe with it. As I know it’s quite hard to show people around in Hanover (right, Jumi and Lok-Hin?), I decided to meet up in Berlin. As a student, it’s not uncommon to take a car pool and getting there for merely a third of what I probably would have paid. The stay was in some hostel and as I don’t crave for high standards when traveling alone, it’s a big money saver, too.
I also tried to meet up other friends but it’s quite hard to arrange a meeting - why that?!
So I arrived in Berlin in the afternoon. It was quite late so we started off to get some bite near Frankfurter Allee, where our hostel was. I would say for 10 Euros it’s quite ok, not a real backpacker or hostel place rather than a former hotel, but I got my sleep and it was clean.
The first thing we saw was the East Side Gallery. It’s basically a long street where parts of the Berlin Wall has not ben torn down for commemorative reasons. The walls are predominantly painted by German artists and portray subjects about German reunification, cold war and freedom.
On one of the paintings you can see Breschnew and Honecker kissing - the notorious ‘brother kiss’. Acress the street, there was a picture of a couple making love. The woman has a GDR emblem tattoo while the man a FRD (federal republic of Germany) tattoo. Make love, not war.
It’s near the O2 area, where an event was obviously held.
Fun in the subway? Never grow old…?
Some subways cars look very old-fashioned and carry a lot of atmosphere :) Like the Parisian subway it’s not super modern. Golden 20s glamour :)
At Märkisches Museum there was a church with nice architecture. It turned out it was not that nice and closed. So we went back to Warschauer Straße to change directions. A lot of people in Berlin, as always. Joseph wanted to check out landmarks, so we just went around according to his map. Some science museum we saw. A US Air Force plane.
Berlin’s mascot is the bear. Looks like every larger city has a mascot. ![]
The Red City Hall is near Alexanderplatz. It was too late to get in, but this is where the mayor and the Berlin senate resides. I wouldn’t want to take the job as Berlin is one of the most poorest cities in Germany!
The Funkturm in the evening. Missed the chance to go up. You have to wait approx. 45 min to get up. If we arrived earlier, we would have been able to see the sunset - but getting there in the dark is not worth the money!!!
Around Alexanderplatz a lot of shops opened. A big wide space also used for demonstrations and gatherings.
People sitting by the fountain. A lot of malls, too! From Alexia, we went on to Berlin’s landmark, the Alexanderplatz. And went on to the Oberbaumbrücke next to the Dom.
We had a beer “unter den Linden”, probably one of the most expensive ones I ever had. 3.50EUR for a 0.3 bottle >.< that’s a whole sixpack in the supermarket ;)
THe sun slowly settled down and we went to see the parliament at night. Chancellor’s official residence (Bundeskanzleramt) is just some steps away from the Bundestag!
Dedicated to the German people. Humm. I more and more doubt that. Politics is a thing in it’s own world.
At Brandenburger Tor a lot of people took photos at night, had beers, waiting for other people an so on.Big tourist magnet. I noticed that nobody tried to scam me.
The Quadriga on the Brandenburg Gate. Hotel Adlon is next to it and must be pretty expensive. We parted ways in Berlin Hauptbahnhof and I took a ride back to Hannover then.