Ich Bin Ein Donut

If you don’t get the joke in the title, just trust me when I say it’s funny. Hopefully it will help when I explain that my most recent trip was to Berlin.

First off, I feel a bit lost in my travels now. The night train which I loved so dearly has stopped running from Copenhagen for the year. Apparently that’s just a summer thing. Now, I’m stuck taking the train during the day like a sucker.

Berlin was my first experience seeing Germans eat something besides bratwurst, so it was nice to have my horizons broadened a bit. I got in at 4 (which, sadly, meant I was quickly running out of daylight) and found my dorm. I didn’t realize until I checked in that the “dorm” bed I had booked wasn’t in a typical 6- or 8-person room. No, this was a military-style 45-person dorm room. It probably would have sucked if there were more than five of us staying there. As it stood, though, we all had tons of space. Hooray for traveling in the off-season.

I used what little daylight remained (and then some) to walk around and explore the part of the city near the hostel. Luckily, that’s the historic part. More than anything, it gave me a bit of perspective so I could plan the most for the next two days. What a novel concept: planning my time in a city I’m visiting. Perhaps I’ll try this in the future, as well.

I woke up early the next day to go to the Reichstag. I mentioned my democracy nerddom a few weeks ago and, to someone like me, the Reichstag is particularly interesting. For one thing, Hitler burned it down and blamed the Jews, then used the state of emergency to seize control. Second, it’s right on the old Berlin Wall. Third, there’s a glass dome on top that, being one of the highest things in the city, has some beautiful views. That last thing has nothing to do with history, but it’s still pretty cool. The book said to arrive early to avoid long lines. This is somewhat true. There are lots of people, but saying Germans are capable of forming a line is giving them a bit too much credit. I guess after so many years of totalitarian rule, they don’t want to do anything in an orderly manner. I can’t say I totally blame them, but I still don’t like people pushing in front of me.

From there, I continued on what is, no doubt, the most ambitious one-day walking tour I have ever done. In addition to Brandenberger Tor, Checkpoint Charlie, Bebelplatz, and Berliner Dom, I happened across an outdoor Holocaust memorial – a large, sunken area with big stone pillars, so once you start walking through, you can’t really see where you are or easily find the way out. Remember the Seinfeld where Jerry and his girlfriend get caught making out in the theater during Schindler’s List? Well, I startled a couple who had obviously been inspired by that episode.

The tallest building in Berlin is Fernsehturm, a TV tower built to show off the East’s technological superiority. The irony, of course, is that they hired a bunch of Swedes to build it. The Swedes, of course, are smart and clever enough to not waste this opportunity. See how the reflection of the sun sort of forms a cross? That was engineered as a 368-meter-tall “fuck you” to the anti-religious East German government. If a subtle, shiny cross is what passes as humor in countries with government-sponsored religion, I think we all see the desperate need to keep the two separate.

My second day in Berlin was, actually, the anniversary of the wall being torn down. There’s still a 1.3 kilometer stretch of it standing (I know, this is the second time I’ve measured something in metric. I don’t feel like doing the conversion) which serves as an open-air art museum. The government first commissioned artists to paint it in 1990, then again in 2000. Graffiti covers a lot of it now, so I’m hoping they plan to repaint it again. If you’re wondering who would stupid and arrogant enough to graffiti over the art on what remains of the Berlin Wall, it’s people like these two jackasses:


Unfortunately, this is about the time a rainstorm rolled in, seriously hampering my sightseeing ability. It takes a lot to force me to go looking for shelter, but I hurried to my next stop. Unfortunately, a bombed-out church doesn’t provide a lot of shelter. The rest of my jaunt was a bit damp and chilly. I guess one benefit to short daylight hours is that an afternoon rainstorm doesn’t cut that much time off your available sightseeing.

Following a relaxing morning stroll along the river (relaxing except for my giant, heavy backpack), I was on the train back to Copenhagen. My next trip will be to Milan and I’ve decided to buy an article of clothing so I can say, “oh, I got that in Milan.” Any suggestions on what to get would be highly appreciated.