Silvester in Berlin

New Years Eve- the night is so surrounded by hype that the actual thing can never live up to expectations. But when our New Years Eve involved the craziness of Berlin, plus a big group of people from back home, it was pretty good recipe for a memorable night.

After spending nearly two months in the comfort of the UK, our early morning flight to Berlin felt like we were going on holidays again- since whenever we fly out of Sydney it's an early morning flight, I had the same feeling of excitement when we woke up at 3am to catch the bus to London Luton. Through our travels we have heard the same word used time and time again to describe the Germans: efficient. Within 5 minutes of getting off the plane in Berlin, their efficiency was being put to the test. Mike has a bit of a habit of attracting attention when we pass through customs (I wonder why), though this time we had already passed through all immigration and visa control areas and we were just about to hit the door when we hit a snag. I had stopped to look at a train timetable and Mike kept on walking around the corner. When I finished I turned the corner to find Mike standing with a police officer. The policeman was asking for his passport and flight information, which was odd considering we had obviously shown all that information to get to that point anyway. I got all the stuff out and tried to show him both of our passports, but he didn't need to see mine (funny that). Once he had scrutinised his passport and realised that Mike wasn't a hippie terrorist, he did let us go and we were free to begin our week in Berlin.

Berlin is a city that we had heard good things about, but it was only when we got there that I could understand why. It's a city that is defined by change- it's been only 22 years since the wall came down that divided the communist East from the West and in that time it has evolved into a city that is in a constant state of flux, with new groups of people- whether it be the alternative, arty or student types attracted by the city's affordability, or the many immigrants who bring in different cultures to the city. It has a reputation for some of the best nightlife in Europe, with new bars and clubs popping up in abandoned factories every week. But what I liked most about Berlin was the fact it doesn't shy away from its history. While most cities try to show tourists their beautiful statues and tell stories of the way the country has triumphed in history, Berlin puts its gritty past on display for all to see. We visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe- some 2,700 concrete pillars arranged into a grid, with a museum underneath telling the stories of the holocaust. It's a really good (and free) display filled with a timeline of how the Nazis began the holocaust, some very graphic pictures of the crimes they committed against a total of 6 million Jews, as well as stories of entire Jewish families who were killed during that time. But the one thing that really shows just how Berlin admits to the wrongs of the past and now focuses on remembrance is a quote when you walk in. It's from Italian holocaust survivor Primo Levi which says "It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say."

In this same the way the exhibition at the Topographie des terrors was also really interesting. Built on the site of the former SS headquarters (near one of the last remaining stretches of the Berlin wall), the topography of terror chronicled the rise of the SS to their peak during WW2, the main players like Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, the crimes they committed and then the punishments they received after the Nuremberg trials.

But our week in Berlin wasn't all just doom and gloom, thanks to the fact we were meeting up with a few different friends for New Years. I was very excited to meet up with two friends from home that I went to school with- Sarah and Sam- since we had so far only met up with Mike's friends on our travels. They were in Europe for short 6 week break and when we realised that we were both going to be over here for NYE we made a plan to meet in Berlin. We arrived on the same day as them and so we got to see the city together, visiting proper German Christmas markets and sampling true gluwein. That night we also had our first taste of the infamous Berlin nightlife. We went to a place called Dr Pong's Ping Pong bar that was pretty much the definition of an underground bar- I couldn't even tell you where it was, and if you were walking down the street you wouldn't even see it was there. We got a taxi to this place that had garbage bags lining the windows and we could just make out the shadows of people playing ping pong inside. We walked inside to find a place with paint hanging off the walls, a dj set up with his decks on a pile of beer crates, and a little counter serving alcohol. The main attraction of the place was the ping pong table, with people crowding around for an all in match of round the world table tennis. We went to this place on the recommendation of Sarah's German friend who lives in Bavaria and while at first we were a little skeptical about the place, it turned out being lots of fun. After lucking out with actually winning the matches, we moved on to a bar up the road- an Absinthe bar. We did shots of absinthe, complete with alcohol soaked sugar cubes that we lit on fire, and one dangerous shot that had a 90% alcohol volume. Oh did that burn.

Along with my friends we also met up with Annabelle and Sam Brown, as well as his sister and a group her friends. All up there were about 10 of us and so by the time the 31st of December came round we had a big group of Novocastrians to ring in the New Year with.

NEW YEARS EVE
The actual night of new years eve, or Silvester as the Germans call it, was one of the craziest and most unexpected nights of our travels so far. Berlin hosts one of the world's biggest street parties down the main avenue near the Brandenburg Gate, plus it has some of the most notorious clubs in Europe so we were expecting to find some pretty busy nightlife. What I wasn't expecting though was the way that Berliners celebrate with fireworks and it felt more like a riot than a party at some points of the night. You see fireworks are only legal to buy and use one day of the year- December 31st. A local person told us to 'watch for the fireworks' in the lead up to new years, and I thought it was just a friendly reminder to watch the big firework display at midnight. Turns out it was a warning to watch for the thousands of people on the streets throwing fireworks around and lighting them up every second. It was a crazy atmosphere to be a part of, and definitely not something I can say I have experienced before.

We started the night off with a few drinks at our hostel and already at that time you could hear fireworks going off every minute or two. The plan was to go and have a picnic in a park called Mauerpark, where you were allowed to bring your own alcohol and we were going to watch the main fireworks from there. When we got to the park it was dark,dingy and wasn't really somewhere we wanted to spend the last few hours of the year. We abandoned that plan and decided to make our way to the main celebrations down at the Brandenburg Gate. We got there about an hour before midnight and so by that time they had closed off the main entrance to the party near the stages. Our group managed to get a spot just outside that area and from there we watched the action unfold. As it got closer to the countdown, the fireworks in the crowd went from being one every minute to 10 every minute. At one point a guy next to us in the crowd even let off a flare. The people were so tightly packed and there were explosions going off everywhere that it felt like we were in the middle of a riot. Some fireworks were thrown right in the middle of the crowd and looking back on it I am glad that we all made it out alive. Luckily though we were all in high spirits and so it made the atmosphere feel fun, though I think it would be a different story if you were there alone. By the time midnight came around it was such a crazy thing to be a part of and the fireworks that went off- both the planned display near the park at Brandenburg Gate and the ones being let off in the crowd- were great to see. It was definitely an eventful way to spend the night and it won't be one we forget any time soon.

SIGHTS OF BERLIN
Besides seeing friends and celebrating the New Year, we had a week in Berlin to explore the many sights of the city. Here's some of the highlights:

*Brandenburg tor

Along with the big pointy tv tower, this is one of the most iconic sights of Berlin. We immediately recognised it since we had been to Paris where they have replicas of the statues on top of the gate. Napoleon famously stole the statues from the top of the Brandenburg gate and took them back to France. Of course that didn't sit too well with the Germans and so not only did they take back their rightful statues, they then named the plaza around the Brandenburg Gate 'Paris Platz', so that in some weird kind of way the Berliners could go to that plaza, see the gate and the name and be reminded that they were better than those Parisians who only have replica statues on top of their gate. German sense of humour hey.

*Reichstaag
The building of the German government. We didn't get to go inside because we didn't realise you had to pre-book a timeslot, so we saw the outsides instead.

*Berliner Dom
This is one we did go inside and we visited with the group on New Years Day (minus Sarah and Sam who had to catch a 7am flight home-ouch).It is a big beautiful cathedral with gold on the inside, and when we visited they were doing choir practice which made a lovely place to rest our weary bodies that were still recovering from all the fireworks of the night before.

*Berlin wall
I don't think any visit to Berlin old have been complete without seeing the remains of the Berlin wall. One of the longest remaining sections is the East Side Gallery which is now covered in murals by street artists. After doing the New Berlin free tour it was pretty amazing to hear how the locals went to sleep one night and in the morning woke up to see rolls of barbed wire making what was to become the Berlin wall. Our guide told us some pretty crazy stories of escapes made from people trying to get from East to West, many of them unsuccessful. But there was one good story of a guy who basically just walked behind a truck full of American soldiers, and when he got to the border crossing he just pointed to their car and said 'I'm with them', and so they let him through. Genius!

*Checkpoint Charlie
The infamous checkpoint between East and West that was supposed to be a way to allow soldiers to freely pass between the two sides without having to show paperwork each time. Today the area is pretty touristy, filled with fake soldiers posing for photos and people running through the traffic to get a photo with the sign saying 'you are now leaving the American sector'. But here's my photos anyway:

*Berlin Zoo
We visited the zoo on our last day in Berlin after the rest of our group had moved on to continue their travels. The zoo is something like the biggest in Europe and since I had been wanting to go to the zoo for ages, we thought this would be a good one to try. A good day!

*Alternative Berlin Tour of West Berlin
With a reputation of being the up and coming area of the city, West Berlin is an area that we probably wouldn't have got to see if it wasn't for the free Alternative Walking Tour that we joined one day. The tour went for about 3 hours on the west side of the city, which is filled with street art, clubs in old industrial warehouses and art. Our guide showed us some of the famous street art pieces of the area and told us stories behind them:

We learnt about the club Berghain which is notorious for its strict door policy. The bouncers here have the task of choosing the crowd for the night and sometimes they can be pretty picky about the type of person they want inside. Our guide told us it started as a major gay bar, and these days is a huge mixed crowd in a thriving hardcore techno bar. He also said that if you looked too good, with hair all done, makeup and high heels, you don't get let in. To give an idea of the place, it opens at 9pm on Saturday night and doesn't shut again until Monday morning. We didn't test our luck with bouncers here, sounded a bit too intense for our tastes.

The west side of Berlin has a real sense of community among its neighborhoods though, and from the stories our guide told us we really got a feel of how close it is. Kreuzberg, a heavily Turkish-influenced district that gave us the tastiest, freshest kebabs for lunch that we have ever had- epitomized this with rallying to save club 306. This club is apparently an icon of the area, and it's where people like David Bowie used to hang out in. When the club looked like it was running out of money they neighbourhood held huge fundraisers ad gathered support to keep the place running. Another story was of this little treehouse built by a Turkish jewish immigrant. The man's summer house was built on a kind of 'no man's land' when the wall was put up, and it was only once the wall came down that people tried to kick him out. At this point the catholic priest of the nearby stepped in defending the man and his right to keep the house and to this day the house still stands, with parts of the tree still sticking out. Stories like this showed what a real melting pot Berlin is, which I guess it what makes it such a different city than any place we have been so far.

Our week in Berlin really flew by, so I guess that's a sign of just how much we liked the city.

TRAVEL TIPS
Before I go, I thought I'd include a list of tips that we found so that if we ever get the chance to go back, or if any friends reading this go to Berlin, we can give some advice.

Stay:
This one is a reminder to myself more than anything, though I don't think I will be forgetting the smell of the pickle man in our dorm any time soon... Don't stay at Pangea People hostel! Our room had a foul smell (I'm talking you couldnt even be in the room) from one guy, and when we tried asking to change the man on the desk was completely rude and told us we would have to pay for both rooms if we changed. That whole place just had a bad atmospere and it was lucky we had our friends there or else we would have been stuck. In the end we found another hostel, St Christophers, about 5 minutes away so still within walking distance to Alexanderplatz. It included breakfast and free wifi which the other place didn't, and it didn't smell! At least that's the first terrible hostel experience we've had in 5 months so I guess it's not all bad.

Eat:
The thai place about 5 minutes walk from St Christopher's is some of the best thai food we have had. The place was called Thai Inside, and for abut €20 we got 2 meals, rice, and free fruit cocktails.

Also the Bavarian beer hall just near Alexanderplatz was a good traditional style German meal. The place was huge! We went here with Sarah and Sam and they ordered this massive plate of various meats and sausages that they managed to struggle through, and we washed it all down with steins of beer. There was even traditional music and dancing going on, so although the waiter was pretty rude (we didn't have much luck with customer service in Berlin) the place had a nice atmosphere.

Save:
The U-bahn, S-bahn and regional train network seemed quite confusing at first- for an 'efficient' country, we couldn't work out why the underground went above ground in parts, and why the S-bahn went underground at times as well. But we did realise you can buy day travel passes for €6.50 that covered it all and was definitely worth the money. Plus, the four of us travelling together could get the 'small group travel card' which gave a day of unlimited travel for about €15... Definitely worth it.

Next up, Swiss alps, fondues and the best part of all- seeing my parents again for the first time in five months.