BERLIN

What can I say about my week in Berlin? Lordsy. I don’t even know where to start. Phrases like “life changing” keep popping into my mind and I know that I’ll only tell how life changing it was when the life sort of continues a bit… but I do feel comfortable telling everyone that they MUST visit Berlin at some point. Must. And bring me with you. And if you want the ultimate Berlin experience, bring along everyone from Uppsala University Informatics and Media Course from 2011-2012. That’s all I’m sayin’.

Berlin fascinated me every day, not only because it’s a huge, gritty, beautiful city, but because it is scattered with such relevant and sobering history. You could be out having a great time with your friends and an obscure hole-in-the-wall restaurant and suddenly notice that you just crossed the line where the Berlin Wall used to stand. Remembering that only 20 years ago that that possibility to just step from east to west was impossible is a constant reminder of how all people are simply born on either the right side or the wrong side (I feel overwhelmingly fortunate to be born where I was…). I’ve never been in such a blatantly bittersweet city. I imagine that when (when!!) I travel around eastern europe, that I will remember this emotion from a city, but this was the first that I have encountered it so forcefully. It is as if Germany is determined to educate their people and visitors about our past mistakes as human beings and to remember the devastating consequences. There are areas in (mostly east) Berlin where there is always construction going on… not because they’re renovating or building something new but because they are STILL rebuilding from WW2. The DDR in the east didn’t put as much effort into rebuilding as the allies did, so today we are still seeing the effects. Parts of the wall still remain, holes punched through and graffiti scraped off. I can’t imagine how it felt to be the first wave of people that could step over the boarder freely. Our professor who came along with us, Peder Hard auf Strafsgård (he always apologies to us about his name… he told me on the trip that it dates back to the medieval ages!) was actually there in Berlin the day that the wall came down. He had so many stories about when he wanted to travel from west to east and had to wait in line sometimes for hours at checkpoint charlie. He said that Berlin was a dying city, people and companies were leaving, birth rates were going down along with the economy, and that the wall coming down marked a rebirth of the city. Now it seems as if the city is back on it’s feet. It integrates old and new, glued together with the remains of neo classical buildings and giant graffiti murals (and some döner kebab joints in between). One thing that I have missed while in Sweden is being surrounded by art. Yes, Sweden is unbelievably clean and gorgeous, but I love seeing the marks that people leave behind (and you find that in excess in Berlin… I think I have enough art to hold me over till Paris in December :P). Anyway, I can’t say enough good things about Berlin and the people that I got to travel with, and while I’m writing this on my train ride back to Uppsala, I still feel like I’m on a high from being there (or was it the guys smoking weed in the public toilets near our hostel….??).

I arrived in Berlin on Saturday night.. I think we went over this on the last blog? yea? OK. So on Sunday, the boys and I explored the city. We first checked out the Heart of Gold hostel where most of the other people were staying and that served as a meeting point for all the organized tours. While there, we ran into Jack and Katie, so we joined forces and had a look around the city. We visited the Reichstag, but were disappointed to find that you had to make a reservation to climb into the dome, but we got some good pictures. After that we headed back to the hostel where Gio made us shrimp pasta (mm looove having our own kitchen!) and then we hit the town on a pub crawl. It was called the *anti* pub crawl and promised to take us to the most alternative and obscure pubs in Berlin… oh and it did. We started in “yesterday” which was 60’s and 70’s themed and really funky with lots of good music. Then we went to a goth bar which was owned by a member of Rahmstein. Scary but fun. After that was a ping pong bar, where you rent a paddle and play it around-the-world style with other people in the bar. It was so fun! Then we stopped for snacks at a kebab stand, then another funky bar which name slips my mind, and then the club at the end, but we were all so tired and didn’t stay there for too long. It was so so much fun and I met people from the Uk, Australia, more Americans, a Canadian, more Aussies… it was so fun!

The next day was a bus tour of the city which helped give us a feel of where we were. We got out at Brandenburg gate and got some nice pictures. The tour was a few hours, and now that I think about it, I realize that even though every day was so busy, there is so much of Berlin that I didn’t get to see! Oh well I guess I just have to go back. That afternoon, Oscar and I played house at the apartment and cooked and straightened up a bit… that boy is so good to talk to about stuff. That night, we met up with other people on our tour and explored a bit. We found ourselves in this huge warehouse, absolutley covered in grafitti where artists had studios and sold their items. We found a Berlin-er artist that we all fell in love with, who used cutouts to make some of the coolest pieces I’ve seen. Alex Kels and Chaney get to see some of his work soon ;) then we didn’t quite know where to go, so when we saw a group of people all wearing wristbands, we tagged along and found ourselves on another pub crawl (shh don’t tell anyone) and got to slip into a place called “the pub” (haha) where there are taps on each table and you can pour your own beer. AMAZING. and so german. We stayed there for a bit and chatted with other pub crawlers, but had to turn in at a reasonable hour because the next day was an early morning.

And I’m so glad that we did take it easy that night because wednesday was amazing! We got to visit the Dpr which is like the Associated Press in the states. The dpr is an international company with offices all over the world, and journalists in even more places which provides news agencies with world wide news. Our guide walked us through the work that they do there and the different branches of the company. Incredible. I’m going to see if I can find an internship in their english-language branch maybe in Sweden or back home in the US next year. We had a few hours break in which Allison Amy and I went to an H&M and stocked up on cheap clothes for winter. I’d been holding out on shopping for winter things and clothes were much cheaper in Germany, so that was a successful trip, even though my backpack is SO heavy now. After the shopping spree, we got to go to the RBB which is a German public broadcasting company. We had a private tour of the entire premises, which is gigantic, and got a lot of history of the company which was used in WW2. We checked out the news studios along with the radio studios. They have an elevator that has no doors and never stops moving… you have to have a permit to use it and it is the only one in the city. It was so goofy to just see people going up and down. Talk about klämrisk!

After our studio tours that day, Elise, Suzane, Tomomi and I visited the DDR museum which was all about the everyday life in eastern Berlin. It was very interactive and I was suprised how people still strived for individuality. Although there was a specific “eastern” kind of dress, people would sew to make things personal and had DIY type projects to individualize their home (which buildings reminded me a lot of flogsta…). So much of the education and mass media had do with “community building” and “loyalty” which I just call brainwashing. The problem is that it is easy to see that the west side was “good” and east  was “bad” making the russians the wrong corrupt ones, however I think the US and the allies are just as much to blame. How could this continue if it was so blatantly wrong? But then again, what makes the US the “police force” in the world. Why did the allies let the two sides of berlin continue the way they did for so long? How did they think it was ok to simply split one city in half, with two completely different idologies? A question I continued to ask myself this whole trip is “who do we think we are?”

The next day, we visited the Museum of Kommunikation. So good! We checked out different forms of communication technology, from their birth to today. People make fun of me and my crappy old nokia, they should check out the first cell phones! Imagine having a huge box strapped to your belt with a phone and chord attached. I’m sure it looked really slick. We discussed the communication and secret coding and hacking used in WW2, early tvs, wire cables, the birth of the internet… you name it. The rest of the day consisted of wandering around the museum after the tour. exploring Alexanderplatz, climbing the giant Berlin Dome, and then returning to “the pub.” After a döner kebab, all of us sharing the hostel were ready to head back, but the others talked us into juuuust one beer… you’ll be in bed by 11! So we were talked into taking the advice of the people that worked at the hostel and go to a place called “the White Trash” which, I promise Mom. was nothing like it sounds and ended up being one of the best nights I’ve ever had! At first, it was so crowed that our group of seven had to split up and we were all sorts of bummed about it. However, there was a cover charge and the atmosphere was really cool (think a more steampunk/hipster/gothic Mekka if it were a bar and had more money to spend on interior decor) and eventually a large table opened up and we could all sit together. We were chatting and enjoying ourselves and thinking about heading home when a french band took the stage who were so good! They were very retro, and one looked JUST like George Harrison and sounded like a super upbeat version of the doors. So we stayed a little longer and listened. Then our waiter asked us if we wanted free beer… we said “of course!” and he said cool… you have to carve a pumpkin and we’ll give you a free beer. score. I would probably pay to carve a pumpkin. So there we were, 7 students from sweden, france and the us, in a bar in berlin, scooping seeds out of pumpkins and listening to a live french band. It was incredible.

The next day was rough and that’s when I knew it was time to head back to Uppsala. We started the day at the Topographie des Terrors, a museum depicting the horrors of the Nazi regime and their rise and fall. The museum presented it in a very cut and dry way and the images and information was really hard to take in all at once. I continued to wonder who do we think we are? what is it about humanity that we must prove superiority? I don’t understand people and don’t suppose I ever will. I was really quiet and touchy the rest of the day. We went to a contemporary art museum with some fantastic pieces, but there were many about Berlin’s history and the disaster in the past. I hate to admit it, but I was feeling really moody, maybe due to the fact that I haven’t had any alone time in a week, plus the disturbing history along with PMS, I decided it be best to have another solo adventure and catch the morning train to Uppsala on Saturday instead of Sunday. The decision was solidified by an email from our professor saying that the first day of class is Monday at 11 and I knew I would need one day between travel and school. So that night, Oscar cooked us dinner (curry chicken, rice and veggies… so so so good), I packed my things and the other people in our group met at our hostel and I got to say goodbye, Anthony tucked me into bed and I rolled over and it was four in the morning and time to grab my train. By some divine intervention, I made it from east berlin to haupbahnhobf (quite a tram ride) with time to buy myself my denmark passage (not covered by my rail pass dummmmb) and barely jump on my 5 am train. Then after the transfer to Hamburg, the ferry to Nyköping, the bus to Copenhagen and I’m finally en route to Stockholm and Uppsala. I met the nicest lady on the bus who has helped me so much. apparently we needed a reservation to get to stockholm and she gave me a hand I ended up with the LAST seat! Good travel karma or something.

Now I have about two hours till I’m “home” in Uppsala and I’m excited to go back to work at Snerikes, go to a hocky game with Öykü and Suzanne and start Media Analysis (ok maybe).

Miss you all! Go to Berlin!
xxxx