Zoo Station is an interesting crossroads in Berlin even though Germany is united it is not without borders. Their are still differences between the east and west and Berlin seems to epitomize where the west collides and blends with the east. 
You always know when you are in the east side the streets still hold names like Karl Marx Allee (this is true with most if not all cities in the East). One easy way to know if your on the East side is to simply look for the Ampelmann on the street lights this will surely point out to you; you are in fact on the East side. We thoroughly enjoyed all the places we went in Germany their really isn’t a spot that we could point out and simply say that’s the best spot it was more or less a journey into seeing all of the German culture in a matter of a few days. I will definitely go back and next time we will spend more time exploring these areas more in depth. Hopefully by that time I will be able to pick up more German. Berlin is a complicated city with its own style of beauty, I wouldn’t say it screams happy holiday like a trip to Hawaii. It is a place that is rich in history and is still a deeply divided city that has more of a melancholy appeal that is uniquely its own.
We did a great deal of exploring in the two days we were there and the pubs were exceptional. I not really a fan of ridiculously overly pretentious pubs like the kind you might find in a stuffy west Omaha strip mall or in the old market. Berlin certainly has plenty of places like that if that is of course what you seek; I personally am more comfortable in a midtown pub the kind filled with locals who live within a few blocks are to preoccupied with their own lives to really try to impress others. We went in search of where the locals would hang out not site seers. We found many places we enjoyed and the evenings were exciting we even after traveling for some 15 hours to get there we were ready to go out and explore! We managed to find a nice pub that served us pleasant amount of Absinthe and German beer. Berlin really doesn’t shut down at any given time it is a place where you can consume spirits until the early hours in the morning and then get up by 10:00 each day and be ready to do it all over again. Not to mention the Frisbee golf we played in the early hours before sunrise on the vacant streets of Berlin (by the way guys I still have what is left of the full contact Euro Frisbee). We managed to see a great deal of the Wall, the old Luftwaffe Headquarters, The Reichstag (Parliament), The Brandenburg Gate, and countless other places. Berlin is an awesome city that rich with history and is sometimes even haunted by it own ghosts as we found out one morning while looking for some tasty donuts to make the hangover go away we stumbled upon a rather large gathering of political rivals gathering on one spot in front of Zoo Station. Their were an exceptional amount of police I would have to say more police in one area than Omaha has all together. The police formed a blockade to protect the Neo-Nazi rally and on the opposing side you of course heard yelling and cursing of the other side. You definitely had the feeling that if the police wouldn’t have been there a scuffle would surely spring up. In the crowd you could see several political parties yelling at each other each with their own flags. So it made for a rather interesting morning you could say. Free speech is certainly alive and well in Germany.
It was probably not the ideal spot to be in as far as overall safety but it certainly wasn’t a dull place to be. We walked and took the u-bahn all over Berlin so we did get a chance to pretty much see everything we wanted to see although we will certainly go back again. Germany as a country is highly organized and you can see the Germans take pride in their history and most of Germany has been rebuilt back to it former glory before the wars. I will talk about the cities we went to periodically as I have more time to reflect on the journey itself. This one blog post certainly does not cover the scope of the trip. I will also be writing about Regensburg, Rostock, and Munich in the coming months each town has its own personality. I believe we all share a great deal with their culture and the German culture. It was also interesting to hear them discuss their first hand knowledge of the Wall coming down and what that moment in time was like. I have often thought that would have been one of the greatest things to see first hand.
Related posts:
Recent Comments