Well well, the expected has finally occured - I missed a day. A full refund, for your bitter disappointment, is available upon request.
Berlin
This post’s title is a lie, as we actually need to start on the evening of Day 4, the last post ending with my train’s arrival.
It was clear from the get-go that the Sunflower was a different kind of hostel than the Madhouse. It still has a hip, indie vibe, but is both bigger and less thrown-together, for lack of a better phrase. The Madhouse felt like a big house that a group of friends lived in, where you could join in on the peripherary of their circle for a while; the Sunflower is a cool, cheap hotel where you share a room with other people. That’s the best way I can explain. As will become clear, I far prefer this one.
I’m in a 4-bed dorm, and met my first room-mate soon after arrival. She walked in while I was sitting on my bed, looking for places to eat. I smiled and said hello, and was met with a glare and a mumble as she walked past me. A discouraging start, especially after I’d made the intention to try and form more meaningful connections than I had in Prague.
The vibes were pretty icy after that attempt at an introduction, so I left and set out for an udon place nearby. There’s a set of streets about ten minutes East from the hostel, full of cafes, bars and restaurants, busy both night and day. Like the rest of Friedrichshein (that I’ve seen), it’s got a good buzz about it, and excitement. Maybe just a smattering of danger too, there’s plenty of people taking more than beer or weed walking around. The udon was kinda meh.
When I got back the girl from before was lying in her bed with her shoes dangling off the end, staring at the ceiling, so I settled in quietly to write Day 3’s post. The two other room-mates then arrived, and we chatted a little in hushed tones while the mystery girl continued to not move.
Freunde finden
The next day I was pretty tired out, and explored only a little bit of the area, including a swanky coffee shop on Warschauer Straße, where I finished The Left Hand of Darkness.
When I got back the girls from before were there, and we got talking for our while. They were sisters, from Switzerland: Jess, the older sister, is an optician about to start International IT Management; Fiona, the younger, studies law.
We chatted, compared travel plans (“how long are you staying in X” being the foundation of all European travel small-talk, I’ve learned), I pestered them about lift in Switzerland, etc. I was pleasantly surprised that they not only knew of Northern Ireland in general, but actually a fair bit about it - Jess had done a project on our history in school, and asked some great questions about what it’s like post-Troubles, and post-Brexit.
It was the realest conversation I’d had all trip, so when they went to leave and asked if I’d like to join them for a drink that evening I of course said yes. And with that plan in place I spent the rest of Day 5’s afternoon doing very little at all, recharging more from Prague, doing some laundry, had a nap (it’s not a trip without a nap).
On the way to find an ATM (the hostel’s washing machines need cash) I walked right past Berghain, and did a double-take as I recognized the entrance from pictures. It looked pretty unremarkable in the daylight, just an austere Communist building, but it was hilarious that I’d been a 2 minute walk from it (it’s visible from the hotel entrance) and had no clue!
Bar hop, singular
Once Jess and Fiona had got back and gotten ready we headed out to bar hop, but first to eat. The three of us are definitely kindred spirits in our laissez-faire attitude to planning, so we looked at Google Maps on route. We found a place that did salads and hummus, which suited well since both of them are vegan, which we talked about while we ate. Turns out there’s something of the same attitude to it in Switzerland - I mean from non-vegans - as there is in the UK. I had to shyly admit that I had at one point intended to trial going meatless, but that the Hub meal rota had made me chicken out of it. They casually told me a couple of horrifying facts I’ll have to look up more later - perhaps Cromwell Rd may be seeing more chickpeas than expected, we shall see.
The bar hopping began in a place that claimed “Happy hour every hour”, and EUR 4.50 for a cocktail - this turned out to be false when we went to pay but the girls managed to convince them to charge us that anyway. I got a White Russian, the drink from The Big Lebowski, which I’ve never found in Belfast. It was lovely, and my word did they make it strong - both of their drinks packed a punch to, as did the next round. Even with the extra Euro they tried to charge us, the alcohol-to-cost ratio was crazy high. No complaints.
We then hopped along to a smaller bar they’d been to the night before, all the while talking about education systems, dating, and somehow Poopmaps - don’t ask how I ended up explaining the latter. The whole time I was super impressed with their English, especially when they’d whip out the most idiomatic things like “yapping” or “shits and giggles”. I of course then introduced them to “… until someone giggles and shits”. The best part of talking to people from other cultures, I think, is getting to say stuff like that and feel as smart as if you’d come up with it yourself.
They also taught me about how Swiss German is so dialectically different from “High German” as to be effectively its own language. Germans apparently can’t understand it more or less at all, though the Swiss can understand High German. More interestingly, none of these differences are standardized at all, with no official dictionaries or even agreed spellings and grammar, meaning even German-speakers from elsewhere will find a hard time learning it. I’d always assumed other language-spheres, like the Anglosphere of the UK, America, Canada etc., could understand each-other but for accent differences and minor dialect changes, but the Swiss (and the Austrians too I believe) prove this pretty wrong.
We had two drinks in this second bar too (excellent whiskey sours for me), then decided to call it a night after technically just only one “hop” undertaken…
Another brick in the wall
The next day neither I nor my new friends stirred until after 11 - although we’d only visited two bars, we didn’t get back until around 3 the night before. Once I’d showered etc they asked me if I’d like to have breakfast with them, so I went with them to a vegan shop, Rewe, just up the street. I got these little sandwhiches with vegan cheese and fake salami that I really wasn’t sure about, but they were actually really good.
After breakfast/brunch/lunch, we went our seperate ways: Them to the Berlin Story Bunker, and I to the Wall Museum, only a 20 minute walk from the Sunflower and sat right beside the start of the East Side Gallery. It was okay - some of the documentary footage was very interesting, sometimes moving, but for someone like me who isn’t already familiar with the context of the GDR and the wall itself, it skipped over details that would have made the narrative it was telling more cohesive.
I then started walking along the East Side Gallery, the section of the Wall turned into a public steet-art gallery. The start of my viewing was interrupted by a pair of girls trying to get people to donate to “The deaf community of Berlin”, one armed with a clipboard and the other theatrically performing perhaps the most jaw-droppingly awful impression of a deaf person I have ever seen. I was so amazed that she thought it was convincing that I actually laughed, and they went away.
Right after that I was approached by a lady who asked if I had any questions about the wall. I took her for another con and almost ignored her before I realized she was wearing the uniform of the charity in charge of maintaining the wall, and then had a lovely 10 minutes picking her brain about it.
The original paintings were completed in 1990 by artists from around the world. At that point the wall had not yet fallen, though the wave of crossings had already started, and for some reason I didn’t manage to find out the GDR approved this East Side section being converted into the public gallery it is today. All the paintings, except for “Hands”, were repainted in the ’00s, with an anti-graffiti varnish that allows vandalism to be washed off.
I really liked a lot of the paintings - some highlights were Uhrmenschen der Computer, Pneumohumanoiden, Marionetten eines abgesetzten Stücks, and (The Big Kremlin’s Wind)[https://www.eastsidegalleryexhibition.com/artworks/tezhik-the-big-kremlins-wind/]. I enjoyed how many of the paintings managed to be fairly abstract while still remaining impactful, and meaningful too.
After I’d finished I had a coffee at Anima, a very cool cafe in the middle of the Gallery with a great view of the river. After that, Jess and Fiona had finished their museum, so I headed off to meet them at Checkpoint Charlie. From there we more or less wandered around - they share my lack of urgency and itinerary when it comes to sightseeing. We saw the Deutscher Dom and the Konzerthaus, where some fancy music event was taking place and they had a red carpet rolled out all the way down the steps. When there was a break in the flow of old rich couples climbing it to the reception above I ran up and got photos.
Alright my eyes can’t even stay open anymore, so as ackward as it is to leave a day half done I will leave the rest till tomorrow.