Berlin, 2008. Day three.

Hey dudes again.
So I'm going to write about Berlin, day Three today because it is going to be about our walking tour and I want to write about that before I forget any of the history/pictures/order that things happened/la dee dah.

On Day Three in Berlin, we decided to take a free walking tour of the city. Goodness! A free walking tour!? Yes, a FREE walking tour because I am a baller on a budget. dang, i totally just said that.

There's this company called Sandeman's Free Walking Tours, which operates in Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, London, Paris and... another place... can't remember where. This German-based company gives free tours in English with the idea that every traveler should be able to go to one of these cities and experience its history/architecture/art/monuments/etc for free in one afternoon because, well, no one should be deprived of that based on budget. Instead of paying up front for the tour, you tip the tour guide at the end. I think it is a fabulous idea and it was one of the best ideas we had all vacation because it was SO worth it.

Our tour was lead by George from Missouri. George From Missouri is 28, decided to move to Berlin for three years because "that seemed like long enough to... live in Berlin" (for real, that was his reasoning) and, prior to Sandeman's Walking Tours, was working as a server at his sister's restaurant just outside of St. Louis and at a video game store. Don't know what school he went to, don't know what he did before all of that, but now he's in Berlin (since September) walking around the city every day for at least 4 hours giving the same spiel on the history of Berlin. Tall, skinny, personable, and sort of a va! va! voom! jazz hands! kind of guy - kept our attention, made us laugh, knew a lot of stuff, and did a good job.

So what the heck did we see on the tour!? EVERYTHING. George started with a three-minute section that gave us 800 years of Berlin history because we really wanted to start our tour in the 20th-century, no? Yes.

We started at Pariser Platz. A Platz named after a city in France? In Germany's capitol? WTJ? (what the junk!?) Yup. We started there. Because Pariser Platz has the Brandenburg Tor (Brandenburg Gate) on it and the Hotel Adler on it. What's so cool about the Brandenburg Gate? Not much except it has been there FOREVER and has survived multiple wars and occupations and has seen the city through the Industrial Revolution, Hitler's ascension to power, the Cold War, Hannah Montana, and Michael Jackson's baby-hanging extravaganaza.
What!? Michael Jackson's baby-hanging extravaganza!?
yes, that's right, folks: It was from the balcony on the third floor of the Hotel Adler that Mr. Jackson held his kid out the window for all the world to see and woops! nearly dropped him! Yes, that's right - that hotel right therrrrre. Oh and other famous peeps stay there all the time, too.

So we walked through the Tor and we're told to look to our right and BAM it's The Reichstag, capital T, capital R. At this point my heart's pounding and I'm freaking out because helloooooo the Reichstag is only one of the most important buildings/events in history in the twentieth century and the HistoryGeek in me is just flippin. For real. (Reichstag: German Parliament. Although the Kaiser was always in charge so "Parliament" was really a word for "guys who came to this building to do whatever the junk they felt like doing. Maybe they played ping pong. Maybe they played go fish. But leading the country? Doing what the people asked them to do? Not so high on their list of priorities) (Reichstag: 1933. After Hitler gains power through his election (remember! not voted in with a majority! Only 37% of the vote!) he gets even MORE power after the Reichstag "mysteriously burns to the ground" one night. Blames this on a (legally insane) Dutchman. Uses this to go to the Kaiser and say "hey, what up, I think I should have all the power in the land" and, thus, becomes Supreme Chancellor of the Third Reich). Aaaaaand that is why the Reichstag is important.
Today the Reichstag has a glass dome at the top up on which anyone can go walking. The idea is that Germans can go to the top and look down on their Parliament to make sure they're doing what they've voted them in to do. And then those in Parliament can always look up to that glass ceiling and see the people for whom they are working. I think it's a beautiful idea, spurred by an ugly history.

Taking a left, we walk a little ways following oh, I don't know, the bleeping BERLIN WALL to the new Holocaust Memorial, officially called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is right off the main street in Berlin (just steps away from Brandenburg Tor and the Reichstag is just further down the street) and it is made up of concrete slabs of different sizes on sloping land. Whoops, I don't think that description was any good. The land slopes, the concrete slabs follow the shape of the land and are of different heights so you walk through a maze of grey from one end of the Memorial to the other. The slabs start out small and gradually get larger so that, when you're in the center of the Memorial, you are lost in a sea of grey. It is disorienting, just as it's meant to be. The land slants and slopes as does the concrete so every step is a little more unfocused and every time you turn your head you can get lost a little more. It's a powerful thing to see from the street (as in, on a regular day going to the office, you pass a memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe) and it's a powerful thing to walk through.

Once we walked through the Memorial, we crossed the street and went a little ways to a parking lot. A parking lot surrounded by some uuuuugly apartments. What's the big deal about the apartments and the parking lot? Oh yeah. Hitler's bunker was here.
That is correct - Hitler spent his last few months (January-April, 1945) hiding out and going insane underground here at this parking lot. (ooh here's something I didn't know! He was hiding out with his lovah Eva Braun and his dog and Goebbels (and Goebbels' fam) and his doctor and his doctor was giving him cocaine droplets in his eyeballs. WHOA) From 1945-1989, this apartments around said parking lot were priiiiime real estate because these apartments were the closest housing to West Berlin anyone could get and only the most loyal and high-up East Germans could live there. Interesting fact!: world-famous skater, Katerina Witt (always one of my faves) was offered an apartment there. I'm pretty sure she said no thanks.
Nowadays the apartments continue to be ugly and Hitler's bunker is a parking lot where majllions of people every year bring their dogs to do their thang. There is a solitary poster just off of the lot giving the history of the area - not bringing too much attention to it but making sure people know.

Bleep. This post is hella long. I'm going to cut it into two for your viewing pleasah.