Berlin


The Brandenburg Gate

** Thanks to Big Mike for providing all of the pictures

We spent this past weekend (Jan 21-23 2000) in Berlin, Germany. It was a total spur of the moment thing. We found out on Thursday that we didn't have to work on Saturday (one Central person works every Saturday). I suggested we take advantage of the situation and take a road trip. Someone mentioned Germany, and the obvious choice was Berlin. I logged onto the internet, found a hotel, and the next thing we knew, eight of us (me, Lisa, Big Mike, Marty, Eman, Rebecca, Adrian (Dad), and Sheila) were scheduled to meet at 4 AM on Saturday morning for the drive to Berlin.

Unfortunately, things did not start off smoothly. We were supposed to pick up Eman and his sister Rebecca at the Ascot Hotel before meeting everyone else at the Radisson. We show up at 3:45 AM, but he's not there and no one is answering his phone. I'm pounding on their door when they come walking down the hallway, just in from the bar. They hadn't even started packing yet, so we went to the Radisson, met up with everyone else, and then came back to pick them up.

About an hour into the drive, snow really started to fall. We made it to the ferry around 5:30, and we drove onto the boat ten minutes later. I must say that the ferry boats are pretty cool: they hold up to two decks of cars and trucks and can even transport a train (there are tracks running the length of the boat on the first deck). We then went up to the passenger deck and got something to eat. Eman and I went outside briefly, but the winter storm was raging and the wind was whipping such that we were almost swept overboard. We decided it wasn't quite safe out there.

The ferry boat only takes about an hour, so by this time we had to return to our car and get ready to go. The boat docked and we drove off and toward the German customs check. Things don't seem to be very strict here, though, as the customs agent just sort of looked into each car and then waved it on through. I think the snow (it was REALLY coming down now) had something to do with their lax attitude. In any event, we continued the drive to Berlin.

There was practically a blizzard raging now, though, and traffic wasn't moving very quickly. We saw several cars in the ditch along the two-lane road between Puttgarden (the ferry port) and Hamburg. Heck, there was one car that practically had it's side taken off after being clipped by a tractor-trailer. Ouch! A few of the meek ones of our group talked about turning back or staying in Hamburg. However, the rest of us were too stubborn to abandon our plan even though it had only been put together the day before), though. Fortunately, the Germans are pretty good with their plows. We had to drive slow (which is such a waste of the Autobahn), but we continued on, and we pulled into Berlin around 13:00.

We checked into our hotel, which was the Sorat Spreebogen, in the Tiergarten section of town. We decided to drop off our things and then meet in the lobby to go check out the town. While waiting for everyone, we decided to grab a quick beer in the hotel bar. This is where I discovered one of the best beers in the world: Warsteiner! It was damn good, but we just had one and were on our way.

We grabbed a map from the hotel lobby. It appeared that there were several tourist attractions in the area, and while there was plenty of snow on the ground, none was falling at the moment. We decided to walk. Our first destination, The Victory Column, turned out to be a lot farther away than the map made it look. Eman and Rebecca hadn't really brought warm clothes (imagine that: when you pack after a long night of drinking, you might forget important things), so they were REALLY cold. It was pretty chilly, but we'd come this far: we couldn't turn back. We finally made it to the Victory Column, which commemorates the war victories of the Prussian (pre-cursor to the Germans). Situated in the middle of a round-about, the monument is impressive, but there's just not much you can say about a big column with a golden angel on top.

Our map showed the Brandenburg Gate just down the road, so we started moving again. We walked a ways, but there was still no gate in site. We walked some more: still no gate. Hmmmm. The sub-zero temperatures and falling snow probably made it seem worse than it was, but damn that was a long walk. All those things that looked so close on the map were really several miles apart. Finally, the gate came into view, however, another monument (not on the map) caught our eye.

It turns out that there's a really cool Russian monument on this road. All of the information was in German and Russian, so it took us a few minutes to piece it all together. On each side of the monument stood a Russian tank. Apparently these were the first two tanks to roll into Berlin when the Russians stormed the German capital in World War II. I didn't understand why such a monument would be on German soil (as it commemorates their defeat), but it was cool! I just wish Big Mike had taken a picture of the tanks (but someone who doesn't have a digital camera shouldn't really complain)!

We continued and finally made it to The Brandenburg Gate. We actually approached the monument, which spans the road from the rear. For those that don't know, the Brandenburg Gate is the monument you see in lots of war documentaries and such (usually with the Nazi army marching through the gate). It's probably a lot more interesting if you enjoy war history and movies and such. I was pretty awestruck by seeing this structure in person, and it kind of brought the magnitude of what we had just done into perspective. Just over a decade ago, driving through what had been communist East Germany would not have been an option. At that time, traffic did not flow through the gate with tourists milling about: the Berlin Wall stood only a few meters away from this monument. Wow.

It is time for a little history in case you don't know (I didn't know the whole story and still don't understand all the details). I'm sure you know that there were two different countries: West Germany (capitalist = good guys) and East Germany (communist = bad guys). Germany was divided into the two separate nations at the conclusion of World War II. Berlin, the former German capital, was now deep within East Germany, though. For some reason, they decided to divide up this city as well. West Berlin (which was given to the Allies) was split into three sectors (British, French, and American) while the rest of Berlin belonged to the communist government and remained their capital (West Germany's capital was placed in Bonn).

It should be obvious that having parts of the city under the rule of free governments was very bothersome to the communists, so they built the Berlin Wall to prevent their citizens from escaping into these districts. They even put metal grates with huge spikes in the river to prevent people from swimming to freedom. Obviously, this did little to deter many East Germans from attempting to defect by going over, under, and through the wall. Many of them had been literally separated from their families by the erection of this wall.

Ok, back to the trip story: We left the gate, and after another pretty long trek through Berlin ("everything looks so close on the map!") and a quick lunch at a local restaurant, we arrived at the former position of Checkpoint Charlie (there was also a Checkpoint Alpha, Bravo...). This was the heavily guarded checkpoint everyone passed through coming into and out of the American sector. Obviously the wall is gone now (as it is in most of the city: only small sections were preserved), but there is a red line showing where it once stood, and there's also a small plaque on the ground (surrounded by snow and salt in this pic) . The guardhouse is also still standing off to the side. A sign (replica) still stands here announcing the former border. The sign is written in English, Russian, French, and German.

There is also a Checkpoint Charlie museum there where they have tons of pictures, artifacts (are they really artifacts if some of them are under 15 years old?), and detailed stories of the attempts to get to the free side of the wall (some were successful, many were not). This is a must-see for anyone going to Berlin even if you're not a war buff: it's incredible. The East Germans dug so many tunnels under the wall that I'm amazed the city isn't still sinking. They thought up so many creative escape methods: false bottoms in the trunks of cars, hollowed out furniture (such as TVs), and even hot air balloons. Heck, one guy escaped East Germany by building a submarine and piloting it for over 14 hours until he landed in Denmark (the guy got several patents based on his craft, also). There are hundreds of other stories I could tell. Seeing all of this really convinced me how bad things must have been in East Germany before communism fell if the people were willing to go through so much to get out.

After spending hours (literally) in this museum, we were all pretty beat. We didn't even think about walking all the way back to the hotel. It took us some time, but we eventually figured out the train system and the fare machine, and we caught a train back to Tiergarten. We closed out the day by having a few more Warsteiner beers, which combined with a very long day, helped us get some well needed rest.

Sunday started with breakfast at the hotel buffet, and after this, I concluded that if I lived in Germany, I'd be on Springer as "The Guy who's so fat he can't wipe his own ass!" Ok, that's not really a Jerry topic (since they usually only involve strippers, hookers, or transsexuals), but I think you see my point: those Germans can cook. Every morsel was incredible: awesome scrambled eggs, great greasy bacon, apple pastries, tangerine juice (which is similar to orange juice, but better), German sausages, cheese stuffed potato pancakes, etc, etc, etc. German food rules!

After finally tearing ourselves away from breakfast, we drove out to a section of the Berlin Wall that is still standing. After the Checkpoint Charlie museum, I thought I was prepared for what I'd see. Wow, was I wrong. This was eerie! I never knew that there wasn't just one wall: there was actually a secondary wall built about 100 feet from of the larger, famous one (the East Germans actually dug up graves and moved a cemetery in order to establish this no-man's-land. Between the walls were several rows of cement posts between which barbed wire was once strung. There were guard towers with mounted machine guns overlooking this area, which was known as the "death strip" for obvious reasons.

Seeing this finally made it sink in how many people were NOT successful in their quest for freedom. How anyone ever made it out amazes me, but the fact that they were even willing to try speaks volumes about how horrible things must have been for them in communist East Germany. This is something you might think took place a very long time ago, but they were still making improvements in 1985 when they knocked down a church tower that was blocking the line of sight between two of the guard towers.

On a lighter note, the death strip almost claimed one more victim during our visit: Marty got trapped inside! Big Mike wanted pictures from inside and the death strip is closed on both sides, so he boosted Marty up and over the secondary wall. Unfortunately, no one questioned how he would get back OUT once he was in there. There were a few very tense moments (we even contemplated calling the police), but Marty finally was able to leap up and pull himself out. Naturally, he was very relieved and all smiles on his way back out.

Just down the street from this preserved portion of the wall, there is another section that has been hacked away at (either by people looking for souvenirs or by those attacking the monstrosity that haunted them for so long). Of course we took the opportunity to break off our own piece of the wall using a cobblestone we found laying around (probably used by the previous wall-basher). Now I have a little tangible piece of communism to take home with me.

With our newly acquired "souvenirs", we moved on to our next destination: Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The main steeple and a secondary one were both badly damaged during World War II, but the Germans merely shored up the damage rather than repairing it. They wanted to remind future generations of the destruction of war (smart move if you ask me, especially if you got your ass kicked in said war). They also erected a new, modern-looking church next door, which we were able to go in and look around. Unfornately, the old church was closed, so we couldn't get in to see it from the inside.

We stopped off for dinner and a few more souvenirs at the Hard Rock Cafe before beginning the long drive back to Copenhagen. Fortunately, traffic wasn't nearly as bad as the drive in, so we were finally able to drive on the Autobahn as it was meant to be driven on. We made really good time until another snowstorm slowed us down, but we were only a half hour from the ferry at that point, so it wasn't so bad. We made it back safe and sound late Sunday night.

Even though it was a short weekend (leaving Saturday morning and coming back Sunday night), this has to be one of the most interesting and fun weekends of my life. The trip exceeded my expectations by far. I learned not to take for granted my freedoms as a citizen of the United States of America. I saw first hand some of the evils of communism. On top of all this, I discovered a new favorite beer, Warsteiner. You can't ask for more than that from a road trip! I hope you've enjoyed reading the story.

Here are some other random pictures from our trip


Lisa, Mike, Rebecca, & Eman inside the Reichstag

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