The Berlin Circus

Moving right along with part three of this interminable spring break series, here it is: Berlin. Our train from Amsterdam dropped us off in the huge central train station in the middle of the city and we quickly discovered that A) We were not very close to our hostel B) Our ability to read German was almost as bad as our ability to read Dutch.

As we hopped on the first intra-city train to get us to our hostel in the middle-of-nowhere East Berlin, we realized with incredulous self-loathing we had again forgotten to buy our train tickets for our next stop to Prague. Luckily, the price wasn't as astronomical as it had been to get to Berlin but we were still upset for making the same mistake…again.

After a near 40-minute train ride including one switch, we were greeted with the site of the monolithic Generator Hostel, the largest hostel in all of Germany with a capacity of nearly 900 beds. As we waited to check in and met up with Maddy and Karen (out two remaining members for this leg of the trip) we realized we were entering our first "real" hostel: Tons of kids, a full bar already in swing with some poorly performed karaoke and advertisements everywhere promoting bar crawls and various excursions.

Our eight person room was spacious and a nice change from our living quarters in Amsterdam. After showering and changing, we hit the hostel bar downstairs while we watched an inebriated group of teenaged Brits perform an odd medley of karaoke songs, ending with the Bar-Mitzvah special "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias.

ASIDE: Having turned 21 during our spring break trip (not until Prague), I feel I am now of sufficient age to look upon teenagers as immature young'ns no longer in my peer group.

Having consumed a sufficient amount of alcohol, we hopped on the above ground train only to discover, as we reached the last stop, we had gone in the wrong direction. Now who looks like the inexperienced ones.? So there we were, really in the middle of nowhere East Germany at 12:30 am without a clue of how to get back to our hostel. As luck would have it, we saw two men sitting at a bus stop and one happened to speak English. He managed to tell us we would have to wait for the bus, take it seven stops, switch to a train, and we would end up back where we started. The man's direction were spot on and, dismayed and frustrated by our failed attempt to go out, we settled for Burger King and went to bed. So much for a crazy night out.

After waking up and finding little enjoyment in the Spartan hostel breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and bland cereal, we checked out and made the trek into the center of the city where we had two more nights scheduled at a new hostel called "Circus." Evelyn's brother had stayed there last year and recommended it highly to us. Because it had been under renovation for the last two months, we couldn't stay there our first night in Germany and had to wait for its grand re-opening which coincided with our 2nd day. A risky bet for sure, but it was a gamble that paid off in dividends.

Not only was Circus located right near all the major sites, but it was by far the best hostel we stayed at and relatively cheap for all the amenities they offered. Because they were still technically working on the front façade of the hostel, they felt it necessary to offer (as were one of the first groups of guests since it had opened that morning) free perks like a complimentary 4-hour walking tour, free haircuts, cake in the afternoon and, our favorite, a free keg in the bar both nights at 8pm.

With a few hours until check in, we took up the offer for the walking tour and had a great afternoon seeing all the major sites including the Berlin Wall, the National Museum, the Holocaust Memorial and the Parliament building. At the end of the tour our tour guide Matt recommended the "anti-pub crawl" if we were looking for a night activity. The anti-pub crawl was actually just another pub crawl but the group was a little smaller and the guide takes you to more off the beaten path kind of bars.

Fast Forward to 8:00pm.

We head to the bar downstairs and, not surprisingly, we are the first guests there, leaving us ample time to drink as much free beer as possible before the other guests start to get wise. Our drinking would've been more successful but we discovered a Nintendo 64 and a Super Nintendo with Street Fighter that occupied a lot of our bar time.

It's now 11:00 pm and after initially getting lost, we meet the anti-pub crawl group at this first bar called "Yesterdays", pay our 10 euros (completely worth it), receive our first round of free shooters and hop on the train for the 2nd bar. The 2nd bar was great because it had a ping pong table in the middle but everyone got to play at the same time. For a 5 euro deposit, you get a paddle and anyone in the bar that has one participates in an "around the world" styled game where you hit the ball and run to the back of the line on the other side. If you miss you're out. Everyone was having a good time so we stayed there for a bit drinking and playing ping-pong until our hippy chick guide announced it was time to go next door to this sketchy restaurant for our 2nd shot.

ASIDE: Berlin has a very interesting law that states that guides/leaders of pub crawls cannot pour drinks directly for the people participating in the crawl.

As a result, the 15 of us piled into this small restaurant where the bartender there took the bottle from our guide and poured us our shots. Almost immediately afterwards, Mark runs outside and vomits. This is the last thing he remembers before blacking out until we got home way way later in the night.

Our next stop was an overpriced absinth bar which at this point is no longer a novelty. I've often described absinth as tasting like death mixed with black licorice. The highlight here was introducing myself to a kid named Tyler who as it turns out goes to USC and knows the one kid I'm friends with there: Jack Robbins.

Our next stop on the tour was a terrible and empty goth bar whose name wasn't worth remembering. After yet another round of shots, Brandon and I, shall we say, expropriated a bottle of Jack Daniel's and absconded with it outside. It's worth mentioning here that drinking on the streets ("botellon" as we say here en españa) as well as the public transportation is completely legal in Berlin at all times of the day. Pretty cool right?

After gathering our group from that terrible bar, we set about finishing the handle as we took a long train to the crawl's final stop at a big industrial club just outside the city center. The other main perk of the crawl was not having to pay a cover for the club, and getting to skip the growing line outside. We felt like VIPs as we were ushered in through the anxious crowd. Without realizing it, I was still holding the now mostly empty bottle of whisky until the bouncer patting me down said, "hey, you can't come in here with that." Afraid I was in trouble, I put the bottle under a table but it wasn't a problem.

The club was, well, a club. Loud techno music, tons of spaces, flashing lights and sweaty people. Not really my thing, but once in a while it can be fun to dance like an idiot when you're amongst friends. The space was huge and looked like a converted or abandoned warehouse. We stayed there for maybe 2 hours (I'm really guessing here) before we decided we had enough. At some point, Jon and I got separated from the group and found ourselves outside talking to two German guys and this guy from Africa. When I asked him what country he was from he replied, "No country man, Africa is one." I wanted to get into an argument with him about how his statement couldn't be further from the truth, but I laughed instead and just let it go.

Getting home that night was difficult without a sober navigator but at the second tram stop the four of us guys hopped on a tram going in the wrong direction without the girls. When we got off at the next stop, we realized that we were at the first hostel right next to the Burger King, so we got on another tram going in the opposite direction and wound up, back with the girls right where we started.

At that point we gave up and took cabs home after we got some late night pizza. Overall, a fantastic night, especially when we realized Mark had no memory of any events after the ping pong bar.

On our 3rd day, the girls decided to go shopping while we headed for the German history museum. On the way we lost Brandon (this also happened in Amsterdam though for a shorter period of time) so it was just me Mark and Jon. The museum was very interesting and thorough, especially seeing their coverage of World War II from a German perspective.

The rest of the day was spent walking around, eating bratwurst and searching for a beer garden we weren't able to find. That night we went to the bar again at eight, but without much of a plan we ended up drinking in our room for too long and everyone got tired. We managed to mobilize ourselves and found a local bar, but we couldn't muster the energy to have a repeat of the previous night.

The next morning we went to see the largest remaining piece of the Berlin Wall which is now covered in a hodgepodge of colorful and symbolic paintings. Unfortunately my camera was dead, but it was a unique and sobering experience, especially being able to freely walk through exposed sections of the wall.

So that was Berlin; A great time in a cool city I'll probably not be going back to anytime soon. The kind of fairytale Germany I was expecting with beer halls, blond Bavarian girls in pigtails and fat guys in short shorts is germane to Munich in the South. Oh well, maybe on my next time Eurotrip.

The last funny story from Berlin was boarding the train for Prague. We entered through the last car by mistake, but the free compartments were in the front. The eight of us with, bags in tow, had to literally fight our way against the crowd walking to the back of the train to find seats. Because the seating was in the style of private compartment, there was zero passing room in this narrow hallway and we kept getting pressed against walls and squeezed against strangers to pass one another. At one point Mark's backpack got stuck in a door passing between train cars and he was immobilized. After a 20 minute struggle the girls found a private compartment while the rest of us found seats in another car. Luckily, a German man who spoke English told us that the car we were in would be de-coupled from the train in Dresden and we'd have to switch before then. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers.

Expect Prague next. It might take a while to write since it was our longest stint of the trip and I'm travelling to Madrid and Toledo on Friday. Ciao ciao.

-Corey

Spanish phrase of the day:

Mi gozo en un pozo- What a shame… (literally translates as "my pleasure in a well")

P.S. Pictures weren't working this time (stupid blogger site), so I'll publish them as an addendum (is this a word?) to this post when possible. Gracias para su paciencia.