There was a kind of youthful glee associated with Martins face when he said these words .He did a sort of a jig too when he uttered the sentence. Irrespective of the fact that we were all drunk, we still could recognize it.. The small pub , named ‘Betty F***’ was blasting with loud music , which prompted Martin to say those words, and enter the pub. The rest of us followed suit on that cold Saturday evening in Berlin.
Well, men fondling each other was not exactly MY kind of place, and I quickly cast a doubtful look at Martin, who was already on his way out,.realizing his faux pas.
Soon realizing that it was gay pub, evbdy left as hurriedly as they had entered, and Martin had that sheepish look on his face for a long time.
It all started on Friday when we left office at 11 am to catch the train to Berlin from Hamburg. It had been a hectic week of work, and we were all looking forward to our trip to Berlin. I have always been fascinated by the history and culture of the places I visit, and Berlin having such a rich history was always on one of my to-dos.
The high speed train sped through the crass,dull countryside at 250 kph to kiss Berlin at 1:30 pm in the afternoon. We had a packed schedule, and left to see Berlin as soon as we checked in the hotel.
The weather was pleasantly sunny and beautiful. We started from AlexanderPlatz, formerly East Berlin’s main commercial hub. Fleeting scenes from the movie ‘Bourne Supremacy’ flashed before me as we stood in the front of the world clock. Jason Bourne jumps in the tram with the girl, with some protestors crowding the scene, as the CIA watches on dumbfounded. That was a good movie, though I liked the first part more. The whole scene of Bourne’s escapade was shot where we were standing, though the place looked more colorful in the movie somehow. There is a very socialist look to the place, largely attributed to the GDR city architects. A tall TV tower, a symbol of Socialist technology and pride is hard to miss. As soon as you exit the U Bahn station, the Fountain of friendship, situated in the center of the open square catches your eye . It has water in summer time, I am told : ). After spending a fair share of our time in AlexanderPlatz, we left for the Berlin wall.
I still had memories of seeing the Ber
lin wall coming down on TV as a kid, and the fact that I would be able to see the wall now, was very exciting. However, when we reached there , it was hard to believe that this small fence was the once the most potent symbol of the cold war. It is not very high, and with some help, u might be able to scale it and jump over to the other side. However, our german friends told us that it was heavily guarded and mined at that time . It was constructed in 1961, seen as a desperate measure by the GDR government mainly to stem the exodus of the young and educated people from the German Democratic Republic, (East Germany).The wall subsequently became the stage for innumerous escape attempts, and by the time the cold war ended and the wall collapsed on 9 November 1989, almost 200 people were killed trying to get across it.We clicked some pictures on the ‘East Side gallery’, which is the longest and the most preserved stretch of whatever is left of the wall. It is called so, because it is full of paintings from artists across the world, some of which make strong political statements. At the end of the cold war the wall was brought down, with entire chunks ending up in museums across the world, and people taking small parts of the wall with them, preserving them as mementos. Only 1.5 km of this once 160 km long wall is left today. All in all, its just another brick in the wall.(this line looks completely outta place here..teehee)
After the excursion to the wall, all our
tummies needed some food, and we hopped over to Mitte in search of some grub. There was a famous Turkish place which serves Falafels , topped by warm coffee. Its amazing what a days excursion can do to your hunger and everyone ate to their hearts content .With hunger satiated, we left for a visit to the Brandenburger Tor(gate). Walking through the Unter den Linden, which means ‘Under the Linden Trees’, Berlins most splendid boulevard, we reached the Brandenburger Tor, a spectacular pillared monument , with a sculpture of the winged goddess of victory perched on the top. This was another symbol of the Division of Germany , during the cold war. It is a very majestic gate indeed, and you stand in awe admiring the tall pillars and fine architecture.We soon left for our next haunt, the Ge
rman parliament building, called the Reichstag, the seat of the Bundestag, the German parliament. This building was given a complete renovation in 1999 by the British architect Lord Norman Foster by adding a glistening glass dome to the baroque laden archaic architecture. There is a lift ride to the top of the dome, from where you can get a panoramic view of Berlin, which looks very pretty during night.We headed for a couple of beers and dinner later on, served by pretty ladies. Off the record, I must say that German women are one of the prettiest in the world. This view is vehemently disputed by some of my friends in Denmark, but hey, I’ve not been to Copenhagen till now, and since this is my article, German women stay on top. : )
It was a well deserved sleep we all had when we reached the hotel in the evening, completely oblivious to the events of the next day, when Martin would join us .(yes ,the same guy who took us to the Gay pub, but that comes later)
The next day started off wit
h a visit to the Berliner Dom.The Italian Renaissance style architecture of the colossal cathedral makes it look very impressive , not only from the outside , but the inside as well.I was told that this cathedral was completed in 1905, and was the place of worship, and later the burial of the royal Prussian family. After climbing some 270 steps to the viewing gallery , you catch sight of a splendid copper dome which tops the cathedral. A breathtaking view of the Berlin city awaits you from here, especially if the weather is right and the sun is out.Moving on from the cathedral , we took a walk along the streets of Berlin appreciating the impressive buildings that adorned both sides of the road. We went for a sip of coffee in the Newton Bar. It is a chic brown bar that has been the home for Mitte’s well heeled folk, as I was told. There is an impressive picture of nudes by Helmut Newton which makes u guess the origin of the name to the photographer. The bar however, was named after Sir Isaac Newton.(Allrite, I shall post that pic of nudes..: ) )
The next stop on our trip was the Holocaust memorial. It is a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Nazi planne
d genocide and consists of a vast grid of 2711 rectangular concrete grey blocks of varying height. Especially touching is the Ort der Information(Information Centre) below the memorial. A graphic description of the Jewish persecution is followed by rooms documenting the lives of Jewish individuals and families. One of the letters from a 12 year old girl in a concentration camp to her aunt which I thought was very hard hitting:“Dear Aunt,
I am very afraid. I really want to live, but these people wont let us. They take all small kids, throw them alive in a pit and shoot them down. I don’t know when my turn shall come.
Hoping not to die.
With tender kisses,
Janoah.
After the hard hitting trip through the holocaust memorial, we went for dinner to a Vietnamese place called MANNGO. After Delicious noodles and beef , we had some typical Vietnamese alcohol shots, made of rice. After around 5 of them, we were nicely high to start our pub hop.
The pubs in Berlin are more spread out than Hamburg, where all the pubs are situated in one street. However, not withstanding that, we already were in and out of a couple of nice pubs by 12 in the night. It was around that time when we entered the gay pub, proudly led by Martin. Scurrying away hurriedly we looked into a next one, where they served Astra , a Hamburg beer. At this point of time , I was on a nice high . Some of our friends left after that , as they were quite tired, with the pub hop not being their kind of thing. We carried on, having cocktails in a pub called ErdBeere, which translates to Strawberry in English. Nice music and less crowded. Finally we entered a place called ‘White Trash Fast Food’. Looked like a Chinese fast food joint. We were surprised however, to see a live band inside . Headbanging to it till 4 in the morning, we finally decided to call it a day, and reached our hotel.
This completed our Berlin trip, and we boarded the train to hamburg the next day. All completely exhausted, we still had time to reflect on the nice time we had over the weekend. The place was fantastic, the people friendly and the weather , just lovely. As the train approached Hamburg, the grey and cloudy weather was back and we hurried back home , to catch that well needed rest after a lovely weekend.
