First day in the Deutsch Hauptstadt

Ok… so I had only seen the German Capital’s nightlife so far… and we got up eventually at 1pm :-P Had a nice traditional German breakfast consisting of bread rolls, cheese and jam… all bought from the local flohmarkt (flea market), was very nice.

Out to see the day, starting by seeing West Berlin. We walked past some of the common shops you can see in parts of Berlin: leather clothes and sex toys. It was good because my last gimp costume was getting a bit old :-P

The main shopping street of West Berlin was pretty nice. We wandered around, went into the big shopping mall which was 7 stories up. There was a massive chocolate bear… oh the bear is one of the symbols of Berlin, so there are lots of them about the place.

(Ruth with the massive bear)

We saw the church that was bombed in the war as well. There are many places in Berlin that they have left the same since the war as memorials, this is one of the main ones.


We wanted to try and catch the last walking tour of the day, but it was getting too late so we would have missed it. I took this as an opportunity to see more of the West. We wandered around some of the not-so-main streets. Saw a Anne Franke museum… it was very sad and we only stayed for a little while. I felt a little too emotional in there. (Not sure how well I’m going to handle Auschwitz when I go in a couple of weeks)

Also saw a photo exhibit by Peter Lindbergh, who is a very famous fashion photographer. One photo was of a bottle of water… and was worth $30,000.


After wandering for a bit, we headed into East Berlin… well the Stadtmitte (city-centre) anyway. We got off the bus near Check Point Charlie… the street just up the road was full of smoke, I was curious so of course went to check it out.
Turns out they were filming the controversial "Stauffenberg" movie, which is about the Nazi General that tried to kill Hitler. This is the one that Tom Cruise stars in, and because of his Scientology beliefs, they were not allowed to film this in the original locations. However, it was still a cool sight. A bit strange seeing a street full of smoke with the Nazi Swatzstika flags raised high and people in SS uniforms doing the Nazi salute… probably a once in a lifetime thing to see in Germany. For those of you who don’t know, it is illegal to wear or bear any Nazi memorabilia… an imprisonable offence. It’s amazing what you can get away with if you are in Hollywood.


We wandered down past Checkpoint Charlie… probably the most unimpressive famous thing I have seen. I didn’t really want to see too many of the main stuff in the city, as we were going to see it on the walking tour the next day. We headed into some of the not so touristy areas of Berlin’s centre. I learnt about the “Ampel Men”, or in English “pedestrian crossing traffic light symbol” (isn’t German easier?). The East Berlin ampel-men are quite unique. They were designed to be cartoon like so children would take notice… and for those of you wondering… that is his arm!


We continued walking and saw the Döm of Berlin which was cool. We stopped at the location of the ancient Berlin Royal castle.... which was now a square with carnival + eating stuff. The Soviets destroyed it during their occupation of East Berlin. We stopped here for a Currywürst and Beer, can't get too much more German than that!


After our snack, we went back to Ruth's to have a rest before heading out for the evening. We had been walking around for about 7 hours so I think we deserved it :-) After sitting around and chatting for a while, Ruth cooked a very nice dinner. By this time it was about 11pm, so time to go and see a Berlin Electro club!

We went to a club called Tresor (means wall-safe in French), which is one of the famous clubs of Berlin. We arrived around mid-night, and things were just about starting up properly. This club was really cool! There were 3 different dance-rooms in various locations throughout the building. To get between them you had to go through a maze of stairways and tunnels. The main one we stayed in was the "hard-trance" genre. The lighting was fantastic, the sound was good, the atmosphere was pumping. Unsa-unsa :-)


I met some Pommy guys that were on a stag due. Also met a local Berliner who could barely speak English, so between my bad German and his bad English we managed a conversation :-) Also had several dances with a couple of girls... they just come up and start dancing with ya... that doesn't happen in NZ. We danced the night away until 6am, and we didn't even have much to drink (or take anything else for that matter).

Leaving the club we were more awake than when we were on our way to the club... but as soon as we got home we both crashed :-) Fantastic night!