DECEMBER 29, 2006: FIRST DAY IN BERLIN
Arrival and hotel
After a nice breakfast for 3 Euros each at the Sleepy Lion Hostel in Leipzig, Peter and I drove up to Berlin. The roads were clear of snow and the drive was uneventful except for an “Unfall” (accident) on the A9 that shut down two of the three lanes of traffic. That cost us half an hour.
One thing about Berlin that is different from most other cities in the Western Hemisphere is that the numbers on the buildings are neither consecutive nor divided between odd on one side of the street and even on another. So we noticed right away that the numbers on the left went up to 80-81, then started going back down to 79, while on the right side of the street it went from 26 to 35 fairly quickly. Nonetheless, we found the Hotel-Pension-Gribnitz at 82 Kaiserdamm fairly easily. We checked in with a very friendly and informative clerk, then got directions to our apartment building about 100 meters from the main hotel. For only 62 Euros a night we got an apartment with two beds, TV, oven, sink, coffee maker, and private bathroom. Not bad in Berlin even with the exchange rate. And it is very clean and bright. We highly recommend it.
Gedaechtniskirche
We took an hour and a half to rest up, then finally decided around 3:30 it was probably time to head into the city. We walked around the corner and up one block to the Kaiserdamm U-Bahn stop, and arrived at Zoologischer Garten in 10 minutes. In another few minutes we were at our first sightseeing stop, the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche. Wilhelm was the last Kaiser (ruler) of Germany before it became a democratic republic in 1918. “Gedaechtnis” means “memorial” in German, so the church was originally built as a memorial for the Kaiser. The church was bombed during WWII and was intentionally never restoredto become a memorial on another level. There is a round hole where a large plate of stained glass used to be. One can also see where the stones of the church got so hot they began to melt into each other. It was sobering to see stone walls looking like marshmallows. Nevertheless, life went on around it. The Christmas market with its stalls of wurst, gluhwein, cookies and toys was in full swing. Also open for business was the new church, a tall concrete grid with stained glass squares and a matching, shorter hexagonal building. A tour guide told us Berliners call it the lipstick case and powder box.
KaDeWe
From the Gedaechtniskirche, we walked on Tauentzienstrasse to Kaufhaus des Westens (literally “Buyhouse of the Westerners”), known affectionately as KaDeWe (pronounced Kah-Day-Vay). We went past the Louis Vitton, Clinique, and Polo Ralph Lauren counters up the escalators to the 6th floor, home of the gourmet food gallery and restaurants.
I’ve said in previous blogs that I don’t impress easily, but I was impressed by this floor. There were service counters with live lobster and fish, beautifully arranged salads and sandwiches, chicken, rabbit, Asian food, and sweets. There were also smaller restaurants where you could have a beer and a bratwurst or a Riesling and lobster tail (Hummer) or spiny lobster tail (Langoste). They even had jelly donuts, which outside of Berlin are called Berliners but at KaDeWe were called Pfannkuchen.
After taking a full tour of the floor and stopping to sample some excellent Russian vodka, Peter and I settled on the “Fishcutter’s” restaurant. We waited several minutes at the counter to order, then chose a plate of shrimp and a plate of swordsteak. The chef wrote down our orders, then told us to sit down anywhere. We chose a small table with stools and wondered how the server would find us. But sure enough in a few minutes a waiter brought our drinks (Prosecco for Peter, Riesling for me), salads, and French bread.
Again, I’ve never been one to think of myself as a gourmand or a food elitist by any stretch of the imagination. I appreciate good food but have never felt myself to be SENSITIVE to the difference between good food and bad food, until this meal. The Riesling was sweet and superbly smooth. The salad vegetables were very fresh. Even the bread was crusty on the outside and soft on the inside, just as experts say good French bread should be. I got two filets of swordsteak that were grilled to perfection. They were soft and very moist. They didn’t have a “fishy” taste. Even Peter, who doesn’t normally like fish, said it was very good. It came with cocktail sauce and garlic sauce which was simple but complemented the fish perfectly. Peter’s shrimp tasted very fresh. It wasn’t cheap—Peter’s dinner was 25 Euros, and mine was 18.50. But I think it was worth every bite.
Berlin by Night
After dinner, Peter and I walked back through the beautiful arts and crafts of the Gedaechtniskirche Christmas market and down the Kufurstendamm, a famous shopping street generally called the Ku’damm. Most of the stores were closed, though. We didn’t want to waste the evening, so Peter suggested we go the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, which is open daily until 10 p.m. This is when we had our “Wenn einer eine Reise tut…” (When you travel, things happen) moment. The U-Bahn is under construction, but as in most train stations worldwide it’s hard to understand the announcements about it. All we know is we got on the train, went one stop, then the train returned to our first station. It turned out we needed to get off and take another train. We did that eventually, and made it to Checkpoint Charlie at 9:00 p.m.
When we arrived at the museum, we were told we would need at least an hour and a half to see the museum. I didn’t want to rush through it, especially since the museum would cost 9.50 Euros per person. Instead, we looked at the checkpoint and the lines in the street marking where the Berlin Wall had been. Then we walked past the new clothes and car shops on Friedrichstrasse to the Gendarmenmarkt, a marketplace sandwiched between the Franzoesischer Dom and the Deutscher Dom. They had a WinterZauber (Wintermagic) Market that was open at that time of day. Strangely, there was a 1-Euro entrance fee, so we decided to skip the market. We made it to Unter den Linden, a famous street in the former East Berlin. We saw the equally famous Hotel Adlon and the Russian Embassy. We saw the construction on the new American Embassy.
I got my first glance at the Brandenburg Tor (Brandenburg Gate) at night. It was striking and beautiful, but I couldn’t get a decent shot on my cheap camera. Same for the Reichstag (which is only the name of the building now; the Parliament is referred to as the Bundestag). We also saw the new “Kanzleramt”, a building for the German Chancellor’s offices. Exhausted, we headed back to the S-Bahn at Unter den Linden and found our way back to the hotel.
Tags: Berlin, Germany, Travel
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