Berlin 2024: Big City, Fun Times
We knew Berlin would be fun from the first night we spent here. After a long train ride from Munich (and arriving 30 minutes late, which seemed to be a trend with Deutsche Bahn), we settled into our hotel. Airbnbs are heavily regulated here, which is probably true in much of Europe these days, so it was easier and relatively affordable to stay in a central hotel instead.
We wandered out in the afternoon and dealt with the crowd of tourists to get some photos of checkpoint Charlie, one of the many cold-war era things that make Berlin so unique.
There are some nearby shops and sites that are very touristy, but it was already late afternoon, so we called an Uber, and he came in hot!
When he tossed open the door calling for “Nicolas Cage” I nearly thought it was the wrong Uber. He told us he’s from Turkey, 100km outside of Istanbul. Let me share the highlights of our wild ride to dinner:
He used the bus lane as a passing lane, telling us it’s okay, because “Turkish drive in this lane, only Germans stick to the [legally correct] lane”.
After asking if we prefer Jay-Z or Tupac, he pulled out a cd and set the soundtrack for our ride (Tupac, of course).
During a particularly “creative” route for passing a little traffic, he said, “don’t worry, this is Turkish airways.”
On my way out of the car at the end (early for our reservation after the way he drove), he bid us farewell with “ciao, ciao, playboy!”
5 stars, would recommend 100%.
Anyway, the wild ride got us to Salhino, a fun Georgian restaurant for dinner, where we ate too much and discovered some amazing dishes, especially their khachapuri:
Our first stop the next morning was the Holocaust memorial. I’d seen pictures before, but it’s actually quite impactful in person. You have to wander between the concrete blocks until they tower over you, bringing a sense of isolation while being crowded on all sides. Especially with our recent visit to Dachau, it helped reinforce the scale and intensity of the atrocity committed by the nazis:
Nearby, we took a look at the Brandenburg gate, which I think was built by a king at some point. More recently, it was the site of Reagan’s well known “Mr Gorbachev, bring down this wall” speech in the 80s.
We had heard it was worth climbing the dome on top of the Reichstag building (I think it’s the German parliament), and one tip we heard was to have lunch at the restaurant up there, Käfer, to enjoy the view and also entry into the Reichstag. You can still get into the Reichstag without a reservation at the restaurant, but we figured we’d be hungry around the time we arrived, so it was convenient.
Lunch was not bad, though very overpriced. The waiter took most of the meal to warm up to us, but as we came to learn in Berlin, transactional interactions with waiters and retail employees is pretty normal here. The only friendly ones we had were all immigrants (such as our new friend from Turkey). Anyway, first the food:
We then explored the inside of the dome and walked the iconic spiral ramp:
There’s also an outdoor area, where we could get some amazing views of the city. Berlin has a pretty short profile for such a populated city:
From here, we bought the Berlin Welcome Card, more for the 3-day transit than for the discounts, and hopped on the U-Bahn to Museum Island. There’s an option with the Berlin Welcome Card to include the museums on Museum Island, but we opted not to go without that option. The only museum we were interested in was the Pergamon Museum, but it’s currently closed for renovations.
However, next to the five main museums of Museum Island is the Humboldt Forum, which is free to enter and houses the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art. There are also some other interactive exhibits that you can pay to see. The Humboldt Forum is a controversial attraction because of some of the exhibits in these museums. There are multiple rooms containing artifacts that were stolen or acquired from other parts of the world during Germany’s colonial rule. It reminded us of the British Museum, where there’s the large exhibit featuring many pieces of the Parthenon from Athens.
With that in mind, we went through most of the exhibits in the Forum:
You could easily spend hours here because it’s so large, and the exhibits cover almost all parts of the world, but we walked at a fast pace so that we could see other parts of the city.
While we didn’t purchase admission into any of the museums on Museum Island, we still went over there to marvel at the architecture of the buildings there:
We also saw a couple of people with crayon and paper trying to get an imprint of a manhole cover. We waited until they were done to see the manhole cover:
It’s pretty, and we understood why that couple put that much effort in getting a print of it.
From there, we walked over to the very prominent TV tower that is, I think, the tallest structure in the area. On the way there, we started to hear some dance music and a large crowd gathered nearby. We were intrigued and walked over there to see what it was about. It turns out, it was a rally for legalizing sex work:
It’s so fascinating just randomly encountering such wildly entertaining events in a city we’ve never visited before.
A couple of minutes away is the TV tower:
I think you can get tickets to go up the tower for a view of the city, but there was a long line and we had just been to the Reichstag building to get views there.
After having been on our feet for hours, we decided we needed a drink break and saw a bubble tea store, Tudo, with a line out the door. Of course, we walked over there to see what the fuss was about, and it was cute with a bunch of drinks that looked pretty. There was one called the Rainbow, and I had to order it.
Unfortunately, the drink seems like it’s made more for Instagram than actually being a good drink:
The bathroom though had some amazing graffiti in it:
After wandering this area for a bit, we realized that there wasn’t anything too exciting here except for a shopping mall, so we headed back to the hotel to rest up a bit. We knew that for dinner, we wanted Doner because multiple sources said that it’s something we needed to try. We did some research, and found a highly reviewed place about a 20 minute walk from our hotel, so off we went!
We were getting further away from the city center into an area that felt much more residential. At this point, we were starting to doubt whether Google was right about this restaurant, because it didn’t have a website and there were no hours listed. Eventually, we could see the sign from a distance, and soon we went inside and were greeted by the friendly store owner:
Nick told the owner that we’d never had Doner before, and he excitedly told us that he’d make us a special Doner for us, so we put our faith in him. We also ordered the chili cheese fries, because we needed more food…
We were offered a variety of toppings (lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, etc.) and sauces (hummus, garlic, spicy, etc.). The doner meat, toppings, and sauces were then wrapped up in a tortilla and heated up in foil, which was then served to us for us to unwrap and eat. So I don’t think this is a traditional Doner Kebab, which seems like it’s in a much thicker pita, but it was still delicious. The chili cheese fries though were just fries with pickled jalapeños and cheese whiz:
For our last day in Berlin, we wanted to make our way over to the East Side Gallery, which is an over 4000 foot section of the original Berlin Wall. In 1990, many artists painted various murals on it, which are available for the public to see.
But before we walked over there, we needed breakfast, and there was a cute bookstore and bagel shop nearby called Shakespeare and Sons. There was a line out the door, but it didn’t take too long to make it to the front and order our bagel sandwiches. We also got lucky and found a free table that could fit all of us:
After enjoying our bagels and coffee, we went next door because there was a cute donut shop that we passed by on our way to Shakespeare and Sons. It wasn’t until we walked inside and read the menu that we realized that it was a vegan donut shop. The donuts still looked good, so we ordered a chocolate one, a strawberry one, and a cinnamon sugar donut. They also had a pride flag on display, so we felt good about supporting the store:
Before walking to the East Side Gallery, we took a few minutes to stop on the Oberbaum Bridge to take some photos:
And then we walked around the corner to start the walk down the East Side Gallery, and yeah, there are so many murals on display. We obviously didn’t take a photo of every mural, but here are some of our favorites:
Partway down the wall, we were getting thirsty and saw this sign:
We took that as a metaphorical sign to get a drink there, and it’s really cute:
We continued walking the rest of the East Side Gallery, and then headed over to the nearby plaza. This day was actually Tiffany’s birthday, and a friend of hers told her about a portable rave machine, and it happened to be located across the street from the midpoint of the East Side Gallery. In fact, it’s in front of Uber Arena and Uber Eats Music Hall
And here’s the teledisco:
Inside, there was a small disco ball, and a bunch of buttons for various effects. Tiffany chose a song (it costs 2€ for one song), and she and I somehow fit ourselves inside. Once we shut the door, the song started to play, and then I pressed the various effect buttons. First was the fog machine, but that seemed to be broken, then there was the disco ball, but it didn’t really have much of an effect in because the light beaming onto it wasn’t very strong. There was another button titled ‘surprise’ but all that seemed to do was change the color of the LED light strips. My favorite was the strobe effect, which caused a strobe light effect, but it would turn off every 15 seconds, so I had to constantly press it once it stopped.
It was also really hot inside the teledisco, so once the song finished, we were happy to open the door to get some fresh air and to cool down. Nick and Mike said that they could hear the song, and that our dancing made the box shake.
With that experience over, we headed over to a store that Tiffany wanted to check out, but it appeared that the only section that was open was the mens side. I asked if the other section would be open and the store owner said ‘it opens at 5pm,’ with an attitude that seemed like he was brushing me off. It was 3:30 at this point, and Nick wanted to go to the Lighthouse of Digital Art, which is an immersive audio/visual space. It turns out that we needed timed entry tickets, but fortunately for us, there were tickets available for the next entry in about 20 minutes. We took that time to explore the area that it was located in, which appeared to be an old warehouse district. Now, it seems like it’s full of dance clubs, fitness studios, cafes, and art studios. There were also some cool murals there as well:
We then entered the Digital Lighthouse and were escorted to a large room with multiple projectors projecting onto all walls and the floor. There were chairs and bean bags placed around the perimeter of the room, and since it was just us and two others, we had our choice of any of them. We all chose some beanbags and the show began. It was basically a 50 minute show relating to elementary particles, with the concept that the images represented the particles passing through the lighthouse.
To be honest, it wasn’t very interesting, and multiple people fell asleep during it. And considering that we’ve been to various TeamLab exhibits in Japan, this felt very underwhelming.
It was about 5pm at this point, so we headed back to the clothing store to see if they opened up the adjoining showroom. But on the way there, we stumbled upon a DJ playing dance music outside the station, and people having their own dance party:
We eventually made it to the store and, as expected, the showroom wasn’t open, which reinforced our earlier impression that the person before was just trying to get us to leave. Our interactions with Berliners in general was quite cold, especially compared to the people we met in Munich and Salzburg. The only people who were friendly were the immigrants, like the taxi driver and the Doner store owner.
After our mild disappointment with the closed showroom, we walked to Bantabaa Food Dealers for dinner. They serve African cuisine, specifically food from Senegal and Gambia. Because most of us couldn’t decide which single dish to order, we went with the Senegambia platter, which offered portions of all of their main dishes and rice. We also ordered some hand pies, fried dough balls with onion jam, and cassava fries as an appetizer.
When it all came out, it was amazing:
And with that, we took the train back to the hotel to pack and prepare for our flight to Copenhagen tomorrow!