We all know about Primark Oxford Street, well if you live in London you do (and even if you don’t you should) but yesterday I discovered a shopping Gem just around the corner in the form of Atelier Mayer a gorgeous boutique staffed by 50′s Barbie dolls and full of vintage finds, including a to die for section of Chanel!
Highly recomended! Add this to your London shopping to do list!
New Year’s Eve began with a pelting of firecrackers; such is the pastime of revelling Berlin children bound by no man’s rules. Fearing for our facial features (and as concerned as a Australian farmer in a drought about fire safety) we headed out into the wild streets on December 31st heading towards the notorious festivities at the Brandenburg Gate. It was evident no fireworks rules were in place and the streets were a Buzz, Crackle and Pop! Of activity. Older partiers fired blanks from real guns and, on occasion, we experienced a few moments of blindness from particularly bright explosions, mewing helplessly for each other in the madness like blind kittens.
The promenade to the Gate was packed with people, more people in fact than there are in the whole of New Zealand. Fair games and Gluwein (mulled wine) stands entertained the throngs pushing their way towards the main stage. Beer ran out quickly (not surprising given a single women managed to spill six pints on me simultaneously) and we switched to mulled wine, burning our hands in the process. As the New Year rang in, with a song we couldn’t understand, fireworks blazed overhead and the guy with the gun let off a few more blanks. Carried by the sea of Berliners we made our way to one of the city’s notorious party districts alongside the infamous “RAW” squat clubs. Here we (and by that I mean I) managed to break the door of a bar’s restaurant, have a minor panic attack that I would be locked in the underground concrete bathroom of a foreign night club, before being rescued by a unimpressed German bouncer. All in all, a good night.
The next day the streets looked worse than London looked after the riots. Firecracker remains had gone soggy in the rain and formed messy maroon puddles of sludge all over Berlin. There was little distinction between said puddles and the dog poop and vomit that mingled alongside it so we avoided all three was great caution. We found ourselves back in the party district (barely recognisable in the daylight) again for an all you can eat German brunch surrounded by the last-man-standing New Year partygoers, still up at 3pm from the night before.
Waving goodbye to our hangovers the 2nd proved a more productive day as we braved the rain for another “Free” walking tour aptly named The Alternative Tour. Alongside our staunchly anti gentry guide we visited street art hot spots (our third visit to RAW) a tree house, and a multi storied squat/gallery filled with a warring community of artists on the verge of eviction. All of this has become “gentrified” according to our guide, who, although pleasant, harboured a misguided resentment against frozen yoghurt as the symbol of all things evil and commercial. This, from a woman who arranged to meet her tours at Starbucks.
From alternative Berlin we headed to popular Berlin, the Fassbender and Rausch chocolate shop famed for it’s intricate chocolate sculptures depicting Berlin’s top tourist attractions. We steered away from ordering steaks with chocolate sauce, or any of the other unusual dishes on the attached restaurant’s menu, and instead chose mouth watering traditional deserts. We finished the evening at a toilet themed bar drinking cockatails from bed pans and chamber pots.
Having seen token panels here and there around the city we made our last day in Berlin all about seeing THE wall. We started with the historical section, surrounded by memorials and eirly quiet on a chilly winter’s morning. The stories of families torn apart is harrowing, the stories of those who climbed or tunnelled under the wall even more so. It was a stark change of scene that afternoon when we headed to the East Side Gallery, the stretch of wall covered in memorial murals. After seeing the contemporary street art of Berlin on our Alternative Tour the East Side Gallery proved to me something of a disappointment, many of the murals screamed of the late 80’s and 90’s bringing back memories of the gaudy motifs of my childhood. With the 80’s and 90’s on my mind we headed to one of the city’s various vintage outlets for 5 Levels of Thrift, but I wasn’t feeling the nostalgic vibes that day and left empty handed.
I ended my week in Berlin the next day in solitary and on a sombre note, visiting The Topography of Terror Museum . Built bunker style under a mammoth Holocaust memorial, this museum is modern, interactive and highly recommendable. But unfortunately I had a plane to catch and left the museum to make sure, in true Amanda style, that I was 4 hours early for my flight at a tiny airport with one cafe. Auf Wiedersehn!
A late night bus ride through the Czech Republic and Dresden takes us to Berlin on December 28th, our New Year’s Eve 2011/12 destination. We are all extremely tired, a point that’s made clear when I tell my friends I can’t understand our taxi driver because he is speaking “Berlin” a slip of the tongue I will never be allowed to forget.
It is in this overly tired state that we arrive at our unusual accommodation “Paula’s Comfy Little Corner Hostel” which I suppose is similar to couch surfing, because it’s someone’s house with a few extra beds squeezed in. This comes with its pros and cons. Pros being a chocolate on your pillow, beautifully made up beds with grandma pillows and an abundance of free toiletries. Cons being one bathroom between 12ish people and an awful lot of rules to do with noise and consideration for the neighbours. It was these rules which led another member of the group to make the second faux pax of the evening by hastily comparing the hostel staff’s rules to “Nazi’s” a comment that greatly overshadowed my meaningless comment on the beautiful “Berlin” language. We were all on our best behaviour for the rest of the trip and whispered the forbidden word, anxious not to be culturally insensitive.
What’s strange is the 12 years of Nazi Germany history is what first comes to mind when I think of the country, in fact my initial plans in Berlin centred solely on it. But I came to find that Berlin, and Germany’s history is far more diverse than just 12 years of national turmoil, and that contemporary Berlin is a cosmopolitan melting pot of ideas, arts, street culture and nightlife.
Our first full day in Berlin dawned late, with all the inappropriate comments we kept making it was clear we needed a proper rest. We set out in search of brunch at around 2am and ordered at blind random from a menu written in German. In my case I received a traditional German breakfast of sausages served in a bowl of boiling water, and a side of bretzel, everyone else got eggs and toast, so I was smug about my fluked traditional choice. Next stop was coffee, or mulled wine in our case, at the Circus Cafe (attached to the infamous Circus Hostel) before we headed to the city’s Christmas markets.
The next day was a little less chilled as we made the trek to the outskirts of Berlin to the Sachsennhousen Concentration Camp where thousands of people lost their lives during the Nazi’s time in power. The sites at Sachsenhousen will make you feel physically ill, but the exhibition is informative and eye opening, particularly about the groups other than Jews who were persecuted during this time. This is not a sight I feel inclined to blog further about, it’s something that can’t be described in words or photos. I now fully understand why many travellers describe concentration camps as the worst things you will ever see but at the same time something you absolutely must visit.
That evening we ventured out amongst the “carelessly hip” Berlin crowd, who try very hard to look careless. We settled in for drinks at one of many “pay what you want” bars set in a eclectic basement covered in rubber ducks and vintage pin ups. We drank several glasses of wine and spent the whole evening nervously debating how much we should pay. We each paid 5euros and regretted it on seeing someone else paying 70cents.
Our next day’s sightseeing followed in a similar vein as we took advantage of the city’s “free” (tip what you want) walking tours and visited the historical sights of Pre 1990 Berlin. The tours were worth doing, as many historical sites are unmarked to discourage Neo Nazi’s turning them into shrines (for example the bunker in which Hitler committed suicide is now a plain old parking lot). On a brighter note the tour also takes you to the scene of other historical events, such as Baby Gate A.K.A the infamous Michael Jackson baby -out-the-window scene.
Tour out of the way and the evening beckons, as does 2012, for tonight is New Year Year’s eve and Berlin’s festivities wait…… To be continued……..
