Berlin: The Beginning

I have been saving this travel blog post, because I knew it was going to be very difficult to write. I have wanted to visit Berlin since I was a child. In fact, the reason why my brother Chris and I went on this specific Contiki Tour was because it passed through Berlin. That was my one requirement... I had to see this magical city.

Even twenty years after the Berlin Wall has come down, the city is still rebuilding. There are construction sites, cranes, barriers and workers everywhere. Old, dilapidated buildings are being torn down for new, twenty-first century replacements. Some areas of Berlin look exactly as they must have fifty years ago; others are unbelievably modern. It is truly a surreal experience.

I did a lot of research on Berlin prior to leaving Canada, and I was armed with maps, street names and pictures. I did this for every city, and trust me, planning ahead saved us a few times. Coincidentally, a walking tour of the city had been arranged previously for our Contiki group, and it was an exact match to the route I had planned to take. We were to set out first thing in the morning, and would spend half of the day wandering around Berlin. I couldn’t wait.

Before I start talking about the sightseeing we did, I have to talk briefly about our hostel. Wombat’s Hostel. It was one of the better hostels we stayed in, and was definitely the cleanest. The rooms themselves are on the smaller side, especially because we had to cram in five girls, but the building is spectacular.

There is a bar on the seventh floor, a large dining room, an Internet station, laundry, and telephones. The walls are painted funky, bright purples and greens. The lights in the entire building work on motion sensors – to be more eco-friendly – and one can only enter their floor with a key card (which ensures everyone is safe and supposed to be there). We also had the most amazing view, as you can see from the picture below. Not only could we see some very interesting graffiti, but we could see the Fernsehturm - the television tower – in the background.

The view from my hostel window. Gorgeous.

One other great thing about our hostel was its location. We were thirty seconds away from the Rosa Luxembourg subway station, and about ten minutes from Alexanderplatz. This meant that we could easily walk to the city centre, and easily find our way home if we got lost.

We met our tour guide – Katie, an American – at the statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. She took a moment to explain their significance, but I already knew the background. Marx and Engels were Germans, and co-wrote The Communist Manifesto, a book that would become very significant throughout the world. Vladimir Lenin, a Russian, took the theories in the Manifesto and applied them to what later became the Bolshevik Party. The statues stand near Alexanderplatz, and are one of many reminders of the past.

Marx & Engels immortalized.

TO BE CONTINUED...