Berlin unsafe making.

Ahh, Berlin. You beautiful city, you. You've snapped us out of our food-comas and the lazy lifestyle we embraced in Plön and brought us back to the wonderful world of travelling Europe. This weekend in Berlin has been brilliant.

We arrived to the main train station in Berlin with much better luck than our expeditions in Charles de Gaulle (please refer to Ashley's blog if you don't already know this story). We found Sarah and Maui and headed to their cozy apartment in southern Berlin to make dinner and catch up.

Saturday we headed back into the heart of the city. We saw Pariser Platz and the monumental arch that is there (don't ask me to pronounce it, I always forget), parliament buildings, beautiful parks and streets, and holocaust and Berlin Wall monuments and memorials. The city is big and beautiful and the history here is haunting.

The biggest holocaust memorial was a square of grey brick stones; like a street square of brick maze. The day was sunny and bright and people were using the stones as benches, soaking up the sun, laughing and relaxing. But as people climbed the bricks and posed for pictures, I couldn't help feeling a little uncomfortable...here was a place to remember the Holocaust, the monstrosity of Hitler and the millions who were killed. It seemed weird to me to hang around in such a place so casually. But it's true; the bricks get so high at some points that it's like Harry Potter's Goblet of Fire maze, and it's easy (and not uncommon) to play hide and seek or tag within the monument. While I feel as though you history nuts are cringing, without knowing the story of the memorial it just looks like a fun place to play.
Once a person is filled in, however, the site looms with undeniable significance, and a new light is shed on the gradually growing stones.
The monument starts with shorter, smaller bricks, identifying the first thoughts that Hitler's movements would pass quietly, that it was only a rough patch in Germany, that everything was perfectly under control. As you move toward the centre of the monument the stones surround you, towering and ominous, indicating that at the breach of WWII people were in over their heads. With high stones all around you it's easy to lose your sense of direction, just like the people got lost within Hitler's reign.


Aside from being historically fascinating, Berlin is also a bustling, beautiful capital. Streets and shops are full, different languages ring out everywhere, and fashion hits the streets with a little more oomph than Toronto. It's a student city. It's a business city. It's a music-on-the-sidewalk-pretzel-in-the-park city. It's fantastic.

Saturday came and went in a flash, we bummed around all the touristy areas and soaked in as many free attractions as we could. We were going to go up Berlin's TV Tower but the wait was long and we had plans in the evening and a cookie and a coffee sounded just as nice.

At 9pm we went to the university's med student party...and it was already packed. We waited in line for 45 minutes to get in the door, and then another half an hour for coat check...and this was at 9pm! At home, we wouldn't even head out the door until 11.
Beers were 1€ and shots were 0.50€. The dance floor was huge and sweaty and full of people from all over the world. The music was 1-30 years old. It was brilliant.

Sarah, Maui, Ash and I danced until 2am, a normal time to finish clubbing at home. When we left people were still streaming in from outside, checking their coats and just beginning their nights, as ours was ending. Sarah said the party would continue until 8 or 9 in the morning and it would be just as sweaty and just as crowded the entire time.

Sunday was a perfect end to the weekend. We slept in and had a relaxed breakfast and then headed to the artsy side of the city. We flea-marketed all afternoon and ended in a cafe that served chili hot chocolate and hot apple juice. We met Sarah's closest friends, all of them brilliant, and I caught up with another girlfriend from New York, sweet + saucy Tony. It was a gooooood afternoon.

Dinner tonight was hilarious. Don't ask me why--it was for no particular reason. We burnt the potatoes. And Sarah dropped the mustard...AND ate garlic dip by itself out of the bowl. We made delicious salad. We did dishes and danced for the people at the bus stop across the street. We laughed in gales--collapse-on-the-floor-teatowel-in-hand kindof gales... we seem to do that a lot.

I don't think we could ask for a better pair to stay with this weekend; Sarah and Maui have been hospitable to the max, everyone's comfortable and happy and glad to be with each other. Tomorrow they go back to class and we go back to the heart of Berlin to see what other kind of trouble we can find.

There happens to be a German expression for gallivanting around a place...since we're in Berlin, it goes like this: "Berlin unsicher machen!"

Directly translated, it means
Berlin unsafe making.