Dayv6. Berlin.

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As arranged the night before I met my new friend Marisa, a lovely girl from Los Angeles and an aspiring singer/waitress who had been travelling solo for several months from as far east as Israel. We were planning on heading out and jumping on a Fat Tire Bike Tour, this particular company was one I had seen from the HoHo bus the day before and though looked like a decent tour, after checking it out on trip advisor and finding it has absolutely redunkulous reviews, like crazy off the charts ratings we were eager to get aboard and have a nice day seeing a rather large city.

We rented bikes from our hostel and set off map at the ready and with a few false starts found the place relatively easily. One of the most fascinating elements of this tour was the trust the company put in its patrons. we did not need to pay until the end of the tour. Which was quite trusting in reguard to Marisa and I who had come on our own bikes, but quite another for those who used the company bikes, who needed to leave no deposit and pay no money until the return. We were all simply trusted to do the right thing, pay at the end, and not steal the bikes. It is much like their metro system which is very trust oriented, ticket inspection being a rare and unlikely event. 

The tour was a pretty darn good one too, the guide was informed, knew when to be serious and when to be funny. It was brilliant to learn and contextualise Berlin's history. In particular when he drew a chalk map of Germany and explained the politics of the Berlin wall, where it was and why it was built. 

We also got a great insight into the German sense of humor (which does in fact exist), this building below was one built by the good old people of East Berlin as a symbol to the West that they could in fact achieve and build great things even under communism. of course they couldn't though, eventually smuggling Swiss engineers across the boarder to complete the project. it was of course to be strictly non religious, to the point that the commissioners had all the surrounding churches remove their tallest crucifixes, as the brand new "TV tower" was to be the greatest erection in the area. Then came the great unveiling, the large ball at the top covered in shawls to hide the new structure till the oppertune moment. The shawls were dropped and BAM there gleaming brightly in the reflective surface of the sphere was shinny great crucifix shape. It soon became colloquially known as the "Pope's revenge". 

We visited Check Point Charlie, the most famous of the gateways in the Berlin Wall.

The most striking moment of the tour was when we visited the square in which Hitler burned tens of thousands of books that were black listed, for various reasons, the foremost being having been written by either Jews or homosexuals. The moment that actual made me feel sick though was when we learnt that included amongst the works burnt and thus unacknowledged completely by the Nazis, was Einstein's E=MC2. This principle was utterly rejected by the Nazi scientists, which, when you think about it, makes it pretty damn difficult to make an atomic bomb. I was struck with the thought that, if this book burning had not happened, and the Nazi scientists had used this theory that they might have been the ones to succeed in the creation of an atomic bomb.

On a nicer note, now a book market is held in the square all year round, where books of all kinds can be bought for a pittance in recompense for this great destruction of knowledge.

The Berlin wall. 

The site of Hitler's bunker, where he spent his last days and eventually committed suicide. 

This is a lovely monument to the Jewish people killed in the holocaust and it is probably the nicest monument I have ever seen. It takes up several acres and is made of bland concrete blocks of varying hight on an uneven surface. You can wander around and explore the spaces between which is a lovely experience, it is not a miserable place, but it is a significant place where wallowing is not really what is encouraged  instead simple thought and remembrance. 

In classic form we stopped at a beer garden for lunch and, well, beer. Marisa and I tried out the Berliner Wiesser beer which is a German beer flavoured with French Syrups. Not the nicest, way too sweet, but worth sampling. 

We got a lovely, long ride through a huge park and past the Berlin zoo and saw many things fly by including naked Germans (as warned) sunbathing in the said park.

After the tour we wandered on back to the hostel then set out in search of some food. We found a lovely little spot, not three blocks from the hostel which did amazing italian food, split a sandwich and then noticed the 5Euro cocktail sign. Deciding it was definitely cocktail time we hooked in, soon deciding it was Long Island Iced Tea time.

Thus we were well primed and ready to go on the bar crawl, which was great, the group was huge, the energy was high and we were fed shots like crazy. We were given a different shot at each new venue as well as a free shot with every drink we purchased. Germans know how to drink.

What followed was a whirlwind of meeting new people and crazy fun little moments that make a trip like this so worth it. I met a group of four eighteen year old pommy boys who chatted to me about Summer Hights High and were just gorgeous, I called them my Baby Pommies. 

I have no idea who these people are.

After leaving the club and then not being able to find the club again I was stopped by a young Russian guy that had been busking near by and apparently fell in love with me instantly. In any case, he bought me an awesome late night Turkish dinner and then showed me the trams to catch to get home despite my refusal to, "go into the nature" with him. Funny. 

I caught the tram and somehow wondrously found my way home in time for the sun to come up to light my walk from the tram stop. Only realising that perhaps I was meant to pay for that tram ride. Oh well. Good night.