Munich, Prague, & Berlin: Stereotypes, Memorials, & Street Art

After Venice, I took a train through the Austrian Alps to get to Munich (it was another one of those carriage-like seating arrangements but it really didn't matter this time because the mountains were so gorgeous that I really couldn't look away). After a 5-hour train ride, I arrived in Munich. This was my first time in Germany so naturally I tried to employ all of my irrational stereotypes and create new ones as quickly as possible. A couple of first impressions about the Germans:

1) They're actually very friendly. I know, I know, I'm blowing your mind right now.

2) They never jaywalk (this is later confirmed to be a rather widespread phenomenon in Germany). Between New Haven, New York, and small-town California, I realized that I don't think I know a single person that actually obeys walking traffic laws, or even knows that they exist. Even with oncoming traffic, we still cross the street. Somewhere in the back of our minds we say, "You'll stop for me and I'll cross or you won't stop and you'll hit me and I'll sue you for everything your worth," and then we go on our merry, totally non-passive agressive way. In Germany, however, there could be absolutely no cars in sight and a crowd of 30 Germans will just patiently wait for the walk signal. Fascinating.

Beer garden, Englischer Garten

3) These people love their green spaces. There are little grassy knolls and mini park-like spaces throughout the city. The kicker for me is the "Englischer Garten" — the overwhelmingly large and beautiful city park. This park is seriously unreal. Now, I'm not a big park/garden person...I've tried multiple times to make myself take a blanket and a book and just lounge at a park; I've always thought it'd be nice to contribute to that idyllic atmosphere for visiting park-goers. Doesn't work for me. There's something about parks that make me fidget. Am I a fidgeter in my day-to-day life? Nope. Just in parks, on blankets, reading books. My attention span goes completely berserk. Usually it ends up with me vowing to aggressively kill some fly or ant. So, yeah, I just don't even try to lounge in parks anymore because I'm a pacifist. Anyway, I still couldn't lounge around in the Englischer Garten, but there was loads to keep my ADD-self busy.

This park was created way back in the late 18th century and is comprised of 910 acres in the heart of the city, making it larger than NYC's Central Park. LARGER THAN CENTRAL PARK. In addition to it's sheer size, there's a few things about this park that make it wonderful: Firstly, there is a beer garden, as there should be in any half-decent German park. Secondly, there are nudists (as you know, these are basically my people now). One of my favorite people-watching events was the "unaware-tourist-stumbles-upon-nude-section-of-park" phenomenon. Fantastic. Finally, there is a RIVER running right through the heart of the park (I have determined that this is a European theme). And, for some reason that I'm pretty sure is actually just magical, there is surfing on the river. Yes, river surfing. Surfers huddle up on the banks of the river, decked out in their wetsuits and holding their surfboards and take turns jumping in and entertaining the hoards of fascinating onlookers (like me).

Urban surfing in Munich! 

After Munich, and trying to figure out this whole "urban surfing" phenomenon for hours (I refuse to google it because I don't want to ruin the possibility that it's magical), I ventured into the Czech Republic for a little stint in Prague. I'm not going to say a darn thing about Prague primarily because Berlin was awesome and it's the next stop on the trip, and like I said, sometimes I have a short attention span, BUT, at my hostel in Prague, I ran into a guy I met in Morocco! We had stayed in the same hostel dorm in the very funky "Funky Fes" hostel and roamed the streets together the first day when he realized that my original intention was to roam them alone. What a keeper.

Gotta at least give Prague a photo!

Anyway, Berlin. Oh Berlin. This may be my favorite stop so far. Germany is winning some serious points in my book, which is great because when I originally "planned" (I use the term very loosely) this trip, I didn't even have Germany on the list. My trip post-Rome has been largely impromptu and guided by the cost of a bus ticket and a hostel bed. The natural progression from Prague just seemed to be Berlin, and I had heard nothing but good things.

Let's get this straight from the start —Berlin was a week of nerding out. The history is just absolutely mind-blowing. I want to know it all. After a free historical walking tour around the city, finding a bookstore became my number one priority. Because Germans are for the most part bilingual (everyone learns English in school), they had a huge English section, which was fantastic. I spent a solid hour sifting through a bunch of European history books and finally landed on Bloodlands, which I dove straight into and absolutely loved (in a "woah this shit is horrifyingly depressing" sort of way). Only then did I flip the book over and read up on the author. Turns out he's a Yale history professor. HUZZAH. European history wasn't really my thing so I never had a class with him, but I feel like I may have missed out. *Take me back to college*

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

So I spent the day drinking far too much coffee (what else is new) and blazing through a solid half of this 400-pager. The next day, I realized I should probably continue to actually explore Berlin instead of just reading about it, so I took myself on a very, very long jaunt around Berlin. While the city is amazing, I don't think I could ever live there permanently. Everywhere you turn, there is some sort of incredibly powerful memorial to one of the many tragic events in history that have found its center in Berlin.

In the middle of the city, just outside the financial district and the American Embassy, there is the nearly 5-acre interactive monument entitled "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe." The memorial consists of 2,711 huge blocks of concrete that are arranged on a grid on a sloping field. Some are crooked, some are massively tall, some are only knee-high. People can walk through the blocks and get lost in the grid, at times looking over the whole field of concrete and at other times seeing nothing but the towering blocks overhead. I walked through twice — once during the day and once at night. If I thought that the daytime walk was powerful, the nighttime walk was overwhelming. They don't light up the monument — it is left completely dark. As you walk through, the blocks begin to tower over you and you realize that you're in the dark, in some maze, where no one can see you. What I love about it is that it's left completely unexplained. Why 2,711? Why the sloping? Why blocks? It's completely up for interpretation and allows you to just explore organically.

Plaque outside of the gay Holocaust memorial

While I personally think the memorial is incredibly well-done, it has been the point of some controversy. This controversy fits into the larger issue of how the Germans have chosen to deal with the darker elements of their collective past, which has largely been through the creation of separate memorials for different groups of people who were incarcerated, killed, or otherwise affected by the Holocaust. For example, the memorial described above specifically commemorates the Jewish population, and only the Jewish population. There's various other specified groups, including a memorial dedicated to mothers who lost their children, and across the street from the Jewish memorial — in Tiergarten Park — there is a separate memorial for the gay population killed by Nazis.

While I understand the controversial aspect of distinguishing between people that were all killed in the same chapter of human history, I think that in this case, distinguishing is appropriate. And I love that the city publicly and permanently memorializes the loss of members of the gay community. That's something that no one really talks about, and a lot of people just don't even know about. There were 50,000 convictions of homosexuality under the Nazis. It's certainly not something that I learned in elementary school when I first learned about the Holocaust. In fact, it was another layer of the Holocaust that I was only first exposed to when I got to college. Berlin, however, has taken it upon itself to educate those who live in and pass through the city, placing the memorial in the main park and forcing people to grapple with history, each in their own unique way.

East Side Gallery, Berlin Wall.
1.3km long section covered with 100+ paintings
Celebrates freedom after the "fall" of the Berlin Wall.

After an incredible, but depressing day of memorials and the darker side of history, I decided to explore the more wacky, fun side of the city with the "Alternative Berlin Walking Tour" — end on a happier note, if you will. This was the first paid tour I've attended so far. Let me tell ya, I will never pay for one ever again. It was absolutely not worth the money in terms of the quality of the guide, but definitely worth it in terms of the initial exposure. Our guide was most certainly hungover from what is sure to have been a "heart-recalibrating, teeth-chattering" night of "hardcore techno." Why would I assume such a thing? Half of our tour was him stopping at various clubs and pointing out which nights were best for some "mind-blowing techno." Bro, I can't even begin to explain how little I care about techno.

Bahahah I die.

One of the more hilarious moments of the tour, however, was the reaction from the rest of the group when we stopped in front of the Kit-Kat Club. Now, I knew what was coming and I giddily braced myself for the group's reaction: Firstly, I could tell this sunken-eyed, techno-loving, grungy Brit was probably a little wild. Secondly, I already knew what the Kit Kat Club was all about because Berlin has a reputation for being a little freaky so I took it upon myself early on to figure out what I was in for. The rest of the people in my group clearly did not. So we roll up to the Kit Kat Club and it's around 4:30pm on a Sunday and the music is still bumpin from the night before. This club is the most famous...wait for it...sex club in Berlin (oh yes, apparently there are many). I'm talking legitimate sex club. If you want to visit you either have to be wearing leather or wearing nothing. That's the deal.

Anyway, our tour guide gave this place a genuinely heartfelt recommendation. I take it he's a regular. And I think that explains his sunken eyes. Perhaps that is where he just came from? Whatever, that boy was cray, but we did see some pretty great street art, and seeing as how I'm trying to cultivate all sides of my liberal self, I figured "street art" is something I should pretend to know a little something about.

A couple days later I wandered back to Kreuzberg —one of the more "alternative" districts of Berlin— to spend some time in the area and just wander around. I love this area. There's grafitti (oh...I'm sorry..."street art") everywhere. Nearly every single wall you come across has some amazing work of art on it. If this were in the United States, I would probably be a little hesitant to walk around a neighborhood that looks like Kreuzberg. But it's Germany, so clearly I'm invincible. What's great about Kreuzberg is that it's dirty, there's lots of obscenities and otherwise hilariously offensive scribblings on walls, there's people peeing in bushes in broad daylight, but there's also loads of little parks filled with single moms and their toddler-aged kids, and everyone is mixed together without problems. The single moms don't seemed phased by the daytime drinkers and the daytime drinkers don't seem to have any interest in bothering those around them.

A less-violent work from "El Bocho"

Some apparently famous
street artist named "El Bocho"
created a character named "Lucy" who
is shown throughout the city killing cats
in various brutal matters...disturbing?

After a good dose of history, a few memorials, and some street art, I finally left Berlin for Copenhagen.

As I sit here writing this, I am currently in Hamburg. Like I said, Germany is totally growing on me, so I had to come back to hit one more city. I just arrived a few hours ago on an overnight bus from my stay in Copenhagen (it arrived at 5am), which means two things:

1) I am almost caught up with my blog posts!

2) CNN is up on my screen and I am delirious enough to go on a totally wild tangent and say that the republicans have gone absolutely mad; someone get me my absentee ballot up in here puhleaze.