BERLIN DAY 3

The Berlin Wall

There was a school tour guide taking place, so we eavesdropped in. A sombre anecdote was the effects the divide had on graves and how families on the West could not see their family members who were buried in the East. Some even watched their relatives' graves dug up to make room for the wall. It's the little stories like this that I missed when being taught about the divide at school which always focused on the political/material and never on the emotional. The Documentation centre across the road also brought the effects of the Berlin wall home with a room which screened a strangely hypnotic video of the wall across the whole of the city from the vantage point of a helicopter.
We stayed in Nordbanhof after this for a light hearted visit to the German Natural History Museum
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I love the Acience Museum in South Ken; how can you not love a place where a large T-Rex (and its baby arms) greats you? So I was keen to see how the German one fared. Although it is a lot smaller, it means you could digest a lot more. The museum is evidently caterted towards German tourists. Ecept for the Charles Darwin room which was in Englishthere were hardly any translations.









I watched this for a good 10mis, really hypnotic this creature, shame I don’t know what the hell it is...









This is the specimen of Archaeopteryx and is ‘considered the most complete and beautiful specimen in existance’











We then went to Stassermarkt- to check out the market. If you’re a little lost tourist come to this market and go to the information centre. There is the sweetest women ever here who originates from Versailles but has been living in Berlin for 5 years. She was beyond helpful- giving us directions to everything, recommendations and helping us decide which opera we want to see by playing pieces to us. It felt super cosy to be listening to this in the warm while it started snowing outside.



We finally braved going outside and got the beloved bratwurst then headed to Kollwitzplatz, the Jewish quarter. This and there area surrounding it would where I’d love to live if I was a resident of Berlin. It felt really homely, maybe the snow was clouding my judgement but it was nice to walk around this area. Tip, the Jewish school and Synagogue are not open to the public. And the German Design museum does not exist/has shut down.











At night we headed to the West after a quick nap to recharge our batteries. The club for the night was 2be and Berliners and internet reviews alike had promised that this was the best Hip hop club in town. After a long train journey there and being accosted by 3 drunk German women who plied us with alcohol (thanks for the grapefruit beer whoever you were...) and gave us sound directions. This was valuable as the club looked like it was an abandoned warehouse; inside it was still minimal but the purple lights and leather sofas dotted around gave it a warm touch. This club has been frequented by the likes of Snoop dog(the real one, and not our German friend) and if you go you will see why. I wouldn’t call myself a clubber but I have never had such a good time a club. The music rang from classic such as ‘move bitch get out the way’ to remixes, including ‘New York, New York’. Everyone was there, punks, German old men, hip hop video dancers, rude girls- or baby Beyonces, good dancers, bad dancers,-it didn’t even matter the vibe of the club was eclectic and not in the sense that everyone was hooking up with each other but dancing. Even when the stereotypical hip hop fight broke and the GERMAN DJ was yelling in English, ‘security, security’, this was quickly resolved and people went back to dancing.
In the end to leave, me and my friend kept saying, ‘after the next song’, we did this 4 times, finally after the club went crazy for Jay-Z’s ‘New York, New York’ we left. On our way back home we encountered something sobering/creepy in the subway.....

A BEAR ARMY!