Do you like neo-Classical style?

Everyone said we'd like Berlin and I guess everyone was right. Sitting back and thinking on my time there now, it is a city I could actually live in. I liked the vibe there, I guess.

Originally we had booked to stay at a hostel advertising really cheap rates, but they messed up our reservation and therefore we had no place to stay. This was indeed unfortunate because it was the long weekend in Germany with October 3 being the fifteenth anniversary of unification. So we called the Circus Hostel, which my friends had lauded as the best hostel they had ever stayed in. I don't know why I didn't take their advice in the first place. It was hands down the best hostel I've ever seen. Our room was an Ikea showcase and everyone had their own nightstand and bed lamp and instead of a thin blanket, a nice duvet. So if you're ever in Berlin, check out the Circus Hostel.

On Friday night after checking in, we took off walking and after a couple wrong turns, found ourselves on the famous Unter Den Linden. Not being too up on German info, I didn't know the significance of the street while Meridith was wowed at being there. She didn't appreciate my babbling about random things while she wanted to soak in the experience. Basically, it's a Linden lined boulevard built by Friedrich to connect his palace with his hunting grounds. It's gone through wars and Nazis and communists so all the trees now there are pretty young. (Interesting note: all the trees in Berlin are numbered. Well, nearly all.) It's the one nice street that was in East Berlin that they would show visitors to try to impress them. Restored buildings line the streets in an overpowering manner. Opera houses, palaces, museums, and more museums on Museum Island . . . many built in Neo-classical style. One tour guide joked that Neo-classical is the flavor of the month every month in Berlin. We saw many of the buildings of the Humboldt university - alma-mater to Einstein, Bohr, Engels, Lenin, and a total of 33 Nobel Laureates. Outside one building is the square where the infamous book burning occured. A glass window on the ground looks down into a white room of empty bookcases. A chilling quotation by Heine is nearby, the gist being, "Where men burn books, soon they will burn men." His works were burned and soon men died in that square, Bebelplatz as well.

We also saw the Hotel Adlon where Michael Jackson infamously performed his baby dangling.

We continued down the beautiful street, slightly marred by construction, but sometimes they'd put up a big sheet with a picture of what the view should be like. Eventually we reached the Brandenburg Tor, a city gate with an intriguing history. It's named after the destination the road would take you to. Huge columns with Nike on a chariot with four horses. Napoleon stole the statue but eventually the Germans brought it back. Hitler left it out during the war, but thankfully had the foresight to make a mold of it. Only a horse's head survived. The Gate, a symbol of transportation, stood in the middle of the death zone separating East and West. Both could see it. The West discovered the mold and recast the statue. Since the gate was technically on the Eastern side, they left it Trojan horse style outside the gate.

Next, we stood in line at the Reichstag, the German parliament with the huge glass dome on top. We stood in line for perhaps an hour and a half. The Reichstag was built with money the Germanic tribes had demanded from France after beating them in war. After a couple of years of occupation and uniting as a nation by signing a constitution in the hall of Mirrors in Versailles, they came home and built a lot of stuff including the Riechstag. It was here that the infamous fire occured which allowed Hitler to suspend parliament and take over the country. It happened on November 9. Pretty much everything in Germany happened on November 9. The building was unused during the Third Reich and the time of split Germany. With unification and Berlin receiving another chance at being the capital, the Reichstag was repaired and put back into service. We were herded into a holding tank and one by one taken through security before taking the elevator up. From the center of the glass dome, you can look down into the chamber where all the debate happens. We looked out at the lights of the city. However, we did not meet Schroeder.

Saturday, we headed down to Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point between East and West Berlin. Some replica checkpoint stuff has been set up and some people dress up in soldier costumes and you can pay to have your photo with them. It's kind of hokey, but helps to envision what it was like to cross from East to West. West Berliners could get visas to visit family, but they had to exchange their money one to one, even though the rate was really ten to one. Beside the Checkpoint is a cafe that John LaCarriere wrote about in his novels. The real appeal to visit this section is the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Rainier Hildebrand set up this museum during the Cold War. It told stories of people who had crossed the wall or died in the attempt. It also humanized the East guards so people would know that not all of them were enemies. Many were conscripted to do their tasks. The museum house also served as a link to facilitate more escapes because of its proximity to the checkpoint.

Many escape contraptions are on display. There is a homemade scuba set, homemade airplanes, submarines, hot air ballons, fake gas tanks in cars. A couple of the stories really stuck with me. A man was building a tunnel from East to West, but when approached by his elderly neighbors, he refused to include them, claiming the tunnel wasn't suitable for them to get across. So a handful of old men made their own meter and half tall tunnel. The 81 year old was the lookout, puttering in the garden, using his methods of planting as codes for what he was seeing. The other men, over 60 years of age, worked on the tunnel. Eventually along with the five women in the house, they escaped.

Another favorite story is a West German man who took the passenger seat out of his car in East Berlin, put the seat cover over his East German girlfriend, stuffed her to look like a seat and drove across the Checkpoint no problem. The ingenuity of some of the stories is amazing.

Another section of the museum is devoted to non-violent protest. Some of Gandhi's diaries are on display as well as his shoes. The history of the fall of the Iron Curtain is well-chronicled. This museum is definitely worth a visit.

After a lunch of currywurst smothered in ketchup, we went with a group from the hostel to the Olympic Stadium. This is the same stadium built by the Nazis where Hitler refused to congratulate Jesse Owens. Now there is a Jesse Owens Allee nearby. The city needed an arena, but was hesitant to use the neo-classical coliseum. After years of deliberation, the building was renovated and redeemed. The Circus Hostel owner related some of this history to us. We went to watch German premiere soccer. In the last half, the Berlin Hertha BSC gave up their lead to Bremen and never regained it. The crowd was intense.

I sat next to a guy who had taught English in a few places in Asia. He claims that China is planning to do something about renegade Taiwan in the next couple of years. While teaching at a university in China, he asked the students what their biggest dreams were. He encouraged them to think about anything at all - be an astronaut, a rock star, president. Finally after silence, he got a response out of one guy. "My biggest dream," he said, "is for Taiwan to be reunited with China." Hmm, some minor brainwashing there.

We ate with an Australian girl who had worked in Whistler. The two of us tried to enjoy Berlin's nightlife and went to a nearby club called "Delicious Donuts". We were there around midnight and I felt like I was in high school with the crowd there. A German guy with huge glasses tried to make Meridith's acquaintance. Apparently, the fun starts there at 2 am. We weren't willing to wait and went back to the hostel.

In good old room 310, we had the best hostelmates of the trip. First there was the mysterious Italian who never seemed to change clothes, was reading something by Marx and Engles, and liked to return for the night in the light of the early dawn. But more importantly, there were the three crazy Jewish Aussies. They gave us Aussie nicknames - Mezza and Microwave Jenny. Every night, we'd crack jokes and laugh a lot. In our new hostel in Warsaw, we missed them. I guess I'll have to check out their blog. They were quite entertaining.

Sunday, most things are closed in Berlin. I'm not used to that anymore - except for in Frontier of course. We joined a walking tour hosted by a 22 year old from Pittsburgh with an architecture degree. With some sarcasm and editorializing, he related so much history and architectural insight. We meandered through courtyards, and admired the graffiti that is rampant in the city. We looked at the TV tower, East Germany's attempt at appearing technologically advanced. Our guide says it was actually Swedish made and put together like an Ikea kit. It's pretty ugly. He took us past the "New" Jewish synagogue which miraculously survived the night of broken glass. The Nazis later set it on fire, but it wasn't completely destroyed like the other synagogues. Sadly, it is no longer in use. The current Jewish population is much too small to need such a large building. We saw the balcony belonging to the press secretary of East Germany who made the statement that caused the wall to fall down.

What I loved about the tour was the theme of redemption. So many sights and memorials could be tainted by the memory of Nazi Germany, but they have been restored and revived. We stood directly over Hitler's bunker where his life ended. The only sign of it is a steel trap door. A residential building stands there now and as our guide related the horrid history, a small child played with a pink truck. Where there once was death, there is now life.

The Jewish monument is a grid of large rectangular boxes on a hilly plain. The designer wanted you to experience being alone. It's very haunting. Because it'd be a great canvas for graffiti, they needed a special teflon coating to protect the monument. One company donated a product to be used in addition to giving money to help finance the entire project. This is controversial because this is the company who produced a gas used in the Nazi death chambers. I find it interesting because the company which once profitted from death is now giving of itself in order to protect.

There are so many things I could comment on from the tour . Like the letter George Washington sent to Friedrich King of Prussia wondering if his little brother Henry would be king of the States. The Hugeonot church commissioned by Lutheran Friedrich. The Lutheran cathedral built in - ironically - the counter reformation style of neo-Baroque. Soviet pre-fab buildings made out of blocks. A gigantic marble bowl that Germans once considered the 8th wonder of the world.

Supper that night, we went to a restaurant along the Spree which had a drink stock market with prices fluctuating all night. Boy, the stock market crash was exciting.

Our final morning in Berlin, we stopped by the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining section of the wall. Since 1989, sections of it have been repainted multiple times. Walking along it, I tried to imagine what life was like, being so cut off by the double wall with the death zone inbetween. We also saw the church with the broken spire next to the Zoo station. In the midst of a city so rebuilt, it is good to have a reminder of all that has happened. Berlin may be in colossal debt, but it has bravely tried to deal and live with a heavy history. It has a phenomenal history.

We arrived in Warsaw, Poland on Monday night. More on that in the next installment . . .