Good morning, afternoon, evening, or whenever it is that you find yourself reading this. Today I will be giving you a tour of a lovely capital called Berlin, I had the pleasure of living in this city for two months last summer. That time will inform my tour today, and since we cannot be walking the streets together and we are not limited by how long it takes to get from one place to another, you are going to get a tour based on my memories, experiences, and history of Berlin. I will take you on a journey of this “multi-culti” city of which I have grown affection for. I have included links to websites to many of the places I talk about; feel free to explore some more!

I lived in the southeastern neighborhood of Kreuzberg, and this is where we will start our journey. Kreuzberg was a part of West Berlin when the city was divided during the cold war. And today it has a large immigrant population, mostly from Turkey. In this neighborhood there is a mix of cultures that is apparent from that. One of the iconic things that you can get in Berlin is the Turkish dish called Döner, it is handheld street food that is delicious. The Döner stand that has the best reviews is in Kreuzberg, just a U-Bahn ride from my home. It is called Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebap. Not too far from that is a lovely park, called Viktoria Park. It is a beautiful park with waterfalls and hiking trails, in the middle of the city! Berlin has laws in place around the amount of green space in the city, as they believe that Berliners have a right to green space. This means that there are many parks and gardens around the city within walking distance. It is very common to get together with a group of friends and drink beers in the park or go to Admiralsbrücke to watch the sunset. Another green space in the south of Berlin is Tempelfhofer Feld. This area was a part of the old Tempelhof airport and used to be used for military purposes. After the war it was converted into a park which now many people use to get exercise and socialize.

We will now jump to some memorials in der Mitte (the middle) of Berlin to look at some memorials around WWII and the Holocaust. You can get off of the U-Bahn at the Brandenburger Tor, and see the gate, which was built under the rule of the Prussian King Frederick Wilhelm II. This is also where many American presidents made speeches during the cold war, since this was one of the places that the Berlin Wall was divided, but we will get there later. Also, near the gate are embassies and the hotel which Michael Jackson held a child out of. There are also government buildings nearby, with the Rathaus that supposedly burned down under Soviet Rule. But we are on our way to look at Holocaust memorials, of which there are around 5 right next to each other. The largest of which is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It was designed by Peter Eiserman and consists of 2,711 concrete slabs. They are of varying heights and sizes, and as you walk through them, reality seems to shift, it is easy to get disoriented and feel lost. There is also a museum underneath it. Nearby is the Memorial to Roma and Sinti, with a lake and stepping-stones with the different names of the concentration and death camps that they were sent to. There is also the Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under Nazism, which is a slab that you look into that plays a video of crimes against homosexuals committed under Nazi rule overlaid with a video of two men kissing. And only a block away from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews is Hitler’s bunker, where Hitler lived at the end of the war and where Hitler shot himself. However, if you did not know it was there, you would easily miss it, as the bunker was filled with cement and is not a parking lot. It serves as an anti-memorial, and the only way to identify it is a large placard describing it. These memorials show the different ways that Berlin interacts with its history and its guilt. Not only do tourists interact with these memorials, but they are a part of daily life. You can park on Hitler’s bunker and walk through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews on your way to work. Germany is trying to have visual representations of what it has done to prevent it from happening again.

Let’s jump ahead in history to Germany’s divide between the capitalist West and the communist East. All throughout Berlin there are remnants from this time, since Berlin was quite the stage for this conflict. Walking through the city you can see how Berlin was divided in both subtle and apparent ways. One of the subtle ways is looking at the architecture, you can always tell when you were in the East if the facades of the homes looked identical. There are also several memorials and museums regarding divided Germany that are a must-see. Let’s start with my favorite, the East Side Gallery (link includes some of the murals). It is an open-air gallery and the largest stretch of the Berlin wall still standing. There are different murals painted on the wall around the theme of reunification and peace in general. It is beautiful to walk down it and appreciate the art. I did this one day after class and it was such a lovely experience. It also happens to be only a couple of blocks from my favorite bar in Berlin, Monstor Ronson’s Ichiban Karaoke: a fantastic karaoke bar, which became a staple of my experience in Berlin. It also has a drag show on Tuesdays, in which the host may or may not get naked by the end.

The Checkpoint Charlie museum is also a great place to go to learn about Berlin and the Cold War’s history. The site of this museum was the checkpoint between the American sector of West Berlin and East Berlin. The museum itself is full of so much: stories of escape, artwork from children about the wall, personal stories during the Cold war, and global issues around the conflict. I spent hours in this museum. Another memorial to the Berlin Wall is at Bernauer Strasse, where some of the wall still stands and there is a great documentary about what the wall actually looked like. The Berlin Wall makes it seem like there was only one wall, but in fact there were two with 20 feet of dead man zone in between full of booby traps and guards trained to shoot on sight. There is also a church at this memorial, because this church was in the middle of East and West Berlin, and was allowed to remain open for a while, a place where people from both East and West Berlin could meet. However, it was bombed since the mingling of East and West was prohibited in the East. I was also very lucky to hold a large chunk on the Berlin Wall on my trip, since my friend’s aunt has lived in Berlin for years, her family took many parts of the wall when it first came down, and I was able to hold this giant piece of history in my hands.

We are running out of time on this tour, so I will move quickly through my last thoughts, with two of my favorite places and an assortment of memories that I hold dear. One of my favorite places in Berlin was not too far from my school luckily: the Museum Island. There were several museums on this “island” in the middle of the city. And I was able to go to 5 of them, mostly in between my classes. They were rich in German history, ancient history, and priceless artifacts. Housed in gorgeous rooms and themed well. Also, on the walk there, if you look closely at the building as you pass, you can see gunshot and canon ball dents in the buildings. My other favorite place is the Café Bilderbuch. It is a café in Schöneberg and rather unassuming, but it is where I spent a lot of my nights doing homework. Most cafes close for the evening, but Bilderbuch turned into a Biergarten at night, and I have very fond memories of sipping on Spiked hot cocoa and doing my German homework.

There were some times when we ventured to the far reaches of the city, for a lake day in 100 degree weather, or to Peacock Island (literally created by a King to look like a peacock) to see some neat birds, and to the Wannsee to eat some Italian food and accidentally miss the last ferry. I also got to see Janelle Monae in concert, which was breathtaking. Also, a lovely flea market and a great zoo trip, and a 4^th of July celebrated with Dunkin’ Donuts, Key Lime pie, and karaoke. A wonderful city filled with history, culture, and wonderful memories. I hope you liked my tour and will visit again!