First week in Berlin pt 1

Alright this is most certainly not a brew related post so if you aren't interested flee, flee my friend.

I arrived in Berlin the Sunday afternoon after Christmas after a really uneventful flight. I checked into Jetpak Hostel in the Charlottenburg area of the city. I've never actually been to Europe much less stayed in a Hostel so I didn't know what to expect but it wasn't bad at all. I ended up with a bed in a 6 bed dorm style room with only one other person in there. On the upside of things the hostel had a huge plasma screen tv with 80 movies hooked to it and free breakfast in the mornings. On the downside... nothing. Decent place and great staff who pointed me towards a free walking tour of Berlin to get oriented to the city.

After sleeping the rest of the day Sunday I opted to check out the walking tour on Monday. Anyone out there familiar with the weather in Berlin this time of year? Anyone? I'll give you a hint. COLD! Very cold. I am talking snot freeze in your nose cold. I don't think it has gotten above zero (Celsius) since I got here! But that's the norm for Rochester too so life goes on.

In any case a walking tour of the city in sub-zero temperatures probably wasn't the best choice but it was worth it. Listened to about three hours of Berlin history (yes I saw the wall and ironically it has a fence protecting it from tourist "wall-peckers"), saw some of the sights, kept an eye on the gypsy pickpockets, you get the idea. On the pickpocket note it doesn't seem like much of a problem here, we were just told to watch for the gypsies by the guide. They are little girls that walk up to you all pitiful looking and ask if you speak english and ostensibly free you of your valuables while you read the little card they are holding with some sad sad story about dying kittens or something. Let's pause for a second though. If you are obviously, red flag on a white wall obviously a tourist who is going to have a legitimate reason for walking up to you and asking if you speak english? No.... one... On every occasion that I have been asked if I speak english it has been by either gypsies or pan handlers. Take from that what you will.

Moving on. So I saw the sights that day and returned to the hostel a bit burnt out from 9 hour jet-lag and all the walking so I watched a movie and went to sleep. Oh and btw I got out of the wrong exit from the U-Bahn (subway) station and had to wander around for about ten minutes before I found my way back to the hostel. Tuesday I decided to play the tourist again and went to see the German History Museum then slept some more. That day I also had two new roomates in the hostel, Australians from London traveling on holiday. Nice guys. I should point out that by the end of Tuesday I had been in Berlin for almost three days and I hadn't had a single beer yet. Strange isn't it?

I should point out that during this time I was also looking for an apartment in Berlin. Everyone keeps asking "Didn't the school help you find a place to live?" Well yes and no. They sent links to several websites that offer fully furnished apartments for people looking for a place to stay for under a year but they were all fairly expensive. I found out later that almost everyone else in the course ended up renting one of these apartments but I also found out that almost everyone else in the course had been sent by their brewery which was paying for their apartment. Lets just say that Midnight Brewing Co does not really have the funds for this sort of thing. So I ended up searching for a shared apartment, a place that already had people in it that just needed roomates, on the german website www.wg-gesucht.de. It was slow going. The site is entirely in German with no English translation. I took German for four years back in High School but that was five and a half years ago now. I knew enough to muddle through the descriptions of the apartments and sent out at least 20 messages to different listings. By Wednesday I had yet to receive a single response. I was encouraged by a fellow in the hostel from Australia who was also moving to Berlin who had managed to find an apartment through this website but the lack of responses was definitely discouraging.

As New Years Eve rolled around I decided to put the apartment search on hold and enjoy the celebrations in Berlin. It sounded like the biggest celebration was going to be at the Brandenburg gate with an expected turnout of 1 million people. The two Australian-Londoners in my room Andy and Ben invited me out with them so after some napping we joined up and headed off into the city. The first stop was a restaurant that served only Paulaner beer where we managed to get a table (Though we could only have it for an hour until they were going to give the table away). After a 1 liter stein of beer each and some Curry Wurst we moved on to try and find the Brandenburg gate.

One thing I should mention about New Year's in Berlin is the fireworks. They are EVERYWHERE. I am not talking sparklers and fountains either. I am talking about big rockets and firecrackers the size of M-80s. So do you think if you had fireworks available on every street you would just sit calmly and safely launch them into the sky only? Okay, maybe you would but not everyone else. People were launching these things all around in the middle of a major city even with the crowded sidewalks. Big firecrackers were exploding every few minutes, some thrown at trains or cars. It wasn't quite mayhem yet since it was still a few hours to midnight but you could feel it coming. We tried to find fireworks ourselves to no avail.

As we got closer to the Brandenburg gate all the roads in were fenced off and from what little German I know the polizei said that no one else was allowed in. I think. Well no problemo, we just wandered around until we found an U-Bahn station and headed off to find a street that supposedly had some good bars in Prenzlauerberg. After getting just a bit... lost we decided to just walk into the next bar we found. It was a decent small bar with everything we could need, ie beer. Although Germany supposedly has a law against smoking in bars not many places honor it so you usually end up smelling like smoke which I am not really a big fan of. As midnight rolled around the entire bar emptied out into the streets. Apparently we were right across from a fire station because they rolled out all their trucks and fired up their lights and sirens. Add to that fireworks going off left and right, people yelling and screaming, it was loud, it was noisy, it was new years! After a bit of this outside we headed back in. Does the mayhem end here you ask? No. No it does not.

We decided to check out another bar and wandered on. Firecrackers and rockets were still flying everywhere. At the next bar one of the guys I was with decided it was time for Jager shots. I passed on the shots but he kept offering about every five minutes or so for at least half an hour so I am sure he had his fair share.

Around three in the morning, after enough celebration I decided I was going to head home, left the other two at the bar and headed into the streets. It was at this point that I realized I had absolutely no idea where I was. Let me tell you firecrackers don't help when you are trying to get your bearings after... a few beers. It seemed like the "best" idea was to just wander around until I found an U-bahn station. Okay maybe not the best idea but it worked. I jumped on the next train that I thought was going in a good direction and ended up at Alexanderplatz. Probably not the train I should have taken but at least I was less lost now. Alexanderplatz is a pretty major station so there were trains going all over the city from here. I switched trains and promptly fell asleep. Yes. I passed out on the train at something like 3:30 am in a foreign city still going crazy over new years. Well by some miracle of luck I happened to wake up when the train was at the station I needed to switch at. I managed to jump out just as the doors were beeping that they were closing. Whew.

I won't bore you with further details of my journey home, but I should mention one more thing. So mr. Jager shots came back from the bar a little after I did. Let's just say he was regretting those shots at this point. Regretting them all over the sidewalk.

Well thats enough of my first week in Berlin pt 1. I will write a bit more later but the next post will focus more on my first impressions of VLB. Cheers!