Berlin is not a city I’d normally choose to visit. In fact, I’d never even considered for my list of places I’d like to go. But, seeing as my husband’s friend is living there at the moment, and we’d have a free place to stay….why not?
My first impression of the city was how artistic it seemed. Art seemed to absolutely cover Berlin’s walls.
Everything will be okay in the end, and if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
Because my husband’s friend has been living there for some time now, he knew lots of local spots to take us. I felt like I got to know a little of the “inside” Berlin. He took us to a few bars you would never have known were there. No signs on the doors or anything. Some of the places we went literally looked like someone’s smokey living room, with a makeshift bar plopped against one of the walls. Definitely not places I’d usually go, but that’s what traveling is for, right? To expand your horizons.
We also stopped at a local Jazz club where we sipped (admittedly) bad wine and chatted over live music. It was great.
The jazz club, whose name I forget already.
I had never realized how fascinating Berlin’s history is. Of course, I knew a bit about the Berlin Wall, but I’d never really thought about it. I can’t believe it all happened such a short time ago. We took a trip to the East Side Gallery, where part of the wall still stands. All along it, artists painted murals expressing their feelings of the wall and its eventual fall.
I still can’t believe I was alive when this wall came down. It seems like ages ago, but it’s actually recent history.
After seeing the wall, we continued immersing ourselves in Berlin’s fascinating history by visiting the Stasi Museum. If you’ve ever seen the movie The Lives of Others (which I totally recommend, by the way), then you’ll know what I mean by Stasi. Or, you know, if you paid attention in history class (which I apparently did not do, ha!).
I’m not a history expert, but basically, I think the Stasi was an organization of state security for East Berlin. At the museum, we learned about methods the Stasi used to ensure that no one strayed from Socialist laws and ideology. They spied and kept files on so many people. They used secret cameras and other surveillance technology. They actually had hidden cameras in buttons and bags and zippers (what? I thought that stuff was fake!). The lengths they went through to spy on its citizens knocked me out! After the wall came down and the government lost it’s power, people were able to access files the Stasi kept on them. How surreal would it be to read reports of the details of your every day life written by someone who was spying on you? Not to sound too patriotic, but it really makes me thankful for the amount of freedom we have today.
——————————————————————————————————Berlin, Part 2 coming soon!
