Berlin

Germany has been on my to-visit list for ages, so when I saw that American Airlines was offering super cheap deals from Cleveland over there for Oktoberfest, I booked right away. Of course I planned a crazy itinerary that took me all over the country, and I started in Berlin even though it was nowhere near the rest of the destinations. It would have been cheaper to fly to Munich, but even with what I booked, I got the whole round trip for $600. I wanted to see the capital.

Airline Hell

Getting there, however, was the worst airline experience I’ve ever had. I was meant to have two connections which is something I’m used to, and I geared up for a long series of flights. The itinerary was to go Cleveland-Philadelphia-London-Berlin. Well, the first flight on Saturday reached Philadelphia, but the pilot didn’t land. He announced after awhile that he’d been circling the airport which was apparently directly below a storm causing winds that the plane wouldn’t withstand. Eventually he announced that there wouldn’t be enough fuel to wait much longer and he was going to divert to Baltimore.

This was not good news for me. I was going to miss my connection to London, so as soon as we landed, I immediately got on my phone to look for alternative flights. There was one leaving Baltimore at 9:25, so I asked if I could just get off here and try to catch that flight since it was currently 8:30. At first, they told us we would be able to disembark in Baltimore if it was better for us, but then soon after we were told we couldn’t leave the plane. We were at the international arrivals area, and there was no gate for us. A few other planes had diverted as well, and the airport couldn’t accommodate everyone.

Now the pilot decided we would refuel and head back to Philadelphia (after changing his mind three times), so I was hoping I could catch the last flight to LHR at 10. Nope. It took THREE HOURS to wait for someone to refuel the plane, and they wouldn’t let us off for the first two. I was livid. After a half hour wait on the line with American (I have to call all the airlines at work every day and can tell you that AA has some of the worst hold times), they wanted to just put me on the same flight the following day, meaning I wouldn’t get into Berlin until Monday afternoon. I was leaving Tuesday afternoon, and that would give me just about a half day to see the city which was not ok with me after all my planning and extra money spent to be there. Finally the agent found a flight leaving PHL at 11 AM and connecting on an Air Berlin direct flight out of Chicago that would get me to TXL at 7 AM Monday morning. There was no way to get there Sunday, but at least I’d have a full day when I did finally arrive.

On top of that, I was now stuck in Philadelphia for the night, had to shell out $200 for a hotel room that I was going to use for 6 hours, had paid for a hostel Sunday night in Berlin that I now wouldn’t be able to use, and AA wouldn’t reimburse me for any of that because it was “weather-related” which is bullshit because there was a long list of AA flights that landed in Philadelphia at the same time we were originally meant to.

Luckily my flights the next day all departed on time, but of course when I showed up in Berlin, my checked bag wasn’t there. I had gone to baggage claim when we finally got to Philadelphia on Saturday night at 11:30 PM and asked for my luggage back, but they told me I couldn’t have it because it would be in the rerouting room where it was to be retagged. They said that my bag would follow me on my new route and not to worry. Right. I still asked to have it because I’d feel a lot better rechecking it, plus I needed some things out of it for the night, but they said it would take hours to find it and it wasn’t possible.

So, I filed a report at the Berlin airport after waiting an hour at baggage claim until everyone else had gotten their luggage and disappeared. They gave me a tracking number, said my bag had just been sent to Chicago (the day after it was meant to), and that it would be on the next flight out. I asked if this meant it would be there the following morning, and they said they couldn’t tell me for sure.

My bag never turned up at my hostel, and I didn’t have time to go back to the baggage office and wait in the long line on the next day when I flew out again. I tried calling the number they gave me at least 20 times and they never answered. I left three voicemails, sent two emails, and sent two messages on the tracking page to update my address (first to Munich, then just to home), and they never responded. I had most of my clothes, all of my makeup and jewelry, two pairs of shoes, jeans, two of my favorite jackets, my shower stuff, and more in the suitcase (like a good $1000 worth of stuff). I didn’t wear a bra for the first three days because they were all checked in there. I am still (over a week later) trying to get any kind of answer to where my things are. Doesn’t help that Air Berlin is bankrupt, their staff is striking, and as of this week, they’ve cancelled all overseas flights.

Seriously. Worst airline experience I’ve ever had.

Post update: A month after I arrived back home, I got a handwritten letter in the mail from an ex-Air Berlin employee who had been searching through the abandoned luggage at Chicago O'Hare. She had come across my bag and seen the tag on it with all of my personal information. She said she'd felt bad for all these people whose stuff was just sitting there in limbo and was doing this on her own time. I called her right away and asked her to bring my suitcase to American (I had filed lost luggage claims with both airlines) and they flew it to me the next day and personally delivered it to my house. That girl was a freaking angel.

One Day in Berlin

Needless to say, I was pretty miserable when I showed up on Monday morning. I almost cried when I saw that Lewis was unexpectedly waiting for me at the airport with food and coffee, and since he’d been in Berlin for a day on his own already, he had figured out all of the transport and I didn’t need to worry about finding my way to the hostel.

We reached the Circus Hostel sometime after 9 AM, and he’d already checked in the day before. It was a nice enough hostel, and the private room we booked had a decent amount of space. Reception was helpful with directions.

Getting around Berlin turned out to be super easy. Their public transport system is first class. Despite how spread out the city is, no matter where you want to go, there is a simple way to get there. There is a system of underground trains, overland trains, buses, and trams that run everywhere. I don’t think we ever waited more than a few minutes for transport to show up. We were able to hit just about everything we wanted to in one day with the exception of Checkpoint Charlie and a few bars that I was interested in.

Another thing that surprised me was how empty of pedestrians the city seemed to be. There were no crowds on the streets, just an open, spacious feeling. It was very clean for a big city as well.

We walked south from the hostel towards Alexanderplatz, visible in the distance due to its TV tower. We eventually came up to Museum Island which holds five museums and the cathedral. Neither of us are big museum people and we were on a tight schedule, so the Berliner Dom cathedral is all we stopped to see here.

It was well worth the entry! It was impressive from the outside but equally gorgeous inside… aside from that weird, tacky mirror display behind the altar.

We took the stairs all the way to the top and walked the perimeter of the dome outside for nice views of Berlin.

Afterwards, we headed down to the crypt, had a coffee in the café, and headed across the street for lunch at a place called Emma’s. I had a vegetarian schnitzel that turned out to just be two beautiful slabs of fried camembert cheese.

The DDR Museum was just around the corner, so that was our next stop. (DDR stands for Deutsche Demokratische Republik, aka communist East Germany.) It was a somewhat interactive museum with lots of panels about life in the DDR, boxes with items from everyday life (school sets, mock shops, etc), and a display house set up to look like it would have back then. It had a closet where you could move different era outfits onto the hanger and it would display it on a projector as if you were trying it on.

There were quizzes, an interrogation room, a phone tapping room, a prison cell display, and a cool station with headphones where you could listen to samples from radio stations at the time. There was an old car from the time whose brake system was not at all safety approved, and you could hop in and drive it through a virtual display on the windshield. It wasn’t as hard to control as I thought, but to brake, you actually had to put it in reverse.

I also liked this little game that walked you through the sham voting process. In each step, you’d choose whether to willingly vote, then whether to vote in private (you must have something to hide if you do), then what happens if you don’t (men literally show up to your house with a voting box), then the results. It was all rigged. And if you refused to vote, they put your name on a list. It was an interesting little way to see what life was like in Soviet times.

We hopped into the Radisson Blu for a second since it was right there to see the world’s largest freestanding aquarium in the lobby. It apparently contains over 1500 fish and is just placed right in the middle of the lobby. We saw that the elevator goes up right through the center which is pretty cool.

Next we took the train to the East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall which holds tons of cool sections of graffiti. We walked the length of it from the train station to the end and checked out the artwork.

There was an area with a break in the wall where you could walk between the eastern and western sides, and it’s so interesting to see how completely different the landscape is on either side.

We’d already crammed in a lot, but it was late afternoon and we were barely halfway done. We took the train back to the hostel to grab our swimsuits for later, then we took the tram across the street to the Brandenburg Gate. Lewis had been really wanting to visit since it’s an iconic spot in Berlin, but I guess it kind of reminded me of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It’s nice and historical and all, but it’s just a gateway.

The Holocaust Memorial was just a block away, and this was on my must-see list, so we headed there next. It’s very simple but very well-done I thought. It’s a sprawling collection of grey blocks which grow in height towards the center. You can walk through like a maze between the stones towering above you. They represent all of the Jews murdered during the nazi regime.

We could see the Reichstag from there, so we walked over and checked it out. It’s the German Parliament, and the building was nice to see from the outside, but we decided to also sign up for a quick tour the following morning. It’s free, but you do have to reserve a spot in advance.

We were tired and hungry, so we headed to dinner at a place called Clarchens Ballhaus which I read about online. They do ballroom dancing lessons inside, and you can watch while you eat. The food wasn’t bad, and the garden area out front was cute too.

Our last activity of the day was the Liquidrom, a cool spa I had also read about. I was glad to just go somewhere and relax because I was dead on my feet at this point. We took the train down to it and found the odd pointed building a few blocks away. It was only 20 euro each for two hours.

Most of the spa was clothing-optional except for two sections: the saltwater pool where everyone had to wear a swimsuit, and the saunas where everyone had to be naked. The main attraction was the saltwater pool at the back where we went first. It was a hot pool with an arched ceiling (you could hear your voice echo if you stood in the middle), colored spotlights throwing patterns on the walls and water, and the highlight- underwater music.

You could hear the music alright while swimming around, but I didn’t remember reading about underwater music until a half hour in. I put my head under and it was so cool! I imagine it’s how Cedric Diggory felt figuring out the golden egg clue in the Triwizard Tournament (I totally told Lewis I was going to use that really nerdy reference in my blog). The sound was so clear underwater. There were free noodles around the pool, so you could float around that way or it was also easy to rest against the edge and just keep your ears under.

There were also definitely some weirdos in there twisting around underwater together while all rubbing on each other’s heads and bodies like some oversexed amoeba, but it was easy enough to avoid the creepy moving orgy if you just swam away when you saw them coming. I was glad everyone had to wear swimsuits.

We spent time in the rest of the spa too. There was an outdoor jacuzzi which felt nice in the chilly air, a little indoor one which I felt very adventurous going into naked, and the saunas (also nude). I’m not so good with saunas or steam rooms, they make me feel like I can’t breathe, but there was one Himalayan pink salt sauna which I liked. It was just hot enough without being suffocating, and a whole wall was made of salt blocks. I’m glad we went, it was an experience!

We needed sleep desperately afterwards, but I had wanted to at least check out one bar. I had made a long list of bars and clubs which was useless now that I only had the one night there (and it was a Monday). Guess I’ll have to return for the infamous Berlin nightlife another time. Anyway, we took the train back to the east and found this bar Madame Claude’s which has furniture all over the ceiling. It was a bit like what I’d imagined from Berlin- dim lighting, shabby grungy interior, scattered couches and nooks for seating, a few various rooms, and a DJ playing, honestly, a collection of noises (robotic tones, spacey sounds, nothing remotely resembling music).

We headed back to the hostel on the last train afterward and took a quick trip to the bar in the basement for our free beer. They have a little brewery, so it was just a small sample of their own brand, but it tasted kind of odd and there was nothing special about the bar, so we slammed it and went upstairs to sleep. Oh, they do have a tiny David Hasselhoff museum (more like a shrine) down there though, and that’s worth a quick look. The Hoff himself has been to visit.

The Next Morning

We had a flight out of Berlin the following afternoon, but we got up at 8 to at least fit the Reichstag into our morning. We’d booked the 9:30 tour. It didn’t take long. They basically brought us inside in a large group, you could see the Parliament seating area through glass panes, and we all went to the roof in an elevator.

Up there, they gave us audio guides which auto-started each section when you passed certain points on the spiraling ramp up the inside of the dome. There was a cool mirrored core at the center built to direct sunlight into the building- very efficient and German. A sun shield also blocks glare.

We got to the top, went back down, and walked around the roof. Our guide told us about features on the skyline. When we were done after about a half hour, we took the lift back down and took another quick walk over to the Brandenburg Gate because Lewis wanted some photos with better lighting.

We rushed back to the hostel to check out and grab breakfast in the attached café. Their 5 euro all you can eat breakfast option was a really good deal- they had a great selection of mix-ins for muesli, waffles, and bread with both breakfast spreads and makings for sandwiches, plus a coffee, tea, or juice.

Unfortunately, we were in the middle of breakfast when Lewis checked his flight reminder and saw that our flight departed at 1:15, not 1:45 like I’d thought. We hurried through our food and caught the train and then the bus to the TXL airport. The girl checking our bag disapprovingly told us to hurry because we were running late, but when we got to the gate, everyone was lined up and not even boarding yet, so really we were German late and not actual late.

I was stressed about my bag, but catching our flight seemed more important. It was the right choice too, because the next section of our trip was my favorite part.