Surviving the Boonies and Berlin

Yesterday night, I returned from an exhausting day in Cologne. I finally climbed the 500 something steps to the Bell tower of the Dom and then just hung out in the city for a while. That trek up the Bell tower was truly infernal – the stairs went on and on and on and I saw stars when I came out of it! This was indeed on a weekday but since my PhD student is out of town this week and I’ve finished all the necessary work for the day, I took a dear friend who is travelling around Europe on a tour of the city of Cologne. In fact, he showed up completely unannounced on Monday, luggage in tow and all. I was so surprised! Jülich is a village so small that I simply accepted the fact that my address, along with perhaps my existence, has completely disappeared among the queues of forests and fields rolling on for infinity and beyond and no one will ever be able to find their way here.

By now, I am seriously charmed by my relaxing life in Jülich and very happy with the closely-knit international community here, but I still tend to advise friends and family against coming here for the sake of experiencing Germany. I really wouldn’t know what to do to keep my guests entertained except maybe rushing them to Cologne and Bonn.

About this “international community”, there is a group of people working at the Forchungszentrum comprising of Germans, Italians, Spanish, Indians, Iranians, Brazilians etc. that quite often gather to socialize. On every Tuesday night, a small subgroup would gather to have a music jamming/practice session on voice, guitar, and bass. I have been humming tunes under my breath and dreaming about touching an instrument again for close to half a year now so it was a completely liberating experience to watch them play and to sing along to rock songs that used to play on the radio. Perhaps next week, we’ll go on to more soulful tunes like Save Room by John Legend and maybe I’ll even get to brush up my skills on the guitar!

Last weekend’s travel destination was, drum roll, Berlin! Yes it is still a big deal even after every other RISE blogger has gone there and already written about it. Now the collection will be finally complete. Berlin has something for everybody, so you really have to experience it for yourself. For me, Berlin’s like a free-thinking wild child who dabbled into everything imaginable during its youth, then sobered up during adulthood and later made something out of itself and its crazy experiences. Graffiti ran on walls like rebellious tattoos… I saw run-down and once abandoned buildings in the middle downtown now housing the works of young artists with no budget… I loved it! Sadly, I don’t think I will be visiting another city like that soon.

Over the course of the weekend, we visited the Jüdisches Museum and the Pergamon Museum. The museums in Berlin were organized in such a way that it is very easy to retain information from the exhibitions. The Jewish museum gave a very comprehensive and interactive survey of Jewish lifestyle and religion, didn’t bog down too much on the years of the Holocaust but gave a clear timeline of why and how the Jewish people have been persecuted over the centuries. The Pergamon is probably the second most astonishing and beautiful museum I have seen in my life, following closely the Vatican Museum in Vatican City. Entire buildings from ancient Babylon (modern day Iraq) were excavated, transported and reconstructed piece by piece to Berlin in the early 1900s. It is just a bit sad that these treasures aren’t exhibited in the countries that once owned them.

Before coming to Germany, I remember asking a friend in RISE if it was a sensitive topic to talk about the Second World War with a German. I have never tried it and perhaps it will be a little bit awkward (mainly for me), but at least now I know that Germany fully acknowledges this dark period of her history and tries very hard in making sure that the memories of the victims of the Third Reich are respected and immortalized. Monuments, museums, various historical sites all over the city recall the turbulent century. I admire it a lot that Germans aren’t trying to sweep the past under the carpet and wait for people to forget, like what is currently being done in many parts of the world.

We visited the Holocaust memorial on the afternoon of our first day (I would have easily stayed 3 hours there listening to the audio guide), became mesmerized by the Topography for Terror, visited Checkpoint Charlie and went up the Berliner Dom on our second. On the third day, I woke up early to beat the crowd at the Reichtag, took the U-Bahn somewhere close to the Ostbahnhof to see the East Side Gallery and then walked back to Museum island to meet up with Jake and Claudia who are doing their internships in Berlin and Alex from my institute at 11am. Gulp.

On Sunday afternoon, I left Berlin happy but still feeling as if I missed out on some things. Maybe this list will be some help to people who want to travel to Berlin in the future.

1. Berlin was a new travel lesson for me. On short visits of cities that are famous for their landmarks and history, it’s an excellent idea to embark on a walking tour sometime within the first few days. Then, use the time left to return to the spots that really made an impact on you. I think that would have rendered my stay in Berlin much more complete in the sense that I would have managed time more efficiently and learned more.

2. Not having gone clubbing. My guide book suggested a place called Sage with 4 floors, a variety of different music, and a rooftop pool. I secretly wanted to find out what it was about but then put that thought behind me because it’s always such a heavy undertaking to go clubbing. Now I’ll never get to go to a club with a rooftop pool! (How cool is that?) This leads me to my next point…

3. Not following the suggestions given by the guidebook! We decided to bar-hop instead after getting out of some metro station in Mitte. First, a small group of friends and I entered a place with windows tinted black with barely a soul within 50 meters – a friend humorously nicknamed it the “hell of Berlin”. The next one was an interesting indie bar, or bar with odd decorations, girls in secretary-style clothes wearing flashy red lipstick and geeky boys in converse. The night was fun nevertheless (It’s Berin! I didn’t expect any less), but I think unless you have a lot of time in one city, it’s always good to foolproof your plans for the night by discovering places that people have recommended instead of feeling adventurous and spending your only night in Berlin in an unimpressive joint with terrible music.

4. Last, I regret not visiting Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Center at night. I heard that the modern architecture combined with blinding lights and my love for sci-fi hubs would make for quite an experience. I will be haunted by your pictures until we meet again, Berlin!