There is a Dunkin Donuts in Berlin

Just got back from Berlin last night after a really busy week.

I had Judd here visiting so I got to play tour guide again and we did some good sight seeing and some excellent eating. We also went to a Sparta Praha futbol game- Prague kicked Brno’s ass!

Wednesday night, my Alternative Literature and Underground Culture class went to see a mini concert by The Plastic People of the Universe, Czech Republic’s most popular rock band… of the 1960s. We had a Q&A with the bass player and saxophone player who both confirmed the stereotype that Czechs value women and beer above all else.

I also had my first tutoring English lessons both at the high school near my dorm and with my one-on-one student, Sarah. We discussed antonyms and the politically correct way to distinguish between dot-Indians and feather-Indians.

And then I went to Berlin really really super early on Friday morning. When we arrived, we checked into our hostel which was a really cool converted factory building in the Turkish neighborhood of Kriesburg. Then we had a guided walking tour of the city center from a very tall Brit named Neil. He filled us in on Berlin’s history and pointed out a few key facts: Berlin is the 3rd gay-est city in the world (after San Francisco and Sydney, Australia) and the 3rd bridge-iest city in Europe (after Amsterdam and Hamburg). He took us to Bebelplatz, the square next to the city library and university where the Nazis staged massive book burnings, the remaining section of the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie in the former American sector, the site of Hitler’s secret bunker, the Holocaust memorial, the Brandenburg gate, and lots of other cool shit. Later, after some quality German food and grapefruit beer, we went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, which tells the story of what lengths East Berliners went through to try to make it to the other side. In true tourist trap fashion, they also have a “Charlie” soldier dressed up in the street who will stamp your passport with the old East Berlin stamp. Then we had some drinks and called it a night.

On Saturday, we drove to Potsdam, which is about an hour outside the city. We took a tour through the palace where the Big 3 met to discuss the Treaty of Potsdam after the end of WWII. Then we headed back to Berlin and went to the Story of Berlin museum. The museum also included a tour of a nuclear fall-out shelter built in the 1970s under a parking garage. It was super creepy. We then proceeded to walk approx 800 km through the zoo and Tiergarten to see “Chick on a Stick”, which is what Berliners affectionately call the giant victory memorial in the center of Berlin. The chick is really shiny. After that, I had the most delicious falafel ever before visiting the dome of the Reichstag, the German parliament building. Given some of the shady politcs that happened there before, all government buildings that were re-built after WWII are now all glass as a symbol for transparency of governemnt. The dome of the parliament building had a great view of the entire city, and you could really see the mix of old, communist, and new architecture.

Sunday, we spent some time on Museum Island, seeing as this is the only part of the city actually open on Sundays. We went to the DDR museum, which is a really fun, interactive museum about life in East Germany during communism. There were lots of things to touch and open so obviously I liked this museum a lot. I learned that communist coffee is awful, the jeans were made of plastic, and garden gnomes were totally hip. They also had a display of a typical communist flat, complete with a bathroom that is identitcal to the one I have in my dorm here in Prague. Then I had Dunkin Donuts coffee, and I was very very very happy.

On the way back from Berlin, we stopped in Dresden, which is the capital of Saxony. In Dresden, the neo-Nazi party is so strong that they actually have seats in the state parliament. Scary shit. We didn’t see any neo-nazis, but we did see some beautiful old churches and an opera house that supposedly has the best acoustics anywhere in the world. After dinner, we headed back to Prague where I shall do nothing but school work for the next week.