Berlin, Germany

Plain and simple. Berlin is a big German city. I was only there for a few hours, but I saw some of the significant sights around the city centre. I got into one train station outside the city. The entire day was pretty much one of perfect timing, which was weird on a trip where it feels like none of my original plans went like I thought they would. My train from Paris got in exactly on time. I got to the ticket office for the German trains at 8:55am. It opened at 9. I needed a ticket to Kiev, a mystical ticket that can only be bought in Berlin, and nowhere else in advance. But they said it existed. It did. At 9:05am I had my ticket to Kiev for the train at 3pm. I caught a train to the city centre. I left the ticket office at 9:15 and caught the next train that left at 9:17, avoiding an hour wait in the middle of nowhere.

I bought a map and my ritual shot glace and wondered around the city. I saw the Brandenburg gate and the main street, where the Berlin wall was, the financial district, the Holocaust memorial, and all the landmarks and famous buildings (according to my map). I got my checked luggage, checked my email, mailed some postcards, and found my platform with 15 minutes to spare before the train got there. The train...that’s a whole nother story, haha.


It was really interesting to be in a city that was so affected by WWII. The history of East and West Germany is very humbling. To stand there where the wall was, and see the photo mural and read about what life was like somehow grounds you. There was a guard dressed up stamping passports and fake visas to get from one side to the other. There is a cobblestone line the transects the city centre where the wall used to be. I’ve seen parts of the Berlin wall in Truro, but to see it where it actually stood was more interesting. It was a similar feeling to seeing the Peace wall in Northern Ireland, even though that wall has now outlasted the Berlin wall. It makes you think about how two societies can be in such a conflict that they need a huge barrier to separate them. Put it in context of the recent border security increases between Canada and the US.