Berlin, Germany

Inside Berlin's main train station

After finishing up the 3-day conference in Hamburg, I took a weekend excursion to Berlin, which is a 1.5 hr trip via the nifty ICE train, which tops out at 240 km/hr and is buttery smooth. I stayed at St. Christopher’s Hostel, where I met an up-and-coming photographer from Alabama in the midst of her 7-week European tour. We explored Berlin together, visiting the traditional sites like the remains of the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburg Gate, and engaging in traditional activites like drinking “dirty beer” and eating currywurst (see my tribute here).

The Berlin Wall, covered in gum

Brandenburg Gate

The Holocaust Memorial

We also taste-tested brandy at a posh department store, visited a not-so-Turkish Turkish neighorhood, viewed graffiti and artwork at a Burning Man-style artist enclave.

At the artist colony

Graffiti near the artist enclave

Urban cage soccer does exist! (in the "Turkish" neighborhood)

Two very bad Berlin bears

We tried to find out why U2 found the “Zoo Station” subway stop of Achtung Baby/Zoo TV fame so inspirational. There was nothing really special about the station, though we did see actual Trabant cars on the road (the diminutive Trabants were used as actual spotlights for U2’s Zoo TV concerts). While we're on Berlin rock allusions, Potsdamer Platz is former no-man's land where ex-Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters performed a massive version of The Wall in 1990 following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

In general, Berlin was not the most beautiful city in the world (far less attractive than Hamburg), but its dynamic history made it a worthwhile visit. As I had been warned by my German friends, you can’t really tell where the wall used to be – most of it has been torn down, and the few remains are pretty much put up for the tourists. They do have a line of cobblestones that marks the wall’s former path, but it’s hard to tell because most of the no-man’s land that the wall occupied is now being developed for either parks or intense commercial projects. There are huge shiny buildings springing up all over Potsdamer Platz, and the new main train station is absolutely stunning.

Outside the train station

After 5 days in Germany, I headed home to the Windy City. I left Berlin by train at the crack of dawn and flew from from Hamburg to London and then on to Chicago. Although Chicago is great, the laid-back lifestyle but stimulating environment of Europe definitely has me wondering why I didn’t do a postdoc there!

Tribute to Currywurst

Currywurst and fries, mmmm....

Currywurst is a traditional street food in German cities, especially Berlin. This "delicacy" is essentially a stale, fried sausage that is ground up before your eyes by a machine and then covered with a sauce that's a bad mix between BBQ sauce and ketchup. After you pay somewhere between 1.50 and 2 Euro's (we did a scientific survey), you are given a special plastic mini-fork and are instructed to put as much radioactive orange curry powder on your wurst as you desire.

My Berlin exploring buddy, Allison, convinced me that, in the spirit of new experiences and gastrointestinal tourism, we should try currywurst at Alexanderplatz. I made her go first. She fared alright, so then it was my turn.

My first bite of currywurst

It was pretty bad. I mean, I like sausage, I like curry, and I like BBQ sauce. But not really all together, ground up by a sketchy machine and served out of a shack. Thank goodness we had fries and a token bun, because I didn't have anything to drink at the time.

Anyway, currywurst stands are everywhere:

One of many currywurst stands. This one just has a good logo.

Currywurst is so part of the culture, you even see random signs about it posted in people's windows:

It's cute and spicy

Anyway, I still don't get currywurst, and I'll probably never eat it again. But I suffered no ill effects, it was an experience I will not soon forget.