Irving Berlin
Currently three hours into a five hour train trip, leaving Berlin in the distance as we head south. I spent the first three hours continuing to read the Biography of Steve Jobs, a present Michelle gave me for my birthday over a year ago. Now, it is not that I am a slow reader, although more avid readers might attest to this, it merely took me thirteen months to pick up the book to start reading it.
Three hundred pages in, having accounted for Job’s life, from early child hood to creating Apple, to being ousted and starting NeXT and becoming CEO of Pixar Studios to now returning as CEO, or rather iCEO of Apple Computers and establishing a game-changing partnership with Microsoft and its then CEO Bill Gates, I decided to give the book a rest and admire the passing scenery.
We are heading south from Berlin to Nuremburg, and it has been a pleasant ride so far, considering that our original train was cancelled and we were advised to just hop onboard the next one and hope for the best. The best laid plans of having first class, seat reserved tickets going out the window. That all said though, despite no seat reservation or booking, we are still in first class.
The scenery is quite picturesque; indeed something out of a winter wonderland. The passing terrain, more voluptuous in shape than flat Berlin, featuring snow capped hill sides in the distance scattered with pine trees (Christmas trees) and cottages. In front of these sloping hill sides, changing every thirty or so kilometres are a selection of vineyards, industrial plants and hamlets, all of it, lightly blanketed in snow.
Just as vast as the snowy expanse outside the window of the cabin becomes, so does ones thoughts, this winter wonderland scenery lulling you into a comfortable poise of reflection, almost making you believe should you stare out at the white abyss long enough solutions to all the world’s problems will come to you.
But I shall not bore this blog with such thoughts, or solutions that may have presented themselves to me thus far on this trip.
The past four days in Berlin were considerably action packed and intense. It is surprising that I made it to the train platform this morning completely under my own steam, with not even a limp. The amount of walking we achieved and under the conditions has been incredible. There were times I had wished I had a pedometer at the start of this trip, but give the last few days it probably would have frozen anyway.
Aside from ending each day limping into bed, your feet and legs bright red from the excessive walking that day, the only other two problems that plagued me short term was losing a glove and my credit card. What you probably would expect is that I was more scorned at losing my glove than I was by my missing credit card. When you are outside in -7 conditions that are deteriorating, you realise just how hard it is to keep your ungloved hand warm, and how easy it is to re-route funds.
Both situations were eventually resolved; I cancelled the missing credit card and found my missing glove at the reception counter of our hotel. I had misplaced the glove during my coy activities of sneaking out of the hotel one evening to fill a plastic bag with snow and bring it back into our hotel room to keep our drinks chilled. I suspect I left the glove either in the foyer or lift as I fumbled for my room card to activate the lift. Of course I didn’t think to ask the receptionist about the glove until after a long morning hike through the snow in self pity, with a freezing hand.
We arrived into Berlin just before midday and after checking into our hotel we decided to go for a little wander and check out the neighbourhood. With an impressive Christmas market right on our door step, indeed across the road from the hotel, we set out there first to have a look around. The ground was a combination of slippery ice and freshly fallen snow. Just as back in Hamburg, my ever faithful Doc Martins began to uncontrollably slip and slide on the unfamiliar surfaces. Realising that there was bound to be much more snow ahead, and I had just as good a chance breaking my neck before I got to see it, Michelle and I headed out of the markets and began to look out for shoe stores.
Not before long we came across a store, and being ever faithful to my Docs as they have been to me for over six years, I asked the store owner whether they stocked them – sadly they did not. But they did happen to stock a new boot which was very similar in style to the Doc boot that I was looking to upgrade to, so without hesitation I tried them on. The shoes off the shelf were a perfect fit, lined for the wintery conditions of Germany with grip ensuring it would stick to the most stubborn of ice. Within minutes of walking into the store, I walked out wearing my new 150 euro shoes. My old Docs in the bag; their snow days may be over – but according to the shoe place in Bunbury, I still have another four years in them yet!
With new shoes, I felt like a new man, and with that came a new founded confidence of walking on the ice and snow, especially with a DSLR around ones neck and we set of to explore Berlin.
We walked all the way down the main street, or rather what Michelle and I would call the ‘main street’ as we later discovered (and what will later be explained) Berlin didn’t have a city centre so to speak. The street lead all the way past the local shopping precinct towards the great Gates to Berlin. The gates being the closest attraction on foot became the scene of a tourist circus; people from all walks of life, including the Predator, a stunted Darth Vader and a shabby looking Mickey Mouse were also there.
The Gates to Berlin were an impressive site, towering several stories high, these great arches are an iconic part of Berlin’s history. During the battle of Berlin, the gate was the only thing standing between the Red Army battalion of over 20,000 tanks and artillery and 100,000 German soldiers, 1,200 tanks and guns. Ultimately though, there comes a time where a wooden door, no matter how formidable its framing may be, is just a door made of wood and with that the Soviet forces broke through, suffering 30,000 casualties in the process, the Germans, a mere 12,000 personnel.
By 3pm, it started to get dark. And as often happens when it begins to get dark you start to think about dinner (despite it being actually four more hours away). Earlier in the day two friends which we made back in Hamburg the day before had just arrived in Berlin, so we met up with them and some of their UK friends who also arrived that same day for dinner that evening. We had a fun evening catching up with Kristian and Beulah again, and we spent the night drinking and laughing over pints and champagne.
The next morning, we set out with the intent to go hard-ball, spending the morning wandering through the Christmas markets (we later learnt Berlin had 60 of these), and do a Third Reich tour later in the afternoon. Unfortunately this was also the morning that I discovered I was missing a glove. Between the glove mishap and the fact that I wasn’t feeling too well that morning we decided to postpone the Third Reich tour for a later time and just go for an extended walk through the various snow covered parks and walk ways on the other side of the Gates to Berlin.
Berlin was the first time in our trip so far that the snow fall was substantial enough to walk through without fear of slipping over. Kicking the snow with our boots you notice just how fine a white power it is as it disperses with floating grace from under foot.
We spent a lot of time in the park land, trudging through the snow and enjoying the white scenery as far as the eye could see. In the distance, in a clearing, a cross-country skier was gracefully making his way from one side of the park to the other. The cutest thing I saw was a small dog being taken for a walk, bounding along on three legs at a time, alternating the front legs for a couple of bounds, tucking the other leg right up under its chest to warm it up which made perfect sense, after all it was incredibly cold.
We saw a lot of Berlin, between the hop-on, hop-off bus, the many walks we did, and the two walking tours; The Third Reich tour and Red Berlin, it is scary to see just how much has happened here in such a short amount of time.
The Berlin wall for one only came down within the last twenty years, and because of that, you have this imbalance in Berlin. As I mentioned earlier, it seemed to me that Berlin had no real city centre; this is because of the imbalance the wall produced. The west side of Berlin prospered while the east side of Berlin slowly disintegrated. Today although a lot of the damage this segregation has caused appears to be healed on the surface, you can still see there is a long way to go to reunite the east and west of Berlin.
But that is all I will say for now, you can expect the history blog of Berlin, from what I learnt from the Third Reich tour and Red Berlin tour in the coming blog.