Berlin Day 2, Four Museums and Reunited with Natalia

Wednesday, May 21st

Museum day! I had come to this city with two goals in mind, visit Natalia, and learn about the history of the city and country. It was rich in stories and I would be remiss to not take them in. 

I began my day of course at Cafe 92, getting a coffee and pain au chocolate. I took my time enjoying my pastry and coffee. The food scene in Berlin has been so fun, it’s been an unexpected joy to find vegan options so easily and to try some amazing new foods. I wish I liked the city a bit more because I’d be so tempted to live here. You might have guessed that moving to Europe was on my mind a time or two this trip.. Well, maybe a little more. 

The first museum I went to was the Tränenpalast, located under the main train station that divided East and West Berlin. It stands for Palace of Tears as it was the place that people would have to say goodbye to their loved ones before going back to the hard conditions of life in East Berlin. I learned some cool things there, such as the security they set up to make sure that people were not escaping to the West. The ways in which people had to pack up in order to not look suspicious that they were trying to escape East Berlin, such as leaving everything except for one to two priceless family treasures. China, silver, photos, family memories, filled these briefcases. 

Also, they displayed the impacts of the Cold War on the city. This museum took us from WW2 to the falling of the Wall. It had a lot of interesting facts and it was a free museum, no complaints here. Of course, I was reading every sentence of each monitor which took quite a long time and I left feeling pretty tired.

I wanted to stop at a cafe before going to my next museum to reenergize myself. I found one nearby the second museum I planned to visit. I went to this cool espresso machine shop that doubled as a cafe and sat at the best table in the cafe as it had an incredible view of the tall glass windows, and a beautiful display of the coffee machines. 

My second museum for the day was the Topography of Terror. There was a remnant of the Berlin Wall just outside the museum where I met a fellow American and we swapped photos. There was a long line of photos and graphics outside along the Berlin Wall that took me a while to read through. They were about varying topics from 1933-1990, which I was really familiarizing myself with this time period. I started at the end and worked my way back through history. I started with the reparations and how the German government paid jewish people for the atrocities from the Holocaust. I also learned that there were jewish spies who’d rat out other jewish people in trade to not having to wear the star and getting protection.

After reading each display outside, after about an hour I finally went inside to see the actual museum. They offered an audio guide that explained a select few photos. I just followed that instead of reading through them all, feeling the museum fatigue fog over me. Covered was the evolution of hatred. Starting with the rise of Hitler and how he and his followers blamed certain groups of people for the hardships they were experiencing. They also introduced the German commanders that were the ringleaders spearheading the hatred. Most were WW1 kids who'd grown up in the aftermath of the war, when Germany was being punished for causing war, and in turn, making life challenging for those who sought to move past the war. These leaders were looking for justice and what they believed they deserved as a nation. 

There were also photos and stories about the treatment and murdering of many different groups of people throughout WW2. They had the jarring photo of the young jewish boy with his arms up and his face marred with fear. It struck a cord to me and it has for many people in the world. A reminder of humanity. 

I made a massive mistake here and chewed my gum for too long (1 hour) and because of that I broke out into hives later that night. It was a learning lesson because I have never had a reaction to American gum but through trial and error I’ve slowly figured out what I can and can’t handle. Just not the most ideal time to be learning this lesson.

After going through a majority of the museum, I went to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. I sat there for a while, tired from all the standing at the two museums and finishing my book. This book was fantastic, one of the best memoirs I’ve read in a while. I took note of her writing style, telling it from the perspective she had in that stage of life. It was similar to the book Educated, so if you’re read and liked that story, you for sure would like this one.

I closed my book, got up, and hopped on public transport to the Berlin Wall Memorial, my “third” museum of the day. I walked through the different boards, placed in the space between the two walls, priorly the militarized zone. The infographics spoke on the history of the wall and the destruction caused in order to build the fortified wall. There was a section on a church that was destroyed because it was in the path of the proposed Wall, and the DDR was slightly against faith as they believed communism principles were a good teaching of how to live. I didn’t walk the full memorial, it was windy and I was tired from the other two museums. I felt content when I left as the memorial expanded multiple blocks. 

I thought I deserved a treat so I went to The Sanctuary, a fully vegan pastry cafe. I ordered a pistachio cream filled pastry and it was lovely. I ate it slowly while reading and thinking. I was looking out and pondering my life. What did I want? When did I want to move to Europe? Where in the US will I be in the meantime? I had big hopes for gaining clarity on those big questions during this trip. 

I was debating between going back to my hostel for a nap or visiting the DDR museum to make sure that I got that in. I mustered the strength for a fourth museum and walked over there. I timed it out perfectly for when I would meet Natalia. I spent about two hours at the DDR Museum and thought they did a great job keeping it both informative and interesting. I loved the interactive games, my favorite being the voting simulation.

They demonstrated the voting conditions and put you in the position to make a decision on whether you’d just vote for the existing socialist powers, like what most did. Essentially, the existing party stayed in for so long because the free elections weren’t really free. When you’d arrive at the polling booth, they would give you a list of the current office. If you dissented with any of the members on the list, you had to go to the booth and cross out the name. But, the polling workers would take note of who went to the polling booths. If you agreed, you’d just fold the paper and give it right back to them, in a way keeping your name clean. Even if you were brave enough to risk your name and make a change to the list, the chances it counted toward anything was low. The vote counters followed strict rules in which you had to cross it out a single specific way, otherwise it was a vote to agree with the current office. Putting yourself in that position, and even if you were to make the “right” choice, it doesn’t feel right because the consequences were even worse. So, truly, you can see why the oppression leaders stayed in power even in the presence of “free elections.”

Other fun interactive games they had was trivia, making the ideal socialist, trying on socialist clothes, and even seeing the shocking stats about the doping scandal and heightened Olympic performance compared to West Berlin as a result. The escape to the nude beaches, the amount of beer they drank, and promotion for birth control among other topics I was shocked to see included but ever more engaged because of them. From studying the timeline from WW2 to the Berlin Wall falling, visiting a typical kindergarten classroom, reading propaganda and newspapers, to learning about the different military, agriculture, career choices and wages, outfits, flags, history of the DDR, this museum was beyond cool. And what sealed the deal was walking through a simulated apartment in which a typical Berlin family lived in. A great way to end my day of museums.

I stayed at the museum until Natalia let me know that she was ready to go. We met first at her place, and thank goodness we did because she lent me a coat, as I had gone out this morning when the sun was shining and hadn’t returned to my hostel to reevaluate. She let me choose from an impeccable rack of coats, and I also got to see her apartment which was so cute! Ready to go, we left her apartment and went on with our night. 

I was thinking we would be walking around the city but when we passed Lime scooters, Natalia somehow convinced me to hop on one, even through my hesitation and lack of knowledge both on how to operate the scooter and the rules of the road here in Berlin. We rode them down a pedestrian/bike only street and it was quite lovely, except for the momentary run in I almost had with someone riding their bike. I hope she heard my American accent and immediately forgave me for my foreignness. We parked our scooters at a really nice viewpoint of Museum island and got a couple photos! 

Back on our feet, we walked around, chatting, catching up, and having a blast. We had a farther walk to the kebab place than I thought because we ended up doing a big loop around Mitte. No complaints as it was actually so fun walking around the city together, with a friend. It made me feel so young, like I was off on my own, making a future for myself in a big city, kinda. And part of me wished that was the reality of it too. 

Natalia took me to Zero Kebab, a no-waste vegan doner kebab place that was actually one of the best meals I’ve ever had in Europe. And to help me further experience the culture of Berlin, we stopped at the convenience store next door and picked up water and this notable juice that apparently the Berliners are obsessed with. There wasn’t any seating in the restaurant, so we went to the closest park and sat at a bench, talking, eating, for the next four hours. I even got to see Paulina, although it was over FaceTime and she was in Ibiza, it was so sweet feeling reunited with them! Bali 2.0. Natalia is truly the sweetest and I’m hoping that our friendship doesn’t stop here. That we can stay in each other's lives in some capacity. And I hope, with some effort, we will see each other again and today is certainly not the end. But, I also recognize that I made it to Berlin, I accomplished my goal of traveling to the city to see her. Still, sitting on that bench with her felt so easy, it felt like something I could do whenever, which gave me hope that I’d do it again soon. 

She walked me back to my hostel and instead of saying goodbye, we said, “see you tomorrow.” How sad but how sweet that there is so much hope that we will see each other again. This was a tough goodbye. Tough in the sense that I truly did not know if I would ever see her again. I was impressed I made it here so quickly, visiting her within a year, but now that I’ve been to Berlin, she is busy with school, I will be focusing on the US for travel coming up, I truly have no idea and that made it so hard. But seeing her made my trip to Berlin worth it, another great day and heart overflowing.