chocolate

Belgium is the country of chocolate, right? I wonder why. Coté d'Or, a company which I associate with excellent chocolate, isn't even Belgian anymore. It's part of a big evil American multinational named Kraft Food, which is part of an even bigger multinational (Altria) of which nobody has ever heard even though it seems to own half the world.
Leonidas, which creates great pralines, has a Greek name. And was started by a Greek. It's not owned by some baby-eating multinational, but it is almost one in its own right by now.

Anyway, the aisles of the Real supermarket close to my apartment were stacked full of chocolate. I've never seen so much chocolate ever before in a supermarket. I bought a small box Rausch mini-chocolates, with 80% cacao. They are de-li-ci-ous. Rausch is a small family company owned by some grandson of the guy who started it. Which is how every company creating delicious things should be.
I read about it (that's marketing for you) in the Mobil magazine which is produced by Deutsche Bahn as a monthly magazine to be read and taken for free on the train. As I traveled to Berlin by train (which is a long trip: from Brussels to Köln with the ICE and then from Köln over Hannover to Berlin - I took a regular intercity train for the rest of the trip, because the ICE for that stretch from Köln to Berlin was 30 euros more expensive) I had time on my hands and read parts of it, the vocabulary and sentences were quite easy.
Also, there were leaflets on the train detailing the entire trip, with information of the connections in every station, complete with departure times and boarding platform. Not just some crumpled, coffee-ring bearing piece of paper full of departure times for every day of the month, no: a brand new one for the trip on that time of the day only. Pretty impressive.
The train to Hannover had half an hour of delay though. I thought that was impossible in Germany, but it happened anyway. And the train to Berlin had delay as well.

berghain

Everybody even having the slightest interest in Berlin techno and clubbing can't get around Berghain. Loved for its athmosphere and music by many as wel as reviled for being an expensive tourist trap and for its seemingly random door policy by as many others, its a one of the most famous techno clubs on earth. And I got in!
Just for a concert, though. On a Wednesday. When there was no door policy and no one-hour waiting row at five o'clock in the morning. The concert was great, though. Deep, organic, slow electronic ambientish beats, live. The cool surroundings (Berghain is a former power plant - intimidating, gray, tall building with high vertical windows in an industrial zone) and the awesome sound system (Function one system - clicky for those fans of awesome numbers and cool names, some pictures of Berhain's inside as well) helped, off course. See those "dance stacks" on the picture in the pdf file? They are taller than I am. All the four of them.
And I'm 2 meters.

3 euro for a becks beer, which isn't cheap but not utterly unpayable either. However, the two hours of waiting for the concert to start (staring hour on the website: 20 - real start of the concert: 22) sucked. "Lets just let these tourists buy a couple of drinks more", seemed to be the rationale. Can't really blame them, though.

They stick to their no-camera policy even on evenings like this, checking my pockets and all. I wonder what they do with mobile phones sporting multi-megapixel autofocusing leica-lens equipped camera's, though.
I guess you best disable the flash.

Anyway, looks like a cool place to go in the weekend. Will try it again, if I don't get in I'll just get to another place. No shortage of that in Berlin, so it seems :)

Berliner Unterwelten

Last wednesday I went to Gesundbrunnen station, where Berliner Unterwelten has their office and starts their tours of a small part of Berlins underground heritage. I took the Tour 1: Dark Worlds, which explores a civilian bunker complex right there under the station. Its location prevented it from being blown up in the demilitarisation of Germany after the second world war and it offers an excellent impression of how thousands of civilians spent cramped, terrified nights during the bombing of the city. Tours happen in English as well, just check the calender. The tour guide offered us (about 15-20 people) a lot of information about the how and why of the bunker, about the war itself and how Germany copes with its history (he was Danish so he could offer a neutral account). Tours are 9 euro, which is well worth it for 90 minutes.
Other tours include a visit to a cold war bunker or to the partially demolished flak tower in the park right across the streat of the gesundbrunnen station. Check out the google maps view of the Volkspark Humboldthain. It's well worth a look on the outside as well, just go to the park and climb the hill. It's a pretty impressive view and you have a nice lookout over part of the city. Looking forward to take the tour exploring the innards of that tower as well!
Oh, you wonder why they built that bunker on the side of that hill and not, lets say, on top of it? That's because the hill is part of the flak tower. After the war it was blown up, but the building was so tough they only managed to destroy part of it and besides, the northern part of the building faces the railway lines. The resulting heap of rubble was covered with soil and now it looks just like a natural hill - until you reach the northern side.

There are lots of "rubble hills" all over Berlin, so it seems. Check out this wikipedia article about Teufelsberg. Got to visit that as well :)
After googling a bit, it turns out that - who else - the guys and gals from Berliner Unterwelten would very much like to check out what's buried under the Teufelsberg.
Turns out that a lot of nazi history is buried under heaps of rubble, either of parts of the building itself or of other buildings as well. Can't really blame everyone involved, from the Allied and Russian forces demilitarizing Berlin to the shocked citizens of Berlin, wanting to bury the remains of the nazi era under layers and layers of forgetting.

crowded

Forget what I wrote about Berlin not being crowded. Today was a different story.
It wasn't a structural crowdiness, however. A couple of S-bahn lines are out for "security reasons". I wonder if they have anything to do with terroristic/criminal threats or if it's simply to do with the structural integrity of the lines and surroundings. Anyway, the Ring train was late in my station - Treptower Park - and not all people even got on it.

In the centre, Alexanderplatz was bristling with activity although I seem to have missed the height of it. Something to do with leftist parties and groups manifesting, lots of "Die Linke" flags and some live music.
Friday seems to get some weirdness to the city. Crazy people on the subway.

Went to the Alte Nationalmuseum, thought to find famous paintings (french impressionism woohoo), but accidentially wound up at the Altes Museum instead (just call it something like "not the alte nationalmuseum", ffs). Paid 8 euro for Greek en Roman pottery and jewelry. Very cool actually, but I expected something else. Better luck and name-remembering next time :-) Lots of camera-toting tourists on these spots, especially in the area of the Museumsinsel, where most of the famous art museums are. Gipsy's asking "do you speak english", only to show you a small paper on which they ask you for money. Don't try to escape them, that won't work. Just ignore.

Passed in front of a famous synagoge in that area as well. Sidewalk guarded off, two submachine gun carrying policemen in front. Wonder what that was about.
Police don't seem to mess around here, a couple of days ago I saw two policemen in Ostkreuz station carrying those same weapons. However, you don't see much police in the area where I live. Only saw a couple of cars passing by in the 5 days I am here now, which is good.

transport

As I mentioned before, public transport is an important factor in Berlin. As everything is really widely spaced apart, distances which look small on the map are still a lot of ground to cover. If you check it out on google maps, calculate some distances just to get a feel of the scale of Berlin. Its HUGE.
The most famous public transport is probably the U-bahn, which covers the centre of the city. In addition to that, the S-bahn offers a connection to the less central parts, and are connected with the U-bahn in certain stations.
Map of the U- and S- bahn rails and stations.

In addition to U and S-bahns, there are buses (which travel all night long where the U and S do not) and regional trains. The website of Berlins public transport is excellent and offers a large english section.
I bought a Monatskarte, which allows me all travel on all Berlins public transport for 72 euro a month. A hefty cost, but well worth it.
Be aware that the public transport is separated in zones in Berlin; A and B being the central parts and C the outskirts of the city. A and B are the most common and will get you everywhere there's something to see.

Something which might be strange at first but is very logical once you get it is the big "ring" you see on the S-bahn network that is actually called "ring" on the information boards in the stations. Trains ride the Ring in two directions, clock-wise and counterclock-wise (this is indicated with an arrow on the information boards in the stations).
If you don't have any experience with subway systems it will be confusing at first, especially since the system in Berlin is so extensive. Having a good sight of color helps (sucks to be me) and remember to look at the endstations. If you, for instance, want to get from Ostkreuz to Alexanderplatz, you take line S3 or S75 to spandau. Often the most important stations in between are mentioned as well. Also, there are maps like you can find in the pdf file everywhere in the stations, in the S- and U-bahn carriages the next stations are announced and the BVG website offers a route planner which is a great help in the beginning.
Still be prepared for some longtime staring at maps and boards in subway stations, though :) Don't worry, all the tourists do it.

However quick the trains might ride, the S-U system still might take some time to get you somewhere, especially if you have to switch lines. Sometimes it's simply crossing the platform (and waiting a couple of minutes for the train to arrive), but if you want to get from an S to a U line or the other way around, often you have to walk several hundreds of meters and a couple flights of stairs to get to the right platform.
The system is generally considered safe, until now I only have had the typical drunken shouting of partygoers in the station, a singing lady (with a monycup) and a magazine-selling guy in the train itself. The latter were not obtrusive or annoying, however, so no problems to mention there (yet?).

Besides the public transport, you still might find yourself walking a lot, even simply going to the subway station or shop might be a long walk. This is where the other popular means of transport comes up: bicycles. Berlin is a very bicycle-friendly city: traffic is never really busy, drivers do actually pay attention to the road, lots of wide bike lanes, special traffic lights etc.. There are lots of places to park your bicycle or just put it against a wall, and a normal lock will do.
I bought a bicycle for 65 euro on Craigslist, as you can see lots of cheap bikes are offered there. I got mine from an American returning after a stay of 5 weeks, he bought it on craigslist as well. It's an excellent bike with working lights, brakes and three gears. Saved me a lot of walking already. For longer distances public transport is still advised however, because even with a bike Berlin is very big.

apartment

So the choice is made, Berlin. I want to stay there for a while, so hotels are out of the question. They are expensive and you always have to go out to eat. Besides, they aren't fun with their hotel smell and hotel corridors and hotel warmth and hotel art on the walls. Couchsurfing? Great for short trips, but I didn't want to have to find a new place every couple of days, even though it might be easy doing so as Berlin has an active CS community.
An apartment then. Google to the rescue and this site (city-wohnen) came out as one of the most interesting. It's english, offers a good search engine, all the legal stuff is there and translated well and it offered a lot of apartments in the sub-500 euro price range and also for rental periods for as short as 1 month.
Finding an apartment for that price in the very centre of Berlin won't work, but the great thing about Berlin is that it has a huge area around the central part which is still very good connected with bus and S-bahn lines (more about the public transport later).
On this drawing you find the districts of Berlin (small description of the districts here), of which Mitte and Tiergarten contain most of the historical landmarks. Every location on that map however, is spaced maximum 30 minutes of comfortable public transport away from the centre. My apartment is located in the north of Treptow, close to Treptower park and on a 5 minute walk from an s-bahn station.
The price is 490 euro per month warm (which includes heating) and it has all you might want: washing machine, television, flatrate broadband internet, seperate sleeping room, living and kitchen, towels, bed linen etc.. It's not an apartment which is used solely to rent out but an actual house of a German woman now away till the end of the year. I love the place, it's very nicely decorated, very sunny, well renovated, well isolated etc etc.
On the website this apartment came out as one of the best: large, decent location in a district full of young and chill people.
The surroundings are nice, its tidy, very spacious with loads and loads of trees, wide lanes and sidewalks, calm... My apartment is at the back of a block of 5-6 story buildings like there are a lot of here. The only problem are the stairs (no elevator)

After I contacted city-wohnen for the apartment I wanted to rent (add it to your wish-list, register and add your wish-list to your registration) I received a digital contract a couple of days later, with the information about the landlady (in this case the mother of the owner of the apartment), address etc on it. The deposit was, as often, the price of one month and is to be paid together with the money for the first month to the landlord.
This city-wohnen service comes at a price though, a rather hefty one: 25% of on months rent + taxes on that amount. All in all, I pay nearly 30% of the montal rent to the company of city-wohnen (if you rent longer, the percentage of the montal rent is lower, off course).
However, for this I get city-wohnen as a perfectly english-speaking mediator which takes care of all the legal stuff.
If you want a cheaper place, I'd advice checking out the german-language websites offering rooms for rent (often targeted at students, you get a room in an appartment which you share with other people), that should get you a room for as little as 250 euro or less. Example.
Google also turns up some hits which offer apartments at a price per night, stay away from those as they are horribly expensive. Mostly aimed at hotshot professionals staying for a short while, I guess.

who, why, where etc

I'm a 23 year old male from Belgium (Flemish part), just finished my studies. Not wanting to indulge myself immediatly in the dreadful life of the working class, I was in search of something interesting and new, something which would be affordable and preferrably last a while so I could get my head straight (and once in a while decently fucked up as well) and return as a wizened, more experienced-in-life person thing yadda yadda.

You're wondering why I'm not writing in dutch, as that is my primary language? Well, keeping a blog is only interesting if somebody actually reads it. And while I won't e-mail the link of this blog to all my friends and family and facebookcontacts (does anyone ever makes it beyond the first post of a blog sent to him/her?) I do want it to show up on google result pages of people looking for information about the stuff I'm writing about.
For this blog is about Berlin.

So why Berlin? Isn't paris more romantic, doesn't Amsterdam has more weed and wouldn't a trekking of one month through India be more life-changing than a stay in Berlin, of all places? Probably so, yes.
However Berlin came out as an ideal mix of several factors:
-Price: I have a couple of thousand euro to spend, but I want it to last as long as possible and offer me the most. Paris, London etc are very expensive cities to really live in. Long travels to the USA, Asia, Africa cost lots of money for flights.
-History: Berlin isn't just history like our Bruges is, it's living history. People living here actually lived when history was made, now twenty years ago. Real history affecting real people and the rest of the world.
Isn't the WW1 history of Ypres not interesting as well? Off course, but almost nobody who really experienced it is still alive. Worse, this means the city is full of fish-and-chips places and crammed with British tourists. This seems to be biggest problems with historical places: once the history is a couple of generations ago, it becomes yet another big touristic attraction. Berlin isn't like that.
Also, this means the history as buildings, langdmarks and random street stuff is still pretty authentic. It's not (all) yet put behind glass with gazillion-watt spots and ten-language speaking information boards right next to it. It's just there, derelict with bird shit and dirt and tree leaves and graffiti on it, like it is in a living city.
-Language and culture: I don't speak much German but I understand and read it pretty wel. Besides that, most people speak English very well in Berlin and switch effortlessly to it. Also, I would go there alone so I didn't want it to be all-new and all-weird with completely different food, customs, shops, transport etc like you would have in Asian or African countries.
-Climate: september and october seems to be a good time to go to Berlin: it's dry, sunny, not extremely hot nor is it cold and dark like in the winter months.
-Music: having become more interested in all kinds of music and specifically electronic music since a while, and having some experience with decent clubbing in Belgium, Berlin was a logical choice. City of Techno with lots of underground clubs in old buildings, not all tourists but a large young population going there as well, which keeps the quality up and the prices down.

In the next posts, expect stuff about my life here. It won't be overly exciting in the way easily excited people write blogs, I'm a rather down-to-earth person. I just want to give my impressions. It won't all be factual and of interest to everyone, as I am also keeping this blog as a kind of logbook to keep as a memory.

Oh, another blog which I found very interesting about Berlin:
http://jessinberlin.blogspot.com/