Berlin

We got off to an interesting start in Berlin. When we got to the hostel we found out that we had booked beds online for 18th/19th April, not May…oops. Luckily there were beds available and the friendly receptionist - Oscar - lied about our age to avoid us paying the over-26 VAT tax and chucked in a free towel hire, which maybe made up for loosing our deposit on the April booking.

At first glance, Berlin appears to be like any other European city, nothing amazing. But after a four-hour walking tour of the city with our guide Lewis (from Holland) who explained the history behind the different parts of the city, we realized that the amazing thing about Berlin is just how normal it is, despite everything that has happened to it.

The story of the Berlin Wall was quite moving. The wall was put up literally overnight without warning. It was just a barbed wire fence to start with but was gradually upgraded, ultimately to two ten-foot high concrete walls. The wall separated families, friends and loved ones for over twenty years. It only came down because an East German press secretary slipped up at a press conference and announced that travel restrictions would be lifted between east and west Berlin causing a party to break out in the streets that couldn’t be stopped. The border guards had no idea what was going on when ten thousand East Germans turned up wanting to get through the wall. In the end they had to honour the press secretary’s statement and thus began the end of the Berlin Wall!