Episode 19 - Berlin

Perhaps the craziest and most eventful weekend of my entire life

Nov 23, 2023

I came into the Berlin trip excited for Boiler Room and sightseeing. I left with so many wonderful stories, a better appreciation for both American and Soviet cultures, and a lot more self-confidence regarding my ability to get out of shitty situations.

Enjoy :)

Friday 11/17/2023

I made it back to my apartment at 6:30 am after a crazy night of partying and dancing near the Eiffel Tower.

When in Paris, I guess!

My train for Frankfurt left at 7:16 am, so I showered super super quick, packed up my stuff, hopped on a green Vélib, and powered my way up the hill to Gare du l’Est.

UCLA Cycling legs coming in clutch!

I got to the train station on time and hopped on the train.

Turns out there were two trains on the platform, and I got on the one that was going to Luxembourg, not Frankfurt. Fortunately, the train conductor spoke English and was able to direct me to the right train.

Crisis averted!

Got onto the Frankfurt train, then fell asleep immediately as soon as I took out my contact lenses.

I woke up in Frankfurt to the train conductor politely, yet forcefully, shaking me to wake me up. Everyone else had already gotten off the train, and it was time for the train to return to wherever the trains go to sleep and recharge.

I got off the train and walked down the main Frankfurt street for about 10 minutes, then turned around to get back to the main station as my layover was only about 30 minutes.

It was at this point that I realized that I had forgotten my beloved Yeti bottle on the train from Paris, and that train was gone.

My beloved Yeti bottle! That I’ve had for years, ever since Yellowstone. Gone!

I was tremendously sad about it, but what was I supposed to do?

Nothing. There was nothing I could do. I mourned my lost Yeti bottle, bought a new plastic one at a nearby grocery store so that I’d have water on the train, and headed to the connecting train to Berlin.

And proceeded to wake up in Berlin.

My first impressions of Berlin were that the city is absolutely gorgeous and grand. The central train station was the nicest, most modern, and prettiest train station that I have ever been to in my entire life. Everything was shiny, clean, glass buildings everywhere. It was gorgeous. Reminds me of the Salesforce Tower in SF, but for trains.

I left the central train station, and was surprised to find that all the main bridges had been blocked off and police officers were everywhere. I was quite surprised to find that all of Berlin had been closed off for my arrival, yet I soon found out it was because the president of Turkey was in town.

Classic.

I met Mike, a German bloke who was similarly confused about why all the bridges crossing the river were blocked off. We walked together for around 20 minutes while looking for a bridge that wasn’t blocked off and chatted about life, then we finally found a bridge that we could successfully cross. I told Mike I was born in Belarus and then moved to California (hence my American accent), and he completely believed me.

We made it to an intersection where we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Good times!

After departing from Mike, I made the short trek to the Brandeburg Gate, the iconic gate in central Berlin where the Berlin Marathon finishes. The Berlin Marathon! Where Eluid Kipchoge set the marathon world record a few years ago!!

The gate was quite grand, I’d say. :)

I then walked to the Reichstag, the seat of German Parliament, then turned around and proceeded to head to the hostel down the main avenue in Berlin. I even saw the Russian Embassy along the way! How cool!

The hostel was about a 25-minute walk, then I checked into the hostel. The dude at the front desk told me I didn’t need to pay, since Joe had already paid when he checked in for everyone in the room. I was very surprised by this, at which point the hostel bloke told me to turn around.

And there they were! Annabel, Lara, Gibs, and Joe! They had simply materialized from nowhere. How amazing. :)

We headed up together to the room, then I dropped off my bags and we headed to a delicious dinner. We wanted to go to a ramen shop but the line was massive, so we pivoted and headed to a kebap shop a block away.

Kebap, not kebab. I will not cheat on my beloved Urban Grill. That place is precious to my heart.

The kebap shop had really cool decorations and the waiter was super handsome. Plus, the food was delicious!

I had my second enrollment pass at this time, and enrolled in another class for when I return to UCLA in less than two months. Crazy!

I then went on a quick walk outside to confirm with my future roommate our housing situation for when I come back to UCLA.

Housing situation, confirmed!

We chilled for a bit at the dinner spot, then headed to an absolutely lovely bar for pints. The pints were delicious and the coasters were even cooler.

And then it was time for the highlight of the evening — Boiler Room! The reason we came to Berlin. It was finally here!!

Basically, I was told Boiler Room is a huge dancing nightclub where the DJs are surrounded on all sides and it’s just an all-around fantastic time.

So basically, Berlin in a nutshell.

And let me tell you, Boiler Room exceeded all expectations.

The DJs were amazing, and I even got our group to the front of the crowd of about 500 people eventually. I was basically just dancing for 4 hours straight. Amazing music. Amazing vibes. We’re talking vibes so amazing that Lara even fainted.

To be honest, I can’t really describe Boiler Room in words. It was just something that can be experienced. It’s like the color red. You can’t describe it. You just have to see it with your own eyes. To understand Boiler Room, you must go to it.

You must get boiled.

I left the craziness at around 4:30ish am.

Why?

I was tired and wanted to go home. Especially after dancing all night the night before in Paris.

Plus, I felt that I got what I wanted out of Boiler Room, so I was ready to crash early (relatively speaking) so that I could explore more of Berlin the next day, more well-rested.

Sue me.

Unfortunately, what proceeded over the next 2 hours was perhaps the craziest experience of my life thus far and resulting in me crashing very much not early.

I was pondering how to tell this story in the most entertaining and fun way, in a way that I would continue to laugh at years into the future. In a way that accurately conveys my thought process, feelings, and ideas in those moments.

What has resulted is below. I hope you enjoy.

Time: ~4:25 am

I walk with Annabel out from the mosh pit of dancing people to pick up my jacket and head home relatively early to the hostel. My right leg does not seem to be working as well as my left leg for some unknown reason.

Too much dancing, I presume.

*ponders if horses walk differently after they walk/dance/trot for a while, if you know what I mean*

Annabel returns to the mosh put, and I walk about 5 minutes to the shuttle that takes Boiler Room goers from the warehouse to the nearest metro station. I hop on the bus with many drunk people, the majority of them dressed in black.

10 minutes later, we make it to the metro station. Broken glass bottles from the Boiler Room goers everywhere. I descend into the metro station, and wait with everyone else for the metro that heads kinda toward the center of Berlin, though I need to transfer to another metro line heading north after around 15 stops on this metro line.

Time: ~5:15 am

Wake up at a random metro station, dazed and confused. There is no one on the train. I go to check my phone to see where I am.

Update: My phone is nowhere on my person.

*frantically searches all pockets, the bench where I’m sitting, and the entire train car I’m in*

*doesn’t find my phone anywhere*

*curses in English*

*curses in Russian*

*curses in French* (my study abroad hasn’t been completely useless!)

*methodically checks my entire person and the entire train car again for my phone*

*Grudgingly accepts the fact that my phone has been stolen while I was sleeping on a train at 5 am in Berlin*

Well, fuck. That is a bit of a pickle, innit?

I stay on the train for another 3 stops because I literally don’t know what else to do.

*gets shit together*

*decides to get off the train to reassess the situation*

I get off the train station and conveniently, there are no maps of the metro in the station at all.

Fan-fucking-tastic!

I ascend up into the street, and there is no one in sight. No people. No cars. I’m actually in the middle of nowhere.

I find a metro map of the Blaschkoallee station, and I have absolutely no idea where I am. The curve of the river is not familiar at all from the river maps I have been seeing in central Berlin, and I cannot for the life of me understand German.

*Sees the word “Sud” on the map, which means “south” in some form in pretty much every European language I’ve come across thus far.*

*Deduces that I’m in south Berlin*

And by south Berlin, I mean veeeeeeeery south Berlin. Like 10 miles south of the city center.

*Looks at the map for landmarks that I may know from my extraordinarily limited time in Berlin*

*finds the abandoned airport that I already thought was south Berlin, but is significantly more north than my current position*

*realizes that I am even more south than anticipated*

At this point, I know that I need to head back north toward central Berlin, then make my way back to the hostel from there.

I have no idea what the transfer station I need to get on is called, but I remember it sounded something like “Yorkshire” because I made a joke about Yorkshire pudding to Annabel when we transferred there on the way to Boiler Room.

Ok, I need to get to the Yorkshire station, then hop on the northern train that gets out near the hostel.

*Descends back into the subway station*

*Waits 10 minutes for the subway to arrive*

Time: ~5:35 am

*Gets on the train heading north*

I am wide awake for the entire train ride, then get off at the Yorkshire stop.

Once I get there, I learn the station is called “Yorckstraße”.

Close enough to Yorkshire for my purposes.

*Gets off the metro, ascends to street level to get to the connecting above-ground platform*

*Sees a train depart as I approach the stairs*

*Realizes that was very likely the train I needed to take northward because there are a lot of people on that train, and deduces that people are probably heading into the city center at 5:30 in the morning for work or more partying*

At this point, I had no definite clue which way was north. That is a serious problem, as that will determine which direction train I get on.

*finds a bus station that has an extremely faded and tattered map of the surrounding area, identifies the direction of north by comparing the faded bus map to the surrounding streets and shops*

Great! Direction of north secured.

*ascends into the elevated metro station*

The next train arrives in 20 minutes. It is less than 5 degrees Celsius, and I am very cold.

*curses in English*

*curses in Russian*

Paces back and forth on the train station for 10 minutes to keep warm.

For some reason, there is a bakery-like shop at this elevated train station, and I am the only one on the platform.

Time: ~5:45 am

*bakery-shop worker starts singing a song in Turkish or Arabic, I’m not sure*

*keeps pacing along the train station to keep warm*

Holy shit, that was a cold train platform.

(The bakery worker and I definitely thought the other was crazy.)

At this point, I was laughing at my situation and was smiling a ton. I was honestly having a great time on what seemed to me to be such a great adventure. After all, if we can’t laugh at our failures and shitty situations, we can’t truly enjoy life. Only when we accept our problems with joy and laughter can we truly experience life to the fullest.

I really only had 3 things at this point:

Train ticket
Great health and spirits
An unwavering, steadfast, borderline delusional sense that it will all work out somehow.

What I didn’t have was my phone, any way of contacting the outside world, no money, and no knowledge of the local language.

I accepted these facts with great peace because there was honestly no way to change any of them. If I couldn’t change them, I figured there was absolutely no reason to stress out about it. That’s a problem for tomorrow when I’m back around people I know and in a safe environment.

*train FINALLY arrives*

*steps onto the train*

*physically shudders from the warmth of the train*

I decided to go on the train until the Friedrichstr station, because that was the farthest station I knew did not overshoot the location of my hostel, based on the metro map that showed the relative positions of the river, train station, and the Brandenburg Gate.

*Gets off the train*

It is a maze to get out of the train station to the ground level. I finally make it to the road.

*Realized I don’t know where north is*

*Find a very-not-detailed, extraordinarily grainy ferry map of the region and proceed to walk in the general direction I think I need to go*

*Sees the Reichstag building, which tells me I’m going in the completely wrong direction*

*Turns around and proceeds forward*

*Recalls the Russian phrase “There is no such thing as going backward, you simply turn around and go forward.”*

*chuckles*

I see a bridge that I think might be the bridge I need to cross the river to get to the hostel.

Time: ~6:15 am

*looks at the bridge, and notices that the texture of the pedestrian crossing is not the same as the bridge I had crossed earlier in the evening when I was first going to the hostel because the bridge I crossed had a very distinctive texture to the sidewalk*

*walks to the next bridge along the river*

*recognizes that this bridge does, in fact, have the right distinctive texture for the pedestrian sidewalk of the bridge I crossed earlier in the evening*

*crosses the bridge*

3 blocks later, I see the hostel! I made it!

Time: ~6:30 am

I walk up the 4 flights of stairs, and my keycard does not work for the hostel dorm. Great.

*knocks*

No answer.

At this point, I assume the rest of my group is not in the room, or dead.

*heads downstairs to the front desk*

*gets keycard re-encoded*

*goes back up the 4 flights of stairs*

*card works*

Turns out, everyone was very deeply asleep.

*wakes up Lara to ask if she knows who has the key to our safe that has my Mac so that I can check where my phone is* (Sorry for waking you up, Lara!)

Lara didn’t know who had the key, so I said “fuck it” and we both went to sleep.

And so, about 2 hours after I left Boiler Room, I finally made it back to my warm hostel bed.

No phone, no money, no directions?

No problem.

Remember Annabel when you asked me at Boiler Room what I rated the night on a scale of 1-10, and I said 8? Well now, it’s a 10. :)

Saturday 11/18

We woke up at noon in the warm hostel room, and I proceeded to tell everyone my crazy story about how I got back to the hostel the night before.

They couldn’t believe it.

To be fair, I hardly believed it myself, and I lived through it all.

Crazy!

They pretty much all agreed that my navigational prowess was impressive. If Anna had been the one who got lost yesterday, I doubt we would’ve even seen her again.

With Joe being up, I was able to unlock our locker and retrieve my Mac, where I found that my phone was at some random house in southern Berlin.

I had this delusional idea that we could go there and retrieve it, as if the person there would just give me the phone despite the fact that they stole it off of me the night before.

Joe talked some sense into me, and I locked my iPhone remotely through my Mac.

I then proceeded to look up the travel insurance policy for UC exchange students, and found that I could get a reimbursement as long as a police report is filed within a day of the incident.

We left the hostel around 1:30 in the afternoon for lunch, and hit up a ramen place that was a medium walk away from the hostel.

Along the way, we saw a wooden playground that had lots of scrapwood and tools lying around. I had read about these playgrounds in northern Europe, where children are given free rein to build their own playgrounds and explore their creativity. It was quite exciting!

Near the ramen place was a tire swing, so naturally I swung on it while we waited in line for a table to open up at the ramen place.

I swung super high and prepared for an elegant dismount midair.

The dismount was anything but elegant, and I fell on my ass while Gibs recorded it all on video.

Nice!

We eventually made it inside the ramen restaurant, and quickly ordered some ramen.

It was delicious! Got a minor food coma afterward, but that happens to everyone sometimes, I guess.

After lunch, we headed to a local police station to report my lost phone, but the disgruntled officer told us to just file an online incident report and they would get back to us within 24 hours.

The Berlin police do not seem to be the most helpful police out there, unfortunately.

I filed the police report on Annabel’s phone, and then our entire group proceeded to walk to the Berlin Wall Memorial around 20 minutes away.

That Berlin Wall Memorial was extremely cool, and I recommend it highly. We saw actual wall segments, and it was really interesting to see that there were completely different streetlights in East and West Berlin. Thanks Lara for pointing them out! At the memorial, you could see pictures of an old church that lost most of its constituency when the Berlin Wall was created. The church remained in East Berlin, and its churchgoers were left stuck on the other side of the wall in West Berlin.

Wild.

After the Berlin Wall Memorial, we headed to a metro station and to Brandenburg Gate, which I had visited the night before. We took some great photos with the Gate and Reichstag, and I particularly loved how grand the German flags looked waving in the wind. Such beautiful colors. Such grandness. Simply magnificent!

After the Reichstag, we walked over to a beautiful memorial to the Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The memorial was hundreds of large stone columns, eerily spaced across uneven land. It was one of my favorite stops of the entire trip.

Afterward, we briefly visited the nearby Führerbunker, then headed to a large mall for food.

There were so many chocolates in that mall. It has been a long while since I’ve wanted to buy everything in a store, and that chocolate shop was one of them.

I settled for currywurst at the food court instead.

After our nice snack break, we walked back to the metro to head back to the hostel, and along the way, found a Christmas market.

A Christmas market! In Berlin! How lovely!

We proceeded to get deliciously made hot wine and pretzels while enjoying the lovely festivities in the air. Joe somehow ran into his friend from the UK, the chances of that happening must be extraordinarily close to 0. Wow.

I particularly loved the sense of community and joy that everyone had at that market. It was freezing cold and pitch black, but everyone was gathered together to celebrate the holidays. How amazing!

We successfully metroed back to the hostel and chilled for a bit. Gibbles was very tired and decided to go to bed early; I didn’t feel like a fancy sit down dinner, so I stayed at the hostel for some me-time and writing.

The lobby of the hostel had delicious free tea and coffee, perfect for keeping me company during my writings!

The gang eventually came back from their lovely Vietnamese dinner, and we all headed to a shop around the corner to buy some food because I was starving.

After buying some chips (great shout there, Lara!), a chocolate bar, and some Snickers (I know that’s not the healthiest combination but it was the best they had), we headed back to the hostel lobby to eat our “food” and chill some more.

Then, we all headed upstairs for bed. What a long and lovely day in Berlin!

Side note: Interestingly, I’ve found that getting my phone stolen was a blessing in disguise. Besides giving me a wonderful story to tell back home, unplugging digitally has been very nice. I enjoy the present moment more, enjoying walking around the city more, and once I got over the habit of checking my pocket for my phone, felt extremely liberated from digital struggles and stresses. I found I enjoyed my conversations with my friends, the sightseeing, and Berlin’s culture a lot more when I wasn’t distracted by electronics.

It’s a great reminder to unplug every so often when I get the chance.

Sunday 11/19

We woke up around 10:30 and I promptly bought a train ticket to return back home to Paris. Now that I have no phone, there is no way to access the Interrail app.

And with it, no way to get on trains for free. Hence, the need to buy new tickets online!

Around 11ish, we headed out for the first meal of the day — currywurst! Delicious and yummy German sausages.

What’s great about Joe being vegan is I can always try his food but he can never try mine. Lol

Thanks for sharing, Joe!

I was leaving tonight back to Paris on the train, but the rest of the gang decided to try to get into an extremely prestigious nightclub called Berghain. They were planning their outfits and all the crazy steps they needed to do and try to get in.

That problem was avoided for me because I was training home that night.

We walked over from the currywurst place to the Fernsehturm, an extremely tall radio tower built by the Soviets during communist rule in Berlin. Nearby was the city hall that we checked out and a historic Protestant Church that we visited as well. Across the river was the Berlin Cathedral, which was quite possibly the most beautiful church exterior I’ve seen and a great sight to behold in Berlin. Highly recommend.

After the Berlin Cathedral, we all headed over to the metro station to our next step. Joe, Lara, and Gibs were lagging behind me and Annabel, who were having an absolutely lovely conversation about the differences between the US, Europe, and Australia (hi Annabel!!). One great thing about this Berlin trip is I feel I’ve gotten a lot closer to Annabel during it, and I’m super happy about that. Hi Annabel!!

We took the metro to the East Side Gallery, which was one of the highlights of the entire Berlin trip. The East Side Gallery is the longest art display in the entire world, and stretches about a mile long. It is a series of paintings painted directly onto remnants of the Berlin Wall. It was absolutely amazing, and I recommend it tremendously.

We crossed the river after walking along the entire East Side Gallery, where we got delicious Indian food for lunch and had an unexpectedly deep conversation about our biggest regrets in life. Great shout there!

And then we proceeded to go to by far the coolest part of Berlin, in my humble opinion: Templehof Airfield. If there is one thing you should do in Berlin, it is to visit the Templehof Airfield. It’s a massive location in south-central Berlin that used to be a private, then a Nazi, and then an Allied Powers airport. Now, it is a public park where you can walk, bike, and scooter around, with tons of walking trails, gardens, and informational signs to boot.

Naturally, we all rented scooters and scootered around the abandoned runways. It was such a great time!

We eventually scootered around the entire complex and made it to the bus stop to our next stop, the Jewish Museum in Berlin. The museum had some of the most unique architecture I had ever seen — profound, eerie, bleak are the best 3 words I could use to describe it. The exhibits were insightful and very interesting, and I loved learning more about Ashkenazi Jews (Jews from central or eastern Europe) and Judaism in general. There was one exhibit of 1,000 faces made from steel plates that was the most reflective and profound for me.

What a lovely museum, it was.

Random aside, but Hebrew is an insane written language. The fact that those letters mean something and people can read them is so baffling and cool to me.

After the museum, the girls decided to head back to the office while Joe and I proceeded on a wild adventure around central Berlin.

Stop 1: The BCG Berlin office. Gotta get excited about my summer internship!

Stop 2: Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie was so cool. It was where Soviet and American tanks faced off in te height of the cold war, and they still have the old US Army shack and signs at the location. Naturally, we took a ton of pictures, and I felt surprisingly patriotic for both the American and Soviet sides. Having Soviet heritage but growing up in America is a very strange feeling, especially in Europe where both cultures are felt so heavily.

In Berlin especially!

Stop 3: Checkpoint Charlie McDonald’s. Now that was a much-needed stop! The McDonald’s was where American soldiers used to eat as the McDonald’s was on the American side, and I have to say, those were some yummy nugs!

After MacDo, Joe and I metroed back to the hostel and chilled there for a bit. The rest of the gang got ready to go out to the famous nightclub, while I packed up to head home on the train.

I said my goodbyes, and briskly walked to the beautiful Berlin central train station.

I thought my journey back home would be a straightforward one, but boy, was I wrong!

My train to Hamburg, Germany (where the hamburger was invented!) was delayed by 30 minutes.

Therefore, I missed my connecting train in Hamburg to Frankfurt, from where I would’ve proceeded to go to Paris.

So I found myself in Hamburg, in a random northern German town, with no way to get home.

I found a local McDonald’s at the train station that had lightning-fast WiFi and chilled there for a bit before figuring out my transportation options back to Paris.

I settled on a flight out of the Hamburg airport, since I couldn’t be bothered with more connecting trains after the fiasco I went through. So, I bought the plane ticket to Paris (I will be landing earlier than if I took the trains as planned, lol) and then called Mama and Papa for the first time that weekend.

They had a crazy weekend camping trip with our Boy Scout troop, and I told them about my phone and Hamburg situations. What a crazy conversation!

Afterward, I sat next to a random family that turned out to speak Russian. They were Ukranian refugees, fleeing their country from war.

I bought them some food and helped them figure out which train they needed to get on. I then headed to the bus station to go north to the Hamburg airport.

Meeting that Ukranian family put things into such perspective for me. I already was in high spirits despite my shitty travel situation, but my travel problems were nothing compared to what that Ukranian family was going through, in a foreign land, not speaking the local language, fleeing a war-torn country, having no money and only one suitcase and their Ukranian passports.

My situation is perfect compared to theirs.

I made it to the Hamburg airport eventually, and this is where I find myself now — typing away on my laptop in northern Germany at 3:57 am, with a flight to catch soon and nothing but my optimism and a backpack of belongings.

Godspeed. Life is good. What an adventure!

I successfully made it onto the flight, back to Paris, on the RER B train back to Gare du Nord, and Vélibed home to my apartment by 10 am. I fell asleep and awoke 5 hours later.

And so, quite possibly the craziest weekend of my life has come to an end! I have made it back, safe and sound to Paris after so many travel issues. Yet the entire time, it seemed like just a great adventure around Europe! Optimism is truly a great thing.

Berlin has been one of my favorite cities I’ve visited, full of so much history and culture. I would love to live there one day.

Must-dos in Berlin: