As beautiful as France is, I couldn't help but be blown away with Germany at Christmas time. Paris in the winter is quite grey, rains often and is overcast not only by clouds but a melancholy induced by a combination of the shitty weather and general Parisian demeanor. Having been here for 4 and a half months, Berlin was a wonderful change of scenery and well worth what it took to get there.
Erika has some not-so-distant family in a charming little village called Garlitz which sits about an hour's drive away from Berlin and consists of 380 people, a church, bakery and I'm told about dozen storks. She had known since she got to Europe that she would be spending her Christmas with her second cousin's family and I was generously invited to join a couple months in advance. In typical fashion, due in part to our tendancy to procrastinate as well as our lack of fluid funds, we waited until the very last minute to buy our train tickets. They were bound to be expensive given the heavy traffic which is a given for that holidy week, and we exhausted many avenues in order to find a more affordable mode of transportation. There are certain factors which make it necessary for me to travel under the radar, so it seemed that the train was the best option. I'll save my faithful readers the boring details and suffice it to say that it cost me about 300€ (which with today's exchange rate translates to $417.69 - about what it cost me for my transatlantic flight from Dayton to Paris) to take the train to Berlin and back. If you're not familiar with standard European train fares, that's rail-way robbery.
Despite the high price tag of the 1 week vacation, I couldn't be happier with how it went. Our hosts were overwhelmingly kind and welcoming, making me feel like one of the family during a holiday which made me miss my own. It was also very refreshing to be in a country of such apparently nice people. Perhaps it's because I've been in Paris, a place not known for its hospitality, that I was so impressed with the public. I couldn't imagine standing on the streets here looking at a map to have a passerby stop his bike to ask me if I needed help - but it happened in Berlin. Also, everything is much cheaper there. In Paris I couldn't expect to fill my stomach at a food stand for less than around 5 or 6 euros, and that's if I find an inexpensive place. In Berlin you can find hearty fast-food (which DOESN'T mean McDonalds) for about 2 euros anywhere you look.
We visited the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Oranienburg, which was as moving an experience as I'd imagined. I was always fascinated when in school we studied World War Two, especially by the details of the holocaust. It was always a leap of reality for me to imagine such horrifying events taking place, but to stand on the very grounds where they did adds a valuable and haunting perspective to my understanding of a time which so greatly impacted the world. I was struck when standing before the long fence that lined the front of the camp. Wrapped in its barbed wire loops it eerily stood behind a meter wide stretch of black rocks neatly arranged and decorated with a small post which warned that stepping on those rocks warranted the guards to shoot immediately. I stood there and wondered how many people must have taken that step to be released from the daily torment of life in the camp. It would have been escape.
The time away from France certainly showed me another side of European life and culture, and for that I'm so glad I went. From the fallen Wall to the Hookah Bars, Berlin has a lot to offer. I hope I get to spend a little more time there before I go back over the pond. Sure there's a lot more of this continent I'd like to see, but it's a town I'd love to see more of.
Tschüss
Alex
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