For quite a long time, whenever anyone would inquire about where in the world I would like to go, if I could go anywhere at the drop of a hat, I always responded that Germany was where I would want to go. I didn’t really have much basis behind it, other than the fact that I suppose I wasn’t aching to go visit the Motherland or be all weeabooey and say I wanted to go to Japan; ultimately, I think I always wanted to go somewhere where I could look and feel like a complete foreign tourist, and in my mind, Germany seemed to fit that bill.
Well, thanks to WORLDS, I had my excuse to visit Deutschland, and fulfill that line of thinking. Ultimately, I think I was certainly right, because I was very much the foreign tourist in Berlin, not speaking a lick of German, and aside from the litany of fellow Korean tourists also visiting for WORLDS, being very much in the minority of mostly white people faces.
But the thing is, now in hindsight, I don’t necessarily think that it was everything I had thought it would be.
Of course I’m not going to base my entire opinion of an entire country on barely 48 hours spent in Berlin, but I will say that Berlin was undoubtedly the most tourist-unfriendly place visited on this trip, and there aren’t many to put it up against, but also out of anywhere I’ve ever been to in my life.
Perhaps I’d just been spoiled by all the previous destinations, but everywhere prior to Berlin, English was spoken just about everywhere. Not that I expected everyone in Berlin to be able to speak English, but in particular places, like train stations, taxi drivers at airports or tourism counters, I was admittedly a little surprised that absolutely nobody spoke English at all. I can recollect a handful total people that spoke any English, and almost all of them were all in food service.
It wasn’t just the no-English that unnerved me at times, but it was just the attitude, and the kind of no-fucks given feeling that was a little rattling at times. Even walking down the street, checking out the remnants of the Berlin Wall that still stood near the Mercedes Benz Arena, I’d notice people staring at me intently, like I’m an alien from another planet. The best part is that in American media, there’s a stereotypical look that Germans are given, typically dressed kind of punk-ish, regardless of age; and at least from my own experiences walking around Berlin, they’re totally dead on. A bunch of Aryan looking people wearing lots of black, leather berets and studded accessories, with torn vests with punk-band looking logos on them; and of all ages, from young people mostly, to guys on the street who looked like they were in their 50s.
Thankfully, we had WORLDS to really occupy most of the one real full day in which we were in Berlin, and like Brussels, there’s nothing more I can really add to my thoughts about the event to this post. It was cool to see, and I’m glad to have experienced WORLDS, but as the event neared conclusion, I was eager to get out and actually explore a slice of Germany while I was still in town.
Unfortunately, partially due to the language barrier, as well as an aberration of a wreck on the tracks, Berlin’s public transportation was about as disastrous of an experience as it could possibly be. The city-wide metro system seemed standard and somewhat easy to decipher once a map was studied, but some freak accident on the rail prevented us from being able to get to our destination; and despite the volume and sophistication of Berlin’s metro system, there simply wasn’t a viable way around the wreck, leading to yet another expensive cab ride to get from point A to point B.
The regional transit system that supplements the metro system was even worse, with trains that didn’t even come close to adhering to the printed and posted schedules in our possession and posted in the stations. In the end, I made the conclusion that somehow, somehow, Berlin’s public transportation was somehow worse than Atlanta’s own colossal transit failure, MARTA. MARTA. And I rank famine, AIDS and Atlanta morning talk radio higher than MARTA.
Regardless, transportation woes aside, the mythical girlfriend and I were able to enjoy at least one tourist sight in the Brandenburg Gate; additionally, actually being Halloween, we witnessed a small flash mob breakout in front of it, of a bunch of people dressed as zombies doing the Thriller dance, before we left.
We also enjoyed one decent meal, when we went to basically what’s best described as a beer stock market, a restaurant, where the beer prices fluctuate based on the demand, and they have the screens that adjust on the fly to reflect such. Thankfully, a few people spoke English here, and we were able to pack away some sausages and schnitzel, and take that kind of fare off of the list of local eats.
One more cool thing was that, and it’s really not that big of a surprise considering the proximity, but the Holiday Inn in which were staying at was also where both SK Telecom and the Koo Tigers were staying, and prior to retiring for the evening, we saw numerous players on both teams just hanging out and chilling in the hotel lobby and bar. And for the one time this entire trip in which my ability to speak Korean came in handy, I was able to briefly chat with SKT’s MaRin (the MVP of WORLDS), and ask if he would take a quick photo with the mythical girlfriend and I.
Berlin was an interesting place, where I most certainly felt the biggest degree of culture shock. It’s definitely an edgier place than anywhere else visited while in Europe, and I’d be lying if I said I was itching to come back any time soon. Not to say that it was a miserable time being in Berlin, but I’m glad that we skipped the extra day in Berlin and went to Amsterdam instead prior to arriving.
But if anything at all, I can at least say that I’ve been to Germany, and that’s kind of like taking a little something off the ‘ol bucket list.
