Alex is abroad in Munich, Germany, until August 2009.

First, see Alex’s tour of historical Berlin.

So I gave you the delightfully historical and educational post, but that wasn’t all that I did with my time in Berlin. Our days were consumed by tours and museums, but we did get some much needed freedom at night to explore the social side of Germany’s capital city.

Despite being sick (naturally a cold got passed around to all of us just before we left), and tired from a day of exploration, some friends and I decided that we needed to go out and check out some bars in the area. Wandering through the city at night, it was surprisingly quiet until we would pass a crowded bar or club and get a brief moment of thumping music and loud voices. We ended up settling on a car called “The Chillout Lounge,” despite it being largely empty and rather unimpressive, simply because we had a large group of people and were tired of searching for something else. After our first round of drinks, the bar was about to close so we decided to head elsewhere. Much of our group headed back to the hostel, as it was about 1 a.m., but three of us headed to the next location.

We only had to walk about 50 yards before we found exactly what every American in Europe wants to find: an Absinthe bar. Naturally we strolled right in to the hole-in-the-wall bar and sat down at one of the many old wooden tables in a corner. The waiter came over and lit the candle on our table and took our orders. Though I chose not to try my hand at this infamous alcohol, I got to watch my friends experience it. It is quite the process: it is served in an oversized shot glass, with a spoon, matches, a sugar cube, and a little bit of water. First, they soaked the sugar cubes in the alcohol, then placed them on the spoon, propped over the glass. Then they lit the sugar on fire, until it became nothing more than a liquid, dumped that and the water into the glass, mixed it together and drank quickly. Unfortunately this place also closed about an hour after we got there, so we were forced out onto the Berlin streets at about 2 a.m.

Despite our concerns, our program director had assured us that the U-Bahn would definitely be running in Berlin all night long, so when we stumbled to the U-Bahn station only to find it closed, we were a little taken aback. Alright, well maybe it’s just that station, we thought, and we caught a bus and took it to one of the larger U-Bahn stations, only to find another gated hole in the ground. Well, hey, it was a beautiful night and we weren’t too far from the hostel (at least this is what we told ourselves). So we decided to forgo the many taxis in the area, like any true student on a budget, and hit the streets for a nice stroll home. Our hostel was really just a straight shot away down one main sequence of streets, and we tracked our progress by passing many gated U-Bahn stations. It was eerily quiet for 2:30 a.m. in a huge city, and our path was dotted only with people surrounding small Döner stands (a staple late-night Turkish food stand). Half way through we walked right through an entirely empty Checkpoint Charlie, which earlier in the day had been crawling with tourists and tour buses. It was a surreal experience walking through such a historic site, and seeing absolutely no one there but the German soldier’s face looking down at us as we walked through without a second glance. At 3:00 a.m. we finally made it to the hostel, looking forward to proving our overly confident program director wrong the next morning.

A few days later, on our last day in Berlin, we knew that we had to end our trip with a bang: it was time for a club. We had had an unsuccessful search for one the prior night, so this time we chose a club whose description said it had three full dance floors, figuring that it had to be at least one of the floors had to be good. We got a late start after going to see a musical, but made it to the club at about 1:30 a.m. It was definitely a popular place, because the line at the door took about 20 minutes to get through. But, man, was it liberating to show my ID, and get in being nothing more than a 20 year old. We checked our coats and hit the dance floor for the next four hours. Around 4:30 a.m. we decided that it was probably a good time to start heading back, since we had to catch a train in about six hours. Once again, we realized only after leaving the club that the U-Bahn wasn’t running…yet. Since it was so early in the morning we went on search for someplace to kill an hour of time until the U-Bahn started running again. As we walked away from the club, I noticed that we were walking along a piece of the wall, which was still standing. I couldn’t believe that such an important piece of history was just standing there yards away from me, while I was walking around in the middle of the night. After a while the wall dropped off, and a few minutes later we found a safe haven in a McDonald’s. We sat (and ate) there until we heard the U-Bahn and took it back home.

My trip to Berlin was an absolute whirlwind, and it is only now that I am reflecting on all my experiences that I realize how cool it was to be in such a historical place. Ok, so just about every place in Europe is historical, but Berlin’s fame rests mainly in recent history, which is, I think, what struck me. Though it is an extremely interesting place, it was a relief to come home to Munich today. Now that pre-semester is over I have some time for myself before class starts next Monday.

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