Useful Information, Berlin

Favorite thing: After who knows how many trips to Berlin, and Germany in general, I have finally found places to wash clothes. In case anyone else has had problems tracking down a laundrymat in Berlin let me say that there is a pretty good one at Rosenthaler Platz only a couple of stops north of Alexander Platz. It is called Waschsalon Schnell & Sauber and the address is: Torstraße, 115. The guy that runs the place speaks a bit of English and they also sell coffee and snacks that you can nibble on while waiting. Thankfully it only takes about 40mins to wash & 30mins to dry. If you've ever used one of those machines that take hours to clean your clothes then you know what a pain that can be.

If this location isn't convenient then there is another company called Eco-Express that has locations across Berlin & in a few other German cities. The places I've visited didn't have help readily on hand but the machines seem easy enough to figure how to operate. The website for Eco-Express is: www.waschsalon.de

Favorite thing: Here are some feature films that introduce Berlin in an unusual way (in no particular order). All of them are critically acclaimed - and probably R-rated in the U.S.

Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin)

For a summary on the films plot see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_of_Desire

Director: Wim Wenders
Starring: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk, Nick Cave

// --------------------

Life Is All You Get (Das Leben ist eine Baustelle)

Review: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/154709/Life-Is-All-You-Get/overview

Director: Wolfgang Becker, Connie Walther
Cast: Jürgen Vogel, Christiane Paul, Ricky Tomlinson, Armin Rohde

// --------------------

Beyond Silence (Jenseits der Stille)

Review: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980612/REVIEWS/806120301/1023

Director: Caroline Link
Starring: Sylvie Testud, Howie Seago, Emmanuelle Laborit, Sibylle Canonica, Matthias Habich, Hansa Czypionka, Tatjana Trieb

// --------------------

Run Lola Run (Lola rennt)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_Lola_Run

Director: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri

// --------------------

Good Bye, Lenin!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Bye_Lenin!
Director: Wolfgang Becker
Cast: Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß, Chulpan Khamatova, Maria Simon, Alexander Beyer

// --------------------

The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Starring: Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur

Favorite thing: -

Every now and then VT members ask for guided walking tours.

Here are some links:

http://www.brewersberlintours.com/
http://www.insidertour.com/
http://www.berlinwalks.com/
http://www.newberlintours.com/nbt/

New Berlin Tours are FREE and take place daily in any kind of weather. They take about 3.5 hours. Tours in German, English and Spanish. They also offer free cycling tours.

Brewer's also offers a FREE tour. Daily departures at 1pm in front of the Bandy Brooks shop opposite Friedrichstraße station. The Best of Berlin day tour costs 12 Euro and departs at 10.30am at the same place. Other themed tours available. (No tours on some few dates like Christmas Day, New Year and Love Parade.)

Berlin Walks also has a big choice of themed tours. Their main tour costs 12 Euro (9 Euro for Welcome Card holders). From Meeting Point West it takes 4 hours, from Meeting Point East it is all walking.

Tour Times from Meeting Point West (taxi stand outside station Zoologischer Garten)
April - October: daily 10am and 2.30pm
November - March: daily 10am

From Meeting Point East (in front of Häagen Dazs, opposite S-Bahn station Hackescher Markt)
April - October: daily 10.30am and 3pm
November - March: daily 10.30am

Insidertour even offers an infamous Pub Crawl (12 Euro). The main tour starts at east and west meeting points and takes 4 hours, as above. Cost, likewise, 12 Euro (10 for Welcome Card Holders).

From Meeting Point West (McDonald's opposite the main entrance to the station Zoologischer Garten) at 10am and 2.30pm (April - Oct), and 10am (Nov - Mar).

From Meeting Point East (Coffeemamas at S-Bahn station Hackescher Markt) at 10.30am and 3pm (April - Oct) and 10.30am (Nov - Mar).

Their bicycle tours cost 20 Euro.

All other themed tours like Potsdam, Third Reich, etc. on the respective websites.

Favorite thing: The Athmosphere. But it is also a rough city, and a big one. You need to know where the nice spots are. This guide was very helpful to me:
Swinging Berlin
A survival guide to Berlin.

Fondest memory: Three days of party in a row!

Favorite thing: You will find few cities in Europe with such a lot of lakes, rivers and canals. That is why Berlin is called Spree-Athen (Athens on Spree). You can walk along nearly 500 kilometres along the riverbanks or lakesides. As this is far too exhausting, why not enjoy some spectacular views from the water? Boat tours are a great option to explore parts of the city. My favourite one is on the Spree, along Museumsinsel.

Those tours start at Friedrichsbrücke, between S-Bahn station Hackescher Markt and Berliner Dom.

Most operators offer tours from March - but sometimes not with daily schedules. But from April they operate daily. In general this goes on until the end of October, sometimes to the first days of November.

Favorite thing: Frederik William III. has his merits: The Prussian king founded the University of Berlin and pushed some reforms promoting freedom and equality. But in 1799 he had a weak moment when he invented the Prussian house-numbering system which still exists in Berlin. His idea was that, relative to the position of the City Palace*, the numbers count up on the right side of the street: 1,2,3,4,5 ... Quite simple, but at someplace the street ends and the numbers now continue to count up all the way back on the left.

According to Murphy's law, this u-numbering system will confuse you the most, the more important punctuality gets.

Say, you have a job interview at 10 a.m. in 171 XY-Strasse and the first number you see when you arrive at said street is number 53. You hasten up the street until it ends at a crossroads - and with number 85. The number of the house on the other side of the street reads 86. Familiar with the zigzag-system (even numbers on the left, uneven numbers on the right) you think that's o.k. So you cross the crossroads to find AB-Strasse. Now that's odd, where is 171 XY-Strasse? Answer: At the opposite end of XY-Strasse, opposing house No. 1 - you walked down the street on the wrong side and in the wrong direction. Be glad when you only arrive 10 minutes late for your interview.

Actually, this system fits the proverbial Prussian sense of orderliness well. It works like double-entry bookkeeping: When one account is being debited, another account is being credited, with the debits of each transaction equal to the credits it creates.
In our example, we have number 1 on the right hand side at one end of the street and number 171 on the other side of the street. That sums up to 172. Had we crossed the street when we first saw number 53, we would have found number 119. 53 + 119 = 172. You get the idea. And yes, I know, 85 + 86 is not quite exactly 172, but I did say the house-numbering system can be a bit confusing, didn't I?

(continues below)

Fondest memory: Now to make matters worse, Berlin has grown, well: somewhat, since 1799, and as you can imagine, extending a street can get difficult when using the u-numbering system. Hence, it can happen that you go down XY-Strasse and, without further notice, you are all of a sudden in GH-Strasse. Those responsible then thought, inventing a new street name was easier than to force 2,045 residents and shop owners to change their business cards and newspaper subscriptions.

You may feel lucky to have the zigzag-system in your hometown. But as I wrote someplace else, Berlin has something for everyone. We even have the zigzag-numbering system, you are so familiar with. Sometimes and someplace. Most often, however, when you thought you just got used to the u-system.
What, two different systems don't make it easier? Now you are difficult to please.

At least, you now know what to do when your taxi driver stops at number 15, not 150 as you requested. No need to issue a fatwa against Berlin's notoriously rude taxi drivers. Just remember Frederik William III. - and cross the street. And a last tip: Google Earth can cope with both systems fairly well.

* Yes, that's the thing that was partially destroyed by WWII, completely destroyed by the socialists, replaced by the Palace of the Republic (or Erich's Lamp Shop, with "Erich" standing for Erich Honecker, head of GDR's government for a couple of decades), and which is going to be rebuild. It's probably going to be No. 1 Soandso-Street, but who knows.

Favorite thing: Since the reunification of the city Berlin has undergone lots of new development, especially in the east. The skyline is dotted with cranes and new buildings going up, Berlin is actually one of the sparsest major capitals in Europe so they're trying to catch up fast.

Favorite thing: Somewhere is the east and somewhere is the west. If you just go for the directions it is no problem to navigate in Berlin. It is much more difficult – or even: impossible – to find the border from the time of political separation. The wall that separated the East and West meandered through the city, it was not just a demarcation line, and the more the city develops the less of those traces you will find.

However, they have kept some pieces of the Wall as a part of living history. Some are protected by a fence, like at the Topography of Terror (Topographie des Terrors), between Potsdamer Platz and Checkpoint Charlie, so tourists and locals cannot carry the blocks and concrete pieces away as souvenirs, or sell them like they once sold “Berliner Luft in Dosen”, tinned Berlin Air.

This stretch is a great reminder of the past, and if you are fit you can even make a longer walk, from Checkpoint Charlie past Gropius-Bau, Potsdamer Platz, Holocaust Memorial, and Brandenburger Tor, to Bahnhof Friedrichstraße. At times, you find the position of the Wall marked by cobble stones embedded in the pavement. Incredible how it separated the city and people, and how close it was to huge buildings. At Gropius-Bau you could not use the main entrance, and it went right past Brandenburger Tor and Reichstag. Former neighbours on the opposite street sides were suddenly separated by a wall, barbed wire and land mines – in fact, by worlds.

Whereas this area is very lively and buzzling with tourists, the atmosphere along the Wall near Ostbahnhof is still rather sombre because building in those empty wastelands has just started. The Wall, however, is spectacular there. Well-known artists have used the concrete slabs as canvasses for fabulous paintings, some are fading, some have been repainted and restored. It is a kilometre-long stretch of wall, called Eastside Gallery, following the line of the river Spree from the former checkpoint Oberbaumbrücke to Ostbahnhof.

Next to Checkpoint Charlie you can visit the Mauermuseum.

Fondest memory: -

From another tip (Mauermarkierung and more Traces of the Wall):
(formerly I did not have enough space here... now it is possible thanks to a VT update)

The Wall markings (Mauermarkierung) in Zimmerstraße near Checkpoint Charlie are close to being fun. You put one foot on the east side of the marking and one foot to the west, and somehow you cannot imagine what happened there.

If you want to get depressed go to Bernauer Straße (U-Bahn station of U 8; Bernauer Straße 111, 13355 Berlin-Mitte) which separtes the suburbs of Mitte (east) and Wedding (west).

Since 1998 there is a memorial site at the corner with Ackerstraße, and a Dokumentationszentrum Berliner Mauer.

Another incredibly distasteful site of the Wall is Invalidenfriedhof, north of Hauptbahnhof.

Near Brandenburger Tor you will find an installation of trees, memorial stones and border segments as the reminder of the Wall and the people who died here.

Read more info about this list of traces of the Wall here in another tip.

Photo of Mauermarkierung near Checkpoint Charlie in the original tip.