Famous Places, and Public Transit - Berlin, Sep. 14

My first couple days in Germany have certainly been busy! I've spent a lot of time just exploring various places nearby and trying to familiarize myself with the area. Let's jump in!

After finishing my post yesterday, I decided to explore some more on foot. I realized my hostel is pretty close to the Brandenburg Gate, so I decided to head in that direction. Along the way, I crossed a bridge that had a view of the Berlin TV tower.

I got to the gate about an hour before sunset, and managed to nab this super cool photo!

From there I decided to head west, since I was interested in seeing the west half of Berlin. Although that didn't really go quite as planned, since I just started walking through the Tiergarten for a while instead. For those who don't know, it's a large park that ends at the Brandenburg Gate. And I didn't realize just how large it is until I started walking through it. I got less than a quarter of the way through before deciding to head back, otherwise I would have been out way past dark.

But the park itself is quite nice! There are a couple roads that run through it, but they're easy enough to get away from. The paths I walked on were very quiet, despite a relatively large number of people commuting through on foot, bike, or scooter. There were a few groups having picnics and playing frisbee, it was a nice area to be in.

​After heading back, I decided to visit Checkpoint Charlie. I don't know a lot about it, but decided I'd at least visit to get a picture. It's definitely one of the stranger tourist attractions I've come across, since it's just been left in the middle of a road that's actively used today. It felt a bit out of place, there wasn't much around to indicate it's there.

On my way to Checkpoint Charlie, I found an awesome street: Friedrichstrasse. A long section of it has banned cars, and it was so nice to walk through! The center had 2 lanes for bikes going each direction, and the sidewalks were expanded into the rest of the road. The local shops also expanded into the street a bit, such as seating for restaurants or these greenhouse-looking things in the image below. Despite how many people were there, it was incredibly quiet, you could actually hear people from across the street! Crossing the street also felt way safer than crossing a road full of cars, since the most dangerous thing here is bikes. This has definitely been one of my favorite areas so far!

One thing I would love to know is how to find more places like this. I only happened to stumble across it in my adventure, there aren't any obvious indications that it existed. Even Google Maps shows it as a normal car road, which I guess means this is something new. I would love to find more of these.

I went back to my hostel, and decided to check out the social area to try and meet some people. I found a group that was very welcoming, and had people from a variety of places including the UK, Ireland, France, and Egypt. They were mostly fun to hand out with, though I was a bit put off by a couple things, including drinking, smoking, talking about hard drugs, and going clubbing later that night. Those are all things I tend to avoid, so I found it a bit difficult to socialize. I expect I'll meet more people like that on this trip, but I do hope I can meet some people who are not quite so fond of those things.

After that, I pretty much just went to bed. There were 4 other people in my room who were pretty quiet and kept to themselves. I was a bit interested in talking to them to learn more about them, but I'll take quiet roommates over rowdy ones. The sleep wasn't too bad, except for one person who packed up at left around 4am (!?). The beds even have curtains that slide across so you can have at least some privacy.

Each dorm is locked behind a keycard, which has a bathroom inside. Except this bathroom only has a sink and a shower, no toilet. For that, there's a separate bathroom accessible from the hallway. Both the dorm and hallway bathroom are locked behind keycards, so if you need to pinkel in the middle of the night, you'd better not forgot your key card!

I didn't take a shower this morning because there's no soap or shampoo available, and I haven't bought any. But from what I could tell from the others using the shower, it only runs for 10 seconds before shutting off! I actually timed it, it's 10 seconds! So you have to keep hitting a button over and over for the entire duration of the shower. I understand wanting to save water, but that's just ridiculous!

Okay, enough gripes about cheap accommodations. This morning, I finally bought a Eurail pass. I was intentionally waiting until I got into Europe, just in case something went wrong so I wouldn't have to deal with the refund process. Normally your pass has to be shipped to you before you travel, but Eurail has an app that you can store your pass on and gain access to it immediately.

I bought a Global Pass, which allows me to use almost any of the trains in any EU countries (plus a couple others, such as Switzerland). It covers 15 travel days in a 2 month period, which is perfect for this trip since I'll be visiting just over a dozen places by the end of October. I've heard the Eurail pass can sometimes be more expensive than booking directly with individual rail companies, but that's only if you book at least a month in advance. Train ticket prices seem to be fairly similar to plane ticket prices, where it gets very expensive closer to the travel date. Similarly, longer routes tend to be more expensive too.

And since I need flexibility on this trip, the Eurail pass seems like a no-brainer to me. The pandemic has already caused my trip plans to change, so I won't be surprised if that happens again. Plus it's a lot easier if I don't have to deal with learning each country's rail websites, it's a lot easier to just work with through the one app.

I also took some time to finally create a more detailed trip plan using the Eurail app. This will likely change, but it at least shows the places I'm intending to visit while I'm here.

In addition to buying the Eurail pass, I bought a day pass for the public transit in Berlin. I had considered the bike and scooter sharing services, but there were a few things that made me decide against it. I don't know where you're allowed to ride, I don't know who has right of way in various situations, there are multiple companies that each have their own rental rules and prices, etc. Taking public transit solved a lot of these issues, so I found it easier to just go with that.

There's a company here called Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), which runs basically all of the public transit in Berlin, including the busses, trams, S-Bahn and U-Bahn (which are just above and underground rail lines). Any BVG passes allow you to take any of these transportation modes, which gives a lot of flexibility. And all their vehicles are bright yellow, so they're easy to identify.

Additionally, BVG has an app that you can use to purchase tickets, find time tables for any station, plan routes to any destination, and even shows where all the ride sharing scooters are. I've not used it to its full extent, but it looks like a really good app.

Tickets aren't checked frequently, you can hop on and off any vehicle wherever you like. Occasionally a staff member will come through and check tickets, which very nearly happened to me today. The ticket checker was coming through as my train pulled up to a station. A guy near me hopped off the train, and this ticket checker was determined to check this guy's ticket. So he hopped off too, and the doors closed before he finished. I was pretty amused by this. And yes, I had a valid ticket with me!

Anyways, my first trip of the day involved visiting TU Berlin. As I've mentioned before, I'm interested in doing a PhD in Europe, so I want to visit various schools on this trip to get a feel for them. And after visiting TU Berlin, I'm not a huge fan. I was expecting to see lots of students around since I went near lunch time on a Tuesday, but there were very few people around. Maybe they're operating differently because of the pandemic? Or there's something about German schools I don't understand?

On top of that, I don't really like the architecture around the campus, which is very similar to the rest of Berlin. All the buildings are huge, each made of large gray concrete bricks. Entrances are often hard to find, buildings are only sometimes labelled with what's in them, and everything is a depressing color. Plants are rare, almost everywhere has been paved. This architecture just doesn't feel inviting. And given Berlin's history, that might be the point.

Another off-putting aspect of the campus is that there's a major road running through the middle of it. So if you need to get to the other side of campus, you have to cross 6 lanes of traffic. This road also creates a lot of noise pollution, so it's not very pleasant to be around. Although one nice aspect is that it's well built for multiple modes of transit, including cars, bikes, and pedestrians. There are physically separated routes for each transit mode, including a separated parking area so traffic isn't slowed down by people parking. Neat!

On that note, I've noticed a few places have dedicated bike roads, usually denoted as a red path. In the places where these exist, they look pretty good. They're often physically separated from the car traffic with more than just a painted line, and pedestrians know to stay off them. Though it seems that at each cross road, cyclists are dumped into the intersection with all the cars, and the only separation is a painted line. On top of that, there's a lot of places that don't have any bike infrastructure whatsoever. It's possible that there are specific roads that cyclists are meant to take like in Amsterdam, but I don't know. I can at least say the bike infrastructure here is the best I've seen in person so far.

I did explore areas of the campus away from the main road, and there are some nice pedestrian areas covered by trees all around. These were nice and quiet and well shaded, so going between buildings is pleasant despite my other complaints above.

After exploring TU Berlin, I decided to try out the public transit some more, since I bought a day pass. There wasn't anywhere in particular I wanted to visit, so I found the nearest bus stop and hopped on the next bus. I then hopped off next to an U-Bahn station, and got onto the next available train for a couple stops. Both were really easy to navigate, and rides come every few minutes so it's not a huge issue if you miss one.

On top of that, most of these vehicles have screens showing the next 3 stops, plus all of the connections that can be made at the next stop. And there are a lot of connections! Each stop usually had a dozen or so busses nearby in addition to other U-Bahns running at that station. I checked the BVG website, and they have over 200 different bus routes! The only thing I haven't tried yet is the tram, but I assume that's very similar.

One downside I've found to the public transit is the noise. The trams that drive by have a constant high pitched whine to them, the busses have very loud engines, the S-Bahns make a lot of noise when they go overhead, and the U-Bahn stations echo all the noise to an uncomfortable level. But that's the only complaint I've found so far, I'm impressed with the public transit here!

After my random public transit adventure, I decided to head to a specific destination, which is another hostel I'm thinking about staying at tomorrow night. It's themed like a space ship, where all the beds are "capsules", and it seems like something I should try once. I wanted to check it out in-person since I had time for it, and it gave me an excuse to use the public transit more.

The nearest U-Bahn station was on the other side of the block, so there was a short walk to the hostel. This happened to be another very quiet area away from car traffic, and it was very pleasant to walk through. One intersection had a nice little park area with seats, a fountain, and a few hundred pigeons. Someone brought a bag of seeds, and all the birds were flocking around her. It was pretty fun to watch.

Something else interesting I noticed while I was there: you could hear and feel the U-Bahns underneath as they went by, it felt like a tiny earthquake. Makes me wonder how much space there is between the tunnels and the ground...

Speaking of underground, there was a main street between the station and the hostel, which could be traversed by an underground pathways for pedestrians. So you don't have to risk your life by walking in front of 2-ton death machines, you can just go below them!

Finding the entrance to the hostel was a bit difficult. It's part of a building that has a few other businesses in it, but there was no obvious sign of the hostel entrance. I've noticed this on other buildings too, where places don't appear to be well labelled, you're just expected to know where to go. I spent a few minutes wandering around until discovering a sticker for it on the inside of one of the glass doors (which were tinted and reflected a lot of light). It turns out the hostel is on the second floor, so I had to go up an escalator that wasn't working.

From there I found the front desk and asked to look around. There are a few rows of "capsules", each having a set of doors that can be closed for privacy. Additionally, each one has outlets and apparently a fan if you need to keep cool at night. There's also a mirror if you need it, they look very well equipped. I had meant to look at the bathrooms too, but forgot about it. From the website, it looks like there are individual bathrooms, each with a sink, toilet, and shower. I don't know for certain whether I'll stay there tomorrow night, but it's certainly an option.

After that I needed some food, and attached to that building is a doner stand. That's another German food I've heard of, so I knew I had to grab one. There was both a window to order from outside, and an entrance to order from inside, so I chose to go inside. It looked a lot like a Subway, where you can choose the ingredients you want as you order. I don't know the German words for each ingredient, so I asked the guy working if he spoke English. And he didn't. Fortunately I managed to struggle my way through the order in German, mostly by just agreeing to each ingredient as he offered them.

And I'm glad I did, because it tasted really good! It had a very rich set of flavors, and the sauce really did it justice. I think the Subway comparison is pretty accurate, because it's basically a large sandwich with certain ingredients. But this was definitely better than any Subway sandwich I've had, and it only cost 4 Euros! So it's even cheaper than Subway!

That's pretty much everything I've done in Berlin so far. I know I haven't been here long enough to talk about it like a local, but I think I've seen enough to have a few conclusions.

The public transit here is really good, and I wish more places had services that came even close to BVG. The places where you can get away from cars are awesome, I love how quiet they are despite all the people transiting through them. And some of the local cuisine is awesome, I've had some really good food here.

But it feels a lot like a typical US city, except with very large concrete buildings that don't feel very inviting. There may be some bias in my view of Berlin based on where I happen to be staying, but that's the general feel I've gotten so far. So many of the buildings here are inhumanly large, and have dull colors to them. Cars still dominate many of the streets, and make so much noise all the time.

I also have to admit, I'm already missing some of the niceties and familiarity of living at home, which may be influencing my views of Berlin. It's been a bit stressful trying to figure out everything on my own, especially while having to use a different language. But I think I'll get used to adventuring by myself. I think another source of my stress could be caused by Berlin being such a busy city, and I may feel more calm in other places. I'll keep pushing onwards! I'll be in new places soon, so there's new things to look forward to!