6/7/14 to 6/13/14 – Hildesheim/Berlin, Germany
Crew – Family! John Orta (Dad), Gigi Orta (Mother), Lily Orta (Older of two younger sisters).
If I had to rank the most terrifying languages to hear yelled at you, German undoubtedly wins. Maybe Russian can be more terrifying but I’ve never been so scared by an indigent 80-year-old German woman who was completely miffed that I did not A) understand German B) in front of her favorite café and C) was not a local. Needless to say, I moved away from her esteemed café.
To be clear this was Hildesheim: a small city in rural Germany that looked and felt like a recreation of the sound of music. Before someone calls me an uncultured swine, yes, I know the Sound of Music takes place in Austria, I played 2nd violin in our school musical. Either way Hildesheim was where we went after flying in from Amsterdam and Lily busted out a lovely piece on a German piano in an airport. Trust me it’s not much of a debate of which sibling has more talents.
Besides having a cute neighborhood Church that was 1100 years old the town hosted every quintessential part of a classic central European neighborhood. They had church bells, a laid back atmosphere, and cobblestone streets. The cherry on top was the 80-year-old ladies who drank a pint of beer with their morning pastry every day. The Irish claim to have a liver of steel. The Germans have ones made of adamantium. When my parents were not drowning their sorrows of having me as their child we explored the absolutely gorgeous countryside of ancient forests, unpolluted rivers and a soundtrack that could be best described as storybookesque.
After a few days in the countryside, we hopped on a train and viewed the beautiful German countryside while traveling South towards Berlin. Berlin itself stands as a modern-day political and industrial powerhouse that contains near endless gems to explore. We explored the graffiti and history of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie which have both been maintained to an impressive degree. After touching famous cement, we explored their world history and Gestapo museum. While the Gestapo sounds awfully like an iced food that will help you forget the fact that you have the dampness of a used towel in a German summer the Gestapo make you forget the sweat you have because you’re currently being interrogated by the Nazi secret police. Wow, that’s a sentence that I should delete but am far too proud of.
The Gestapo museum also represents the crucial fact that Germany and those who run it understand the history of the nation and which nation the bad guys in an American video game will be. While every nation loves its art and music, which I will get to in a multitude of other countries, nations have issues with their darker spots of history. The US remains deeply divided over slavery and “if slavery caused the civil war” and Turkey outright denies the Armenian genocide. The Germans, in contrast, have made it illegal to deny the holocaust and operate in Berlin one of the largest memorials to the Holocaust on the planet. Genocide memorials are sobering experiences and the way that artists choose to represent the systematic extinction of enormous groups of people (no matter what group) requires a degree of creativity that I certainly lack. So rather than try and explain the gravity of the atmosphere through my blog, I just recommend visiting these sites. But everything I have talked about came to a screaming halt because 3.5 million people in Berlin turned their attention to one hell of a global event.
Now I once fell asleep during a Golden State Warriors game at Dylan Thayer’s birthday party despite my friends best attempts to keep me awake. That was back in the days when they sucked and tickets were actually affordable so there was a silver lining of it not being a huge loss. The takeaway? I have no love of professional sports with three major exceptions. The French Open for some reason I find enjoyable. Possibly because I enjoy watching Nadal obliterate everyone, hard to tell. Second, the summer and winter Olympics are absolute fire to watch. Biathlon will always remain the greatest sport. If you have not been enlightened to this sport biathlon involves taking a cross country skier and strapping a 50-caliber sniper rifle to their back. I get to watch someone powerwalk on skis and then fire a gun capable of punching through walls. Pure Bliss.
Yet somehow karma messed up because my family entered Berlin two days before the Germans were set to play the Argentinians for my all-time favorite sports event, the World Cup. I absolutely do not deserve this sort of luck. If I’m in the USA the woman’s world cup always will be far more entertaining because that team doesn’t play like day old compost but the German men’s team can play! And the super bowl has nothing on the Germans.
100,000 people crammed into Brandenburg Gate. Endless 50-meter flat screens. Beer and sausage carts. A sea of red yellow and black to the point where all the souvenir stores sold out. The topping on the cake was so many empty beer bottles thrown to the side that the sidewalks were impassable and we had to walk on the street. Four hours to kick off we settled in for a beautiful day.
UNTIL KARMA REALIZED THEY HAD BEEN TO NICE TO A FAMILY OF LAWYERS AND DECIDED TO START POURING RAIN ON US.
This was not the cute drizzle rain that we have in Oakland that Karl the Fog looks pretty with. No this was the kind of rain that gives London its reputation for being terrible and after two hours forced us to enter a bar. On the way out we passed thousands of fans hoping to get into Brandenburg gate and were happily taking our spot. The bar we found contained a waiter, bartender, us and about a dozen drunk college guys there for the game.
First off, the game itself was fabulous with a 2-1 German victory that kept that tense atmosphere with a happy ending that sports fans strive for. Character was added to the bar by the aforementioned drunk college students. One of them who can best be described as a Jack Black lookalike would scream, run up to the TV and flip off all the Argentinians players whenever they had anything close to a good shot. When the Argentinians scored I learned that despite knowing no German, curse words are truly universal (suck it math). The bartender poured alcohol liberally and if it anyone wonders if the others thought Lily and I were simply two annoying preteens drinking coke and eating French fries, my parents buying everyone in the bar good quality tequila improved relationships. I’ve had cheap tequila before, it’s the worst thing since the “Black Death” wine of Iceland (a great story in its own right).
Even when I used the bathroom the soberest German student asked me something in German while buying a cigarette from a vending machine (only in the EU!) and when I shrugged and went “sorry only English” he switched to perfect English and asked “What do you think of the game?”. Turns out they understood every word of gossip we said about their behavior over the last hour, whoops. With that out of the way we turned our attention back to the TV for the Germans to win and then watched the entire city lose its collective hive mind. Flags, beer, fireworks, screaming, and more beer continued through the night. We called it at the early time of 3 am and you could easily hear the party raging all around our hotel with no intention of stopping soon.
Now after an experience like that, it becomes hard to follow it up. The next day we saw the museum of antique video games which entertained everyone (surprisingly) and the Painstation shocked my dad which was hilarious. If it wasn’t clear, it’s a PlayStation 1 that shocks you every time you lose at pong against a computer. But besides that, we just packed our bags that afternoon and took a train to Prague in the Czech Republic to finish our Central European adventure that I will be writing about… whenever I stop sewing this comic con costume. Time for the ratings!
Sam’s Sermon Scales:
West Oakland BART similarities? – 9/10. In contrast to my aforementioned fear of the German language and old ladies, nearly every person in the country was incredibly polite. Many people went out of their way to help translate for us at restaurants need be. Furthermore, the country was flat out clean and smelled pleasant apart from the world cup finals.
“I could make this better!” – 5/10 I hate to say it but the Germans exclusively specialize in alcohol and water. There was a distinct lack of quaint cafes that make up many other European countries. When Starbucks is the only coffee brand around, you know a country set its priorities on efficiency (Iron and Blood!) instead of naptime (hi Spain).
Folks of Culture? – 12/10 The museums were extensive, the Berlin wall a history lesson that should be experienced firsthand and the Holocaust memorial a sobering experience. Germany has a complex history and the country did a fantastic job of acknowledging their past while providing hope to the future through their current actions much like Japan. Yet the reason I give this a 12 was the most fun, enthusiastic and community building sports event I have ever had the honor to witness. The liberal booze policy also helped I’m sure.
Golden Hour Opportunities? – 7/10. I’m spoiled on the topic of travel views. I’ve been able to see more mind-blowing sights in 18 years than most people are ever gifted. Important to remember because while Germany was beautiful and pristine in the countryside there was no foggy mountain hikes (Japan), rainforests (Panama) or Masada (Israel). Told you I’m spoiled.
Did the vegetarian starve? – 2/10. This entire country was made of meat and beer. While I’m sure that my old boy scout friends believe that you can survive entirely off beer, I cannot. My family and I still laugh about how glad they were that I was the last trip I ate meat on. I never have had a hard time finding vegetarian dishes in five years but there were multiple dinners in Germany where the options were “Chicken, steak or fish?”.
“Hey boss, can I work more hours?” – 6/10. Germany was on par with the US for prices for hotels and food. I’m sure everyone can guess the one drink that cheaper than average. Germany loses points for multiple waiters that tried to include a tip of 30% because we were tourists but regains those points by a cheap Eurorail system that got us everywhere needed.
Cooler than Middle Earth? – 9/10. Now being a soldier in the battle of Helms Deep would undoubtedly bring on an adrenaline rush that one will remember for a lifetime. With that said so did being a crowd of 100,000 Germans chanting for their home team and dressed in enough German flags to make Bismarck proud.
Berlin and Hildesheim show that Germany was not a perfect country or even one that’s incredibly different from the United States. But the country was amazingly pleasant to see and Berlin constantly blew my mind either through the museums which I gave criminally little time in this post to or the World Cup. Even the people seemingly went out of their way to make our trip enjoyable. I would recommend Hildesheim for relaxing, but I would say that my favorite city I have ever traveled to was Berlin. I’m sure you can figure out if I recommend a visit.
Photos credit goes to the rest of my family, TripAdvisor and the New York Times. Next up will be Israel which I just finished.
Best,
Sam
Dead Man Travelling 