David does Deutschland (OK, well only a little bit of it.)

Wikimedia South Africa was allowed to send two delegates to Berlin for the 2012 Wikimedia Conference, to present our progress and take part in discussions.  I was very glad to take part, partly of course for professional reasons, and partly because I had not been to Europe since I was about 4 years old.

Because Wikimedia Deutschland was paying for my flight to Germany, and because I'd have a Schengen visa, I made the case to my management that it would be worthwhile for me to travel to our R&D facility in Switzerland as well, to meet with the people who thus far had only been names on emails to me.

Just when everything had been properly arranged, it transpired that I had to go to Nigeria to assist with some new product factory trials, so I ended up being on airplanes and in airports for approximately two whole days: Lagos - Johannesburg - Abu Dhabi - Berlin.  Top tip: when you have short hair, if it's really really greasy and you don't have access to a shower, you can get a noticeable improvement by rubbing vigorously with paper towels.  This won't make you smell much better, though.

Quick, strike a pose, it's a motorcade!

The dining room at our venue

Berlin, as seen from our venue

The other side of Berlin, as seen from our venue

So after a few hours at the airport, I met up with Lourie, my Wikimedia ZA colleague, and we took the bus and then the train to within walking distance of the hostel where we would be staying.  On the way there, we met one of the Serbian delegates who was on his way to the conference venue, but he took our appearance as a good reason to go back to the hostel with us to have a few cigarettes and some coffee before proceeding to the venue.  This was my chance to get a shower.

The entrance to Bahnhof Zoo

Suitably refreshed, we woke up one of the organisers to get our travel vouchers (Yay Wikimedia DE!) and went to the venue.  It was really great to finally see some places I'd only ever heard of, notably Bahnhof Zoo.  I was expecting something a lot more disreputable, but they've cleaned it up very well.  On the way back, we took a trip to the Brandenburg Gate, and saw an enormous motorcade.  I asked a cop what was going on, and he explained that it was for the visiting President of Mongolia.

Does South Africa even have an airport the size of Berlin's main train station?

One of the most impressive things to me on this trip was the efficient, user-friendly public transport in Berlin.  It seemed to me that you can get from basically anywhere to anywhere in the city by taking a train or two, and maybe a bus (for example, the new Tegel airport is serviced by a bus route).  To a South African, it's almost like magic - the way our metro trains are supposed to run, except that it's ubiquitous, and the trains are amazingly frequent.  Missed it? Wait five minutes, another one is coming.

On our way to the hostel from the train station, we passed over the Weidammer bridge across the Spree river, and saw lots of padlocks locked onto it.  I vaguely remembered reading about this: It has become a tradition for lovers to engrave their names onto a lock, and lock it onto a bridge - kind of like carving your initials into a tree.  This symbol of undying love lasts until the municipality comes around to cut the locks off.

Apparently the Justin Bieber haircut is very big among German leather-jacket-wearing preschoolers.

One of the best parts of the visit for me was just riding the trains, watching the people.  Berlin mass transit has all types, from down and outs selling copies of the Strassenfeger, and gypsy buskers, through youths with impressive arrays of piercings, to middle-class and professional commuters.

Our smooth-talking Polish-German-British guide on the underworld tour.  Unfortunately Fotos machen was Verboten, so this is all you'll see of the bunker.  For more, check out their website.

Our hosts arranged a tour through Berlin's underworld for us - I chose the Cold War bunker.  It's quite amazing: you open a nondescript-looking door in the wall of a modern subway station, and you're in a repurposed non-bomb-proof WWII bunker (which, by the way, would have been about as useful as a newspaper hat in the event of a nuclear strike on Berlin.)  The second bunker we saw was slightly better thought through, but still a scary place.  The main door leading into the decontamination room was designed to close against the pressure of people trying to get in.  The bunker was deliberately designed so that the pressure on the toilet facilities (each stall had a curtain, not a door) would leave no privacy for suicide.  The body bags, due to concerns about the shelf-life of the plastic, were transparent.  The canteen would have served pea soup and nothing else, in two shifts (you'd have a red bowl or a yellow bowl).  Our guide had the theory that the bunkers, which would have accommodated a bit less than 1% of the population of West Berlin, were mostly a diversion so that people would mill around looking for their bunker instead of fleeing the city and jamming up the roads that the military would need in the event of a war.

After the second day's meetings, the South African delegation took a walk up Oranienburger Straße, and chatted to some of the local (legal) street prostitutes. None of them seemed drunk or high, but I was amazed that they could survive the cold weather wearing as little as they did.  After wishing them good luck and good business, we visited Tacheles, where a surprisingly good band was playing.  It looks severely disreputable, but it is positively dripping with atmosphere.

Still life: Tacheles entrance with cool dude in doorway.

The vibe inside Tacheles.

Showing unusual prudence, I bought my train ticket to Nyon, Switzerland almost a whole day before I had to leave.  It would probably have been a bit faster and cheaper to fly, but where's the fun in that?  So, after finishing up the last meetings and packing my bag, I was off to Berlin Hauptbahnhof again, but this time to catch the City Night Line to Basel.

The seats in the CNL train's 2nd class section are much like economy-class airline seats: you can sleep in them if you're talented.  I would have gotten a bit more sleep, but my neighbour turned out to be chattier than expected, and I took the chance to practice my German.  She was an ER nurse turned remedial social worker, who now works for a religious charity, helping mentally and physically handicapped people.

After getting off at Basel Badischer Bahnhof, I realized my mistake and got back on the train in time to make it to Basel SBB railway station.  Here I had a bit more than an hour to kill, so I walked out into the town and back.  I was impressed by the number of bicycles used for commuting, and the enormous bike parking area under the station.  I was somewhat less impressed by the fact that, although the station is smarter and more modern than some airports I could mention (yes, Murtala Muhammed, we're looking at you...), people smoke everywhere in the station building!

"Do not park bikes" - The Swiss are an unruly bunch!

Basel train station bike parking lot

Basel SBB - RailCity

The train from Basel to Nyon was smart and new.  In the seats behind me, some businessmen were chatting in Schwyzerdütsch, of which I could understand barely a word.

Swiss businessmen.  Living the stereotype!

Public displays of affection?  I don't think they could have been Swiss.

 I guess Switzerland lived up to about half my stereotypes.  Yes, it had cute little villages and old castles and was generally efficient, but the train also went through grimy industrial areas and past some pretty impressive graffiti.  Lake Geneva is beautiful, and the trees around the lake have amazing shapes, which I assume were formed by season upon season of brutal winter.

Dawn breaks over a Swiss farm.  Still, not quite a postcard.

Even Switzerland has graffiti!

The obligatory Little Swiss Village picture

 

The promenade by Lake Geneva.  You might have seen those trees covered with ice in some emails a year or two back.

The view from Nyon castle

My contact in Switzerland was Tom Imison, an English Chemical Engineer who plays in a rock band.  He played some of his previous band's stuff in the car, and if I hadn't been told, I'd have thought it was professionally produced music - it was reminiscent of Radiohead or the Doors, and I quite enjoyed it.

Of course, I'm not posting pictures of the everyday miracles inside the facility itself, but suffice to say that good things will soon be coming to a candy shop near you.

"Tickets please!"

This saved my bacon!

On my journey back to Berlin, I was just nicely asleep when the police came through the train.  I'm not sure whom they were looking for, but they just spoke to a few people (e.g. asking "are you traveling alone?" or "Where are you traveling to?") before moving on.

I had left myself a day for sightseeing in Berlin, so the first question was what to do about transportation.  No-one had ever checked our tickets during the conference, so I was tempted to rob Deutsche Bahn of a few Euros.  In the end, my  better judgement prevailed, and I bought a day pass for €6,30.  This was a very good decision: on that day alone, I had my ticket checked three times!

She is wondering how she's going to pay her €40 fine, and he's protesting his.  The guard is just following orders.

Naturally, one of my first stops as a bona-fide tourist was Checkpoint Charlie.  I decided not to get my passport stamped with a commemorative East German visa stamp, but I did pay to have my picture taken with the "border guards", dressed up as US Military Police.  Then it was on to the last remnants of the Wall, and an exhibition explaining the history that led up to its creation.  Right around the corner from that was Trabi-World, offering the experience of the authentic East-German car.

You are now leaving the American Sector.

The wall

Sometimes a light-saber is just a light-saber.

Someone had suggested I take a walk along Unter den Linden, which I did.  I saw the ZDF building and went inside: their canteen is open to the public, and has stage with lights adjacent to it.  After walking a bit further, I ended up at the Brandenburg Gate again.  This time there were no state visitors, so the photo opportunities were back.  Apart from the historical options (a guy made up to look like a statue of an American GI, and two Soviet soldiers), there was a cartoonish Darth Vader.  While I was watching him do his lightsaber schtick, a German guy next to me me muttered "Luke, ich bin dein Vater!

OK, so why don't we walk into a bar together and start a joke?

At Berlin Tegel airport, I ran into the Australian beatbox champion, who was on his way back from an international championship (he lost to the Bulgarian, who ended up winning the whole thing).  He showed me that the Lufthansa lounge's wifi was open, and we had some fun chatting and discussing strangers.

Normally I expect things to return to normal when I'm on the flight back to South Africa, but things managed to take a turn for the weird this time.  With one hour left before landing, a Pakistani guy with a skullcap and a long white beard walked up to me, stroked my chin (yes, not his, mine!) and asked me about my religion.  Upon hearing that I had none, he urged me to discuss the matter with his colleague, who had thicker glasses and a turban.  Having not much better to do, I complied.  It turned out that he had a PhD in biology, having studied plant-parasitic nematodes.  He had turned to religion in his old age, however. He was convinced that 911 was an inside job.  He also believed that the death sentence for people who left Islam was justified, because Mohammed was the last prophet, and had completed the religion of mankind.  We didn't have time to explore this topic fully, because just then, the descent started and I had to return (not exactly reluctantly) to my seat.

I guess I should have told the guy that Westerners find it creepy when strangers stroke their chins.  But then I'm not responsible for his public image.

I don't know what the rest of Germany's like, but I found the Berliners friendly and very willing to help.  It's an expensive country compared to South Africa, but not extremely so.  I hope I get a chance to go again, because I haven't seen a thousandth of what the city has to offer, let alone the rest of Germany or Europe.

Self-portrait.  I call it "reflecting on Germany."