As Christmas arrived in Madrid, several weeks ago, with its bold, dazzling lights and colourful decorations; it suddenly hit me just how close I was to completing my first term of my Erasmus year! It’s hardly surprising how quickly the time has flown by as I’ve been so busy indulging in new Spanish experiences and cracking on with university work, nevertheless, the past three and a half months of being here seems to have slipped through my fingers.
One of mine and the girls’ I live with main desires of doing this Erasmus year is to visit different places within the EU for cheaper than it would be flying from back home in England. We all love travelling and soaking up new cultural experiences so feel as though we should make use of our new temporary home being our base to do this! So, as a result of this, back in November myself and the girls decided that to mark the end of the first term before the Christmas break and to celebrate the holiday, we should take a little trip to Germany to visit the Christmas markets. We were deliberating between Munich and Berlin for a while but landed on the decision of Berlin as it’s somewhere we all desperately wanted to visit and there was more to do alongside the Christmas markets and it was even slightly cheaper! After finally booking our flights and hostel, we were all very excited to visit the historical city and awaited the mini holiday ahead.
On Tuesday the 4th of December we flew out to Berlin, the very early morning flight meant that we had nearly all of the first day to roam about and explore! After figuring out how to use the public transport to reach the centre from the Berlin airport, we dropped our luggage off and checked in at our hostel and then went for lunch! It wasn’t exactly German cuisine but a Vietnamese curry – very fresh and a family homemade recipe, it was very tasty all the same!
Afterwards we visited: the famous square of the city Alexanderplatz, the Berlin Cathedral and then delved straight into one of the main reasons we had come – the Christmas markets! We visited two, one either side of the city’s main square. They were just as we had expected – teeming with arts and craft stalls selling Christmas related gifts, smells of every kind of Bratwurst sausage and mulled wine greeting your nostrils and seasonal songs filling your ears. Amongst all this, the decorative wooden huts and tasting some authentic German cuisine really made us feel the spirit of Christmas and warmly welcomed to the city!
On our second day we ventured out to do some must-see activities such as walking along the East Side Gallery, admiring the incredibly stimulating and variety of artwork as well as seeing some of the original Berlin Wall up close.
We then moved onto visiting Checkpoint Charlie, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag building. Each tourist attraction/ landmark was both historical and beautiful in its own way. They are sights I’ve wanted to see for a long time and are definitely ones to check off my bucket list.
In the evening we went to the most highly rated and famous Christmas market in Berlin: Winter World on Potsdamer Platz (Tiergarten). It had a beautifully lit Christmas tree with a variety of different art and food stalls. We tried some more local cuisine here, including these delicious mini doughnuts!
On our final day we really crammed stuff in. In hindsight, we all said we could have perhaps done with a four-day city break in Berlin rather than a three-day one. After admiring the morning view from the rooftop of our hostel and eating a traditional German ‘healthy full English’ breakfast, we set out for the long day ahead of us.
Firstly, we stopped off at the gallery: DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, otherwise known as ‘The Pool Gallery’. It’s a contemporary art gallery who represent both emerging and established artists. I was keen to visit some photography galleries whilst in Berlin to experience the art culture and see how it compares to Madrid. This gallery however, was very disappointing. Although the gallery was free admission (partly why I chose to visit there), the exhibition space was just bare, white walls and the art was sculptural and very uninteresting – we left quickly.
However, with hopeful minds we then moved on to a different artistic scene – an art alley. ‘Haus Schwarzenberg Street’ is its name and it is a hidden gem belonging to the city. The narrow passage leads to a courtyard filled with murals and street art, it’s chaotically beautiful. As we explored the area, we found a small shop in one of the buildings in the courtyard which also had an exhibition on called ‘Pieces of Berlin’. Fortunately for me, it was a photography one and it was only €1 entry! Alongside the prints was a handmade photobook displaying the work and a QR code and handouts were available to find out more about the project. It was an inspiring and thought-provoking exhibit, one dissimilar to those I have seen in Madrid, as it documented encounters with a variety of residents living in Berlin and their stories of how they got there and how the city is forever changing. I found this work inspiring for considering my own photography projects I could do about living in Madrid.
After this we visited a Berlin Wall memorial on our way to a two hour guided tour of the escape routes civilians took escaping from East Germany to West. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos whilst on the tour but it was very informative – clearly explaining the history of the Berlin Wall and what happened and many deeply moving stories were told of some particular experiences locals had to endeavor to escape.
Next we went to the DDR museum, this was also very informative but of what life was like in Berlin back in the day. The information has been presented in an interactive way which makes it much more engaging to learn about. By this point we were all rather drained and needed a boost to push us on to visit a Christmas market one more time for buying last-minute presents! So, we decided to try out an Asian tearoom for a refreshing iced tea, this gave us the fuel we needed as well as being a cultural experience by having to remove our shoes to sit on the cushions in there, afterwards we progressed on to the Christmas market. I hadn’t yet tried a Currywurst and knew I needed to before I left - I was not disappointed! We ended our final day by going to a classic German pub for dinner where I ate a traditional meal of pork schnitzel and potato salad accompanied by a refreshing, German lager beer which had been brewed there in the pub!
I feel very lucky to have been able to visit this interesting and historical city with such ease – an experience I wouldn’t have been able to have as just a short trip away, compared to being back in England. It was definitely a cultural experience and I feel as though I know now in more detail about Germany’s history. Overall it was a very enjoyable and affordable trip to another European country and will hopefully be the first of many! (Let’s hope on the other trips we don’t have the scare of almost missing our flight back to Madrid by going to the wrong airport…)
This was the perfect, seasonal trip to help draw term one to an end. It was a celebration of the holiday and our friendship before returning back to our university for the final week of completing tasks and presentations due in before the Christmas break. Unexpectedly, Berlin actually really made me appreciate just how picturesque and beautiful Madrid is; it has much more attractive architecture and the city feels as though it has a lot more going on. Consequently, this made me appreciate just how fortunate I feel to have spent even three and a half months here in Madrid let alone the rest of the academic year! I have thoroughly enjoyed learning the language, studying at a Spanish university, practicing my photography here, trying all the different foods, trying new experiences, seeing new places and being fully immersed in the Spanish everyday life.
Now I have moved back home for three weeks for the Christmas break, I am already looking forward to: the day trips myself and the girls have booked for January to nearby cities/towns (and hopefully to some other countries), finishing semester one of our current photography classes and beginning semester two with two new classes, seeing new places, experiencing new things/food, having Spanish tutoring twice a week to help me become more fluent in the language and being able to focus more on my own independent photography projects and practice.