Guten Tag and hallo! I’m sleep deprived AF and am currently typing this on my phone from a seat on a budget airline flight somewhere between Berlin and Chicago!
I’ve got a preeettty bad (good?) habit of buying super cheap flights for super short trips months in advance with the “oh I’ll figure it out later” mentality. So, when I was surfing Skyscanner three months ago and landed on a $320 round-trip flight from ORD to SFX on my birthday week? No brainer. I packed my single backpack (#nobaggagefees), left Chicago at about midnight this past Tuesday, arrived in Berlin Wednesday afternoon, and landed back at O’Hare really late Saturday night — just in time for my 6 a.m. Sunday shift at the Trib. Perk: My trip only cost me a single vacation day.
Happy birthday to me, right?
So, this Berlin trip was kind of special for a few reasons. First, I’m really into genealogy and ancestry. I have DNA from pretty much every part of Europe, but there are a few places I’ve always wanted to visit. Germany is one of them, because I have a German last name, as silly and trivial as that sounds.
The second reason? It was the first international trip I’ve ever taken solo! I’ve traveled alone in the U.S., and I’ve traveled overseas before, but I’ve never traveled abroad by myself until this trip. Now that I’m back, I’m really kicking myself for not doing it sooner. This trip was hands-down THE BEST trip I’ve ever taken. Ever. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say I’ll probably only travel by myself from now on, and I’m genuinely mad at myself for having been too afraid to do it sooner.
Anyway! Here’s what I did.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m absolutely shameless about my love of budget airlines, so I flew WOW Air and only brought a single backpack along for the trip to avoid paying for baggage. After making it through a 10-day four-country Europe trip with a single backpack earlier this year, four days in one country was no big deal. More luggage, more problems. I got into Berlin Wednesday afternoon due to the time difference, and went straight toward my hostel to check in. I stopped at Zeit Für Brot for a roll and dumped my stuff in my hostel room before going to Hofbräu München for spätzle and beer.
After that, I headed up to my hostel bar to drink and hang out. Whenever I travel — even in the U.S. — I always try to stay in hostels. I absolutely love them. They’re such a great way to meet people not just from the country you’re visiting, but from all over the globe. For this trip, I stayed at wombat’s Berlin, and I would definitely recommend it. It’s pretty central to the touristy stuff and also surrounded by a lot of fun bars, restaurants and coffee shops.
I ended up meeting a ton of people at the hostel bar that night (I’m not sure why we spent three hours ranking serial killers in order of preference?) and we closed down the hostel bar before getting drunk food at a restaurant around the corner called Club Burger. Guys, they had an ENTIRE vegetarian menu and I was in heaven. I had a halloumi burger (so good) and then called it a night at about 4 a.m.
Thursday morning, I woke up at about 8 a.m. and decided to take some time for myself… cause solo travel means you can do literally whatever you want. I grabbed a croissant and a latte at a roastery called The Barn, and then grabbed another coffee and read the international version of the New York Times at Type Hype, this adorable typography-themed cafe I stumbled upon.
Then, I started checking things off my super touristy list. I wandered down past the Berliner Dom, across the Spree, under the Brandenburg Gate, through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, around the Topography of Terror, over to Checkpoint Charlie and across the front lawn of the Reichstag building. WHEW.
I took in a lot of the sights along the way, enjoying the architecture, the people, the weather, and the general sense of wonderment that comes with being alone and walking through a foreign country. I popped my headphones for part of the walk, too.
I really wasn’t prepared for how gutted the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe left me. The memorial is beautiful. It’s a sloping and uneven terrain topped with evenly-spaced concrete rectangles of varying heights. You can walk between them, and you can’t see who’s coming from around the corner. You can’t see the buildings around you. Everything suddenly becomes very silent — despite the fact that the memorial is located in a very busy part of the city. It was very isolating, and it’s one of the few times I’ve ever actually physically felt moved by a piece of artwork. I definitely shamelessly cried while I was walking through it.
The Topography of Terror museum was, well, terrifying. The museum guides visitors through the rise and fall of the Third Reich, featuring historic photos and saved memorabilia. Reading about Hitler’s attitude toward the media and a free press — and how those sentiments are echoed by a certain current U.S. president and his administration — was horrifying. I cried through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and just felt heavy, tired and drained making my way through the Topography of Terror exhibition.
The museum also features a stretch of the Berlin Wall, still standing, as well as the trenches beneath it, which was fascinating. The fall of the wall was the first major international news event of my life, so I’ve always been really intrigued by it. It also makes me feel really old to say “oh, yeah, the Berlin Wall was standing when I was born.”
I was a little underwhelmed by Checkpoint Charlie — a mid-street replica surrounded by fast-food restaurants and staffed with men in U.S. military costumes. It was cool to see the location, but it was really gimmicky. There were literally hats lined up so tourists could pose with the fake U.S. military men. It was still cool to see what the set-up was like in the exact location, though, and to read some of the facts about the wall that were housed in the “Black Box” exhibit near the checkpoint.
And then, finally, the Reichstag building. I was completely overwhelmed by this building. It was so freaking beautiful.
Later that afternoon, my friend Maria (who I actually met at a hostel in Nashville) wanted to meet up. We grabbed beer downtown before hopping onto a boat and taking a river tour along the Spree. Then, she drove me down to Kreuzberg and we obligatorily grabbed currywurst and frites from her favorite spot. I’m not really bit on eating meat (I’m pescatarian), but when I travel, I do try to taste some of the local dishes. I had about three bites of currywurst. After that, we spent a few hours poking around shops and stationery stores before grabbing wine and tapas at a little Mediterranean restaurant called Knofi.
She took me back to my hostel… where I wound up back up at the bar, again. Several shots and rounds of beer later, I ended up drunkenly smashing more halloumi into my face at Luxa, this random kebab shop around the corner from my hostel. We ended up, again, hanging out until about 4 a.m., and making plans for the next day.
I went to sleep and woke up again at, like, 8 a.m. I was staying in a six-bed room in the hostel, and wasn’t really sure what to expect. Berlin is very club-heavy, and has quite a reputation as a party city, so I booked my hostel reservations anticipating I would get absolutely no sleep, figuring that people would be drunkenly coming and going at all hours. Turns out that every night, I was the last to get to the hostel, and every morning, I was the last to leave it. Whoops. Because the turnover in my hostel was so high, between three and four people checked out every morning before 10 a.m… which meant I was up real real early.
I got up and ready and decided to go explore some more before meeting up with my hostel friends. I grabbed a brezel at Hofpfisterei, a coffee at Ben Rahim and another coffee back at Zeit Für Brot before relocating to the hostel lobby and waiting for everyone from my hostel to wake up.
We all stumbled downstairs and wandered around Alexanderplatz, grabbed lunch at Zur Letzten Instanz and then walked over to East Side Gallery, which is the other portion of the Berlin Wall that was never torn down. Instead, it was recreated as a public art exhibit. I thought it was so cool to see.
We kept wandering around the city, from the gallery across the Oberbaum Bridge and back over into Kreuzberg. We wandered around a bit, stopped into the indoor market Markthalleneun for beer and talk, and then Ubered it back to our hostel.
We spent a bit of time hanging out in the lobby before we all headed back out to the Hofbräu biergarten for SO MUCH beer and food.
(Side note: I know I keep saying “we” even though I technically traveled alone. Throughout the trip, people kept sidling into and dropping off our little group of hostel friends, as travelers checked out and checked into our hostel. It was really fun to build a little community of people while I was overseas alone, and to come home with new Facebook friends, group chats and couches to crash on during future visits overseas.)
I enjoyed Hofbräu on my first night in Berlin when I was there alone, but it was absolutely incredible when seven of us ended up sprawling across a giant wooden table, each with a giant mug of beer in hand and baskets of pretzels at the ready. We were packed on all sides with tourists (expected) and ended up getting literally pulled up by a very, very aggressive drunk German man who absolutely insisted we drunkenly dance to the live music on the tabletops with him. It was very ridiculous, but way, WAY too much fun.
After that, we ended up at a nearby shuffleboard bar called Kaschk where we drank craft beer and argued with a bunch of drunken Scottish men before heading… you guessed it. Back to the hostel bar to close it down!
After the hostel bar, we ended up just hanging out in the lobby until about 4:30 a.m… just talking and watching one of the really drunk hostel guest stumble around until he passed out with his still-somewhat-full fifth of Jägermeister next to him. It was too funny. Hostel guests and staffers just kind of walked by him and stepped over him like it was no big deal. The funniest part was the next morning, Saturday, when we watched the guy check out at the front desk… and the receptionists handed his cap-less Jäger bottle back to him like it was no big deal.
My little group of hostel friends and I all met up after checking out Saturday morning to grab breakfast at Tinman next door, then wandered down to the Marx-Engels forum and back to the Berliner Dom where we just kind of laid on the grass and talked for a few hours before heading back to the hostel. Then, I grabbed my bags and hopped back on the S9 to the airport.
And, that’s it! I think I got a combined total of 16 hours of sleep throughout the whole trip. I’m terrible at sleeping on planes, and knowing that my trip was short? I didn’t want to miss out on anything by sleeping! I’m completely exhausted, but every second was totally and completely worth it. I know I mentioned it before, but this was really truly the absolute best trip I’ve ever taken.
Also, because I always get asked? Here’s how my broke ass affords to travel, here are my hostel-traveling essentials, and here’s a little bit more about my one-bag mentality. I’ll probably write a little bit more about what and how I packed for this trip — and some more thoughts/ tips on traveling alone! — but for now, I need to sleeeppppp. (Or, yunno, head back over to Skyscanner and book my next flight!)
Until next time! Happy travels.
