Polite Australians club: Berlin

We made it to Berlin. Arriving at our hostel a little after 10pm local time, we drank a beer and headed to bed, ready to hit the city the next day. And it it we did.

Neither the Scoundrel nor the Liar had been to Berlin before, and I was determined to show them the best the city had to offer. I was also keen to see something I had never seen before.

A friend told me that the place in the world she most wanted to be was the Hamburger Bahnhof museum for contemporary art. So we went there. It was full of art, I guess.

I'm given to understand that both the Scoundrel and the Liar had a very good time there.

There were certainly some impressive objects on display, and many of them had been made by people I had heard of or were things I knew I had seen before in films or books or such.

Unfortunately I know practically nothing at all about art, especially not contemporary art. I would love to be the kind of person who knows about and loves art, and at times I have certainly pretended to be, but ultimately the soulless, pointless nature of it wears me down. While there were one or two displays which held my attention for a moment the lack of history makes the art feel light, insubstantial. The recommendation was still a good one; the space the art was presented in was fascinating, an old train station recommissioned to the task, and the vast size of the museum was quite impressive.

Our next stop, eating a traditional Berlin currywurst was far more my speed.

Then we hit the streets, taking a cruise through Museum Island which, though not as exciting as Monster Island, holds my favourite museum in the entire world.

Berlin is an incredible city with layers of history built through years of destruction and recreation. Every part of it is different and most of it beautiful.

Just around the corner we found our first statue for this part of the trip: Heinrich Heine was a poet born in Dusseldorf. He was pretty radical for his time, and many of his works were not published in Germany. He lived out the end of his life in Paris.

Humboldt University gave me a whole run of people to photograph. Starting with one of the two founding brothers: younger brother Alexander von Humboldt.

Inside the gates, the statue of Hermann von Helmholtz dominates the main courtyard. I really enjoyed these statues in Berlin; all the physicists and mathematicians made a nice break from the kings and publishers of Scotland.

The attribution on this statue is very unhelpful; the Mommsen family contributed a number of philosophers and scholars to the world. I'm pretty sure this statue is of 1902 Nobel Laureate Theodore, but I'm happy to be corrected.

Perhaps the most recognisable figure for any readers who completed year 12 physics or listened to the works of Something for Kate will be Max Planck, the physicist considered to be the father of quantum theory.

Rounding out the gates of Humboldt is elder brother Wilhelm; philosopher, linguist, friend to Goethe and Schiller. Born in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, he's generally acknowledged as 'the' founder of the university.

Down the road from them is the statue of Friedrich the Great. Emperor, general, the man who introduced potatoes to Germany. A warmonger and a promoter of religious tolerance, he is a man of contradictions. Reportedly heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual and celibate, Friedrich is beloved by modern Germans.

We wandered for a while until we reached the Brandenburg Gate, where I stood with all the other tourists and took photos.

We made our way to the Reichstag, and I completely forgot to include a photo. To make up for this, I have included more photos than required of the monument to the murdered Jews of Europe.

It was our first night in Berlin, so we went out. I'm not certain any of us were ready for how cheap drinks are in the city, or how hard it can party. Needless to say, piggybacks happened.