Berlin - The Survival Guide

January 2014 / Issue 01

THE SURVIVAL GUIDE

FERNSEHTURM

GUTEN TAG! Dear MIE’er!

Welcome to the MIE Journey to Berlin. After long preparations, hundreds of emails, several meetings and brainstorm sessions, we are proud to present you the Berlin 2014 Survival Guide.

In this small booklet, you can find a small program, some nice tips for sightseeing and of course the best places to spend your evening in a cosy way .

We hope you all have an amazing stay!

Charlotte Rosseeuw Philip Mertens Leopold StĂźbgen Benoit Vandeputte

#AFRAIDOFWHITESPACE

BEFORE DEPARTURE DON’T FORGET

ID card or passport for non EU citizens

Boardingpasses for both flights (printed)

Passport for the non-European students

Train ticket Antwerp Central – Brussels Airport LUGGAGE REQUIREMENTS

Only handluggage is allowed on board EASYJET flights.

Maximum seize: 50 x 40 x 20 cm

Baby carriages are allowed

Liquids in hand luggage

- The liquid is in a container with a maximum volume of 100ml

- All containers must comfortably fit into a transparent, re-sealable 1 litre plastic bag, measuring no more than 20 x 20cm

- This plastic bag must be removed from the hand baggage and shown separately to airport security WEATHER IN BERLIN It’s rather hard to predict the weather, but normally the temperature is around - 10 degrees. Chance of snow, chance of sun. Expect Belgian weather, but cold!

BERLIN Ask Berliners what they love about the German capital and some will talk about the joys of post-Communist freedom, others about Kreuzberg’s throbbing nightlife, others about Friedrichshain’s exciting young designers. Berlin can fill you with wonder, contemplating the future in the crystalline Reichstag and high-rise Potsdamer Platz, and with horror, revisiting the past at the Jewish Museum and remnants of the Berlin Wall. The nostalgic, the party lover, the trendsetter, today’s Berlin is one city, many characters -- different every time you look but never looked at indifferently.

THING TO DO Berlin is a monster-size capital, eight times the size of Paris. Plan wisely. First, head up to Norman Foster’s panoramic glass-domed Reichstag (German Parliament), and join photographers for the obligatory twilight snapshot of the glowing Brandenburg Gate. You can spend days roaming Tiergarten park’s lake-dotted woodlands and UNESCO-listed Museum Island’s galleries, where Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti hides. Trace Berlin’s turbulent past at the Libeskinddesigned Jewish Museum and walk the artiest stretch of Wall at the East Side Gallery.

SHOPPING Individuality defines free-spirited Berlin. Go beyond the big-name designers on stately Kurfürstendamm to its quieter specialty stores, like L. & M. Lee with its German-made porcelain and glass. Poke around hip Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg for urban, young designers and quirky boutique shopping. The Hackesche Höfe’s Art Nouveau courtyards make for a leisurely stop, with their upscale shops and people-watching cafes.

START-UP CITY And since a few years, the youngsters are taking over the city. And this has also an influence on the amount of start-ups in the city. Berlin is even called the start-up capital of Europe. Big names such as Zalando, Ebay, Soundcloud, Whatsapp etc they started all from scratch in the German capital!

PROGRAM THURSDAY 30-01 - #ARRIVAL And the adventure begins!!! In order to start our trip well, we recommend to take the train at 06h42 am in the Antwerp Central Station. Make sure you are on time, so you will have time enough to buy your ticket for the train as well.

Take into account there is an extra fee of 5 euro, the Diabolo Fee, so a normal payment by Go-pass won’t be sufficient . The destination in Brussels National Airport, where we will arrive at 07h16 am.

At 09h05 am, we will leave to Berlin (flight EZY4702 – gate closes at 8h35).

After a short flight, we will arrive at Berlin Schönefeld Airport at 10h30 am.

From there, we will take a suburban railway or a regional train service, which depart every half an hour from the airport. We expect to arrive then around noon (12h30 pm) at the Generator Hostel Berlin, in the area Mitte. After checking in, we will go for a lunch around 01h30 pm.

At 02h30 pm, we will meet with the group again to start the discovering of Berlin. We will go for a walk which will lead us to several of the most known places in Berlin.

THURSDAY 30-01 - #ARRIVAL So we will start our walk from the hostel (1). From there, we will go to Unter den Linden (2), which is considered as Berlin’s most beautiful boulevard. This elegant boulevard is found in the old heart of Berlin, going all the way from the Brandenburg Gate to the Schlossbrücke Bridge. On the boulevard Unter den Linden, there are many important institutions such as the Humboldt University and the State Opera as well as attractions such as the Neue Wache memorial and the Zeughaus (Armoury).

From there, we will go to the Gendarmenmarkt (3). The harmonious Gendarmenmarkt is known as one of the most beautiful squares in Europe.

It was created at the end of the 17th century as a market place, the Linden Markt. The current name is derived from the Regiment Gens d’Armes who had their stables here from 1736 to 1773. From 1777, the square was redeveloped after plans by Georg Christian Unger. It is now a quiet place surrounded by three landmark buildings, the Französischer Dom, Deutscher Dom and the Konzerthaus. In the center of the square is a statue of Friedrich Schiller, a famous German poet.

Next, we will walk to Checkpoint Charlie (4). This was, along with Glienicker Brücke (Glienicker Bridge), the best known border-crossing of Cold War days. The sign, which became a symbol of the division of Cold War Berlin and read like a dire warning to those about to venture beyond the Wall – YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR – in English, Russian, French and German - stood here. It is today an iconic marker of territorial boundary and political division. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, it signified the border between West and East, Capitalism and Communism, freedom and confinement.

We will continue to the Potsdamer Platz (5), The large new underground station, shopping arcade and entertainment center have brought new life to the Potsdamer Platz. It still is more of a tourist attraction than a ‘natural’ square, but with the construction of more residential buildings in the neighborhood, the area has started to grow back to its former status: one of the liveliest squares in the country. An eyecatcher on the square is the Sony Center Building, a complex designed by Helmut Jahn which includes an Imax theater and an office tower.

After this, we will go to the Holocaust Memorial (6), which is all known by you very well. It is a memorial that is a stele-field which can be approached and walked through from all sides, serving as a central place for remembering and reminding people of the Holocaust. On an area of about 19.000 square metres, the New York based architect Peter Eisenmann set up 2.711 concrete pillars - socalled steles - of varying heights to create a grid-like structure.

Finally, we will go see the Brandenburg Tor (7). While the only remaining city gate of Berlin formerly used to represent the separation of the city between East and West Berlin, since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 the Brandenburg Gate has now come to symbolize German unity. In addition, this gate made of sandstone is one of the finest examples of German classicism.

In the evening, we propose to have diner together in the city center, more info soon.

FRIDAY 31-01 – #START-UP DAY Friday is the MIE-day. We will visit three start-ups. We will get a tour around the companies and presentations about what they exactly do and how they managed to come from an idea to a real company.

Be sure to be in the lobby at 9 am, we have a strict schedule to follow in order get on time at our destinations. If you want to have breakfast, please do before 9 am.

We will visit the following companies: ZALANDO (10 AM) Sonneburger Str. 73 Who doesn’t know Zalando, the number one webstore for clothing and shoes in Europe. You definetly saw one of their advertisements on facebook or other websites.. Founded just in 2008 in Germany, the company is now active in over 14 European countries and is inspired on the American Zappos.com. With a turnover of over 160 million euros, it is the biggest online fashion retailer in Europe. (www.zalando.com) MACHTFIT (01.30 PM) Schwedter Str. 9a The machtfit platform is an innovative healthcare network for companies, workers and providers of health-promoting benefits.. All parties benefit equally from this offer: employees will make it easier to integrate sport and physical activity into their daily lives and companies promote the health of their employees. With big companies such as TOTAL, the start-up is really growing fast. (www.machtfit.de)

HUB:RAUM (03.30 PM) Winterfeldtstr. 21 Hubraum is German start up incubater, sponsored by Deutsche Telecom. They offer start ups financial aid, co-working space, mentoring and leveraging. The incubator is active in different sectors such as telecommunications, mobile payments and healthcare. Alumni of the program are Scolibri.com, an educational social network for teachers and students and frestyl, an app that allows people to find last-minute concerts, and event organizers to better promote their shows. frestyl is a music event discovery app. (www.hubraum.com) After these visits, you can enjoy Berlin as you want after which it would be cool to come together to go clubbing in Kreuzberg!!! Fiestaaaa!

SATURDAY 01-02 – #WEARETOURISTS For those who want and are already recovered from last night, we can go on a walk to visit the city center. Then we would meet with those people at 11 AM in the lobby.

In the afternoon, Leopold managed to make a reservation for the Bundestag (Address: Platz der Republik 1) at 02h30 PM, so be sure to be there on time.

This will take more or less two hours. The Bundestag is the constitutional and legislative body in Germany. The Bundestag was established by the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 as the successor to the earlier Reichstag. It meets in the Reichstag Building in Berlin. Representatives of the Bundestag are directly elected, usually every four years although earlier if the Chancellor loses a vote of no confidence and asks the President to dissolve the Bundestag and hold an election.

Rest of the day is free!

SUNDAY 02-02 – #HANGOVER DAY After some serious clubbing, we will skip breakfast and start our hangover day with a lovely brunch in the neighborhood of our hostel or somewhere else.

After that, we will visit two beautiful and important museums.

At 12h00 pm we will visit the Jewish Museum. This museum is one of the most spectacular museum buildings in Germany and is designed by Daniel Libeskind. The Jewish Museum Berlin, which opened to the public in 2001, exhibits the social, political and cultural history of the Jews in Germany from the 4th century to the present. The museum explicitly presents and integrates, for the first time in postwar Germany, the repercussions of the Holocaust.

We plan to leave the Jewish Museum at 02h00 pm and continue our journey to the Bauhaus Museum.

The Bauhaus Museum of Design is devoted to the research and presentation of the history and influence of the Bauhaus (1919-1933), the most important school of architecture, design and art in the 20th century. The presentation of paintings, drawings, sculptures and models by Bauhaus masters and students, compromising a selection from the world’s largest collection of Bauhaus

artefacts, illustrates the lasting influence of the Bauhaus. The museum building is a late work of Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus.

MONDAY 03-02 – #GOODBYEGROUP1 09h00 AM 10h00 AM

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Breakfast Meeting in the lobby

TRAIN DEPARTURE TO THE AIRPORT FROM THE CITY CENTER TO BE COMMUNICATED 02h55 PM 04h55 PM 04h25 PM) 06h20 PM 06h35 PM

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Arrival at Berlin Schoenefeld Airport Departure flight EZY4707 (Gate close at

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Arrival at Brussels Airport Farewell hugs/Welcome home hugs

MONDAY 03-02 – #YOLO-DAY GROUP 2 We will have breakfast at 09h00 am, after which we all meet in the lobby at 10h00 am.

The first activity of the day is the Vitra Museum. Dedicated to presenting the current trends in industrial furniture and design objects, the Vitra Berlin is located in an amazing and challenging building - the former “Humboldt” transformer station, created in 1924-26 by the architect Hans-Heinrich Müller.

After lunch, we will go to Aleksanderplatz around 01h30 pm. From there, we go to the Berlin Wall Memorial around 03h00 pm. The memorial contains the last piece of Berlin Wall with the preserved grounds behind it and is thus able to convey an impression of how the border fortifications developed until the end of the 1980s. The events that took place here together with the preserved historical remnants and traces of border obstacles on display help to make the history of Germany’s division comprehensible to visitors.

TUESDAY 04-02 – GOODBYE GROUP 2 09h00 AM 10h00 AM 10h30 AM

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Breakfast Meeting in the lobby East Side Gallery

TRAIN DEPARTURE TO THE AIRPORT FROM THE CITY CENTER TO BE COMMUNICATED 02h55 PM 04h55 PM 04h25 PM) 06h20 PM 06h35 PM

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Arrival at Berlin Schoenefeld Airport Departure flight EZY4707 (Gate close at

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Arrival at Brussels Airport Farewell hugs/Welcome home hugs

NIGHTLIFE The popular nightlife spot in Berlin in Kreuzberg. A lot of famous clubs are located there: The most famous club in Berlin is the Berghain club Berghain is not just a techno club: it’s a way of life for many of the tireless regulars who call it ‘church’.

Music: Techno Location: Friedrichshain Entrance policy: very hard to get it, but worth it Tresor club Music: House, experimental electro Location: Mitte Club Der Visionaere Music: electro Location: Kreuzberg, Am Flutgraben 1 Water gate Music: Techno, House, Electro Location: Kreuzberg, next to the river Spree Entrancy Policy: very hard to get in during the weekends, but worth it.

Mitte A lot of cosy bars in the neighborhood just ask for them in the hostel.

A nice one is KIM, the place for people in their early twenties, nice ;). Drinks are cheap.

Music: Local DJs Location: Mitte, Brunnenstrasse 10 There is a bar in the hostel as well, perfect for the lazy ones who don’t want to walk a lot ;-)

GESUNDHEID Just in case: some German – English vocabulary

ENGLISH GERMAN

Hello Guten Tag Goodbye Tschüss My Name is Ich Heisse Yes Ja No Nein Thank you Danke

I would like to…

I möchte

What is the price for..

Was is der Preis für

How do I get there?

Wie komme ich da?

This Dies Beer Bier Wine Wein Sausage Eine Wurst Please Bitte Hello Hallo

Nice to meet you Freut mich Good evening Guten Abend 1, 2, 3 Ein, zwei, drei Ow! Ow! A butterfly Ein Schmetterling

NICE TO KNOW Berlin, with an area of 892 square kilometres, is nine times bigger than Paris.

Berlin has around 1,700 bridges, easily beating even Venice.

To date six US presidents have made historic speeches here since the war – most memorable being John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” (1963) and Ronald Reagan’s emphatic “Mr Gorbachev – tear this wall down!” (1987).

The first set of traffic lights in Europe was put into service in Potsdamer Platz in 1924. A replica of the lights can still be admired there today.

With the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Central Station), the city has become a proper central rail hub for the first time in its history – and the largest in Europe.

Berlin is the most multi-cultural city in Germany. Its 3.5 million inhabitants include over 470,000 residents with foreign passports. People from over 184 nations are long-term residents in the city.

With 175 museums, Berlin is said to have more museums than rainy days.

With four universities, four art schools and ten technical colleges, and around 134,000 students, Berlin is Germany’s biggest university city. In addition there are around 130 non-university research facilities.

There are over 180 kilometres of navigable waterways within the Berlin city limits. This makes it possible to explore Berlin by boa

ON THE PLANE SUDOKU

USEFUL INFORMATION HOSTEL Generator Hostel Berlin Mitte (attention: there are 2 Generator hostels in Berlin, we are staying in the one in Mitte) Oranienburger StraĂ&#x;e 65 10117 Berlin Germany Telephone: +49 3092 1037680 http://generatorhostels.com/en/destinations/berlin/mitte/ PHONE NUMBERS: Charlotte: +32 472 71 89 37 Philip: +32 473 72 36 47 Benoit: +32 473 53 79 04 Leopold: +49 176 31335646 EMERGENCY: European emergency: 112 Police: 110

USEFUL APPLICATIONS BERLIN SUBWAY MAP AND ROUTE PLANNER Offline subway map, available for iOS

BERLIN SUBWAY ROUTE NETWORK Offline subway map, available for Android.

#THEEND

#LAYOUTBYLANDER