Oh my goodness, I’m so scared I farted!! I’m so sorry!

Down the dark hallway we ran with only Steph’s Iphone’s flashlight to guide our path. With our arms linked to one another, we ran in desperation as if we had just seen a dead body. Oh wait… what was the head with a full set of disheveled hair we just saw? A head buried underneath a pile of rubbish in a broken elevator shaft, Steph worriedly yelped my name to confirm her sighting. One foot here and its partner there… yup, dead body. We ran out of the basement’s darkness to find the boys to tell them what we had just found.

A quick toot is better than a stream of urine down my leg that’ll quickly freeze, I thought. Luckily, Steph didn’t mind.

On Christmas Eve, I notified the group that we should all wake up around 8:30 am and leave the hostel by 9. For some reason, they all listened to me and sure enough, on Christmas day, we were all gathered in the lobby by 9. We were setting out on an adventure to Beelitz Heilstätten to explore the abandoned tuberculosis/military hospital where Hitler was treated back in WW1.

When we got to Beelitz station, the place itself was desolate with graffiti tags on every surface. A light rainy mist set the mood for our walk through the woods. With our beanies strapped on and no directions, I led the group to find the hospital. The uncertainty of the walk itself was that much more fun. As we quickly shivered our way down the path, I noticed some rooftops ahead and ran toward them. It was like I found a pool of chocolate, I was so excited we finally found it! Often times I feel like you really have to work for it to find abandoned places, but luckily this was an easy find. Four houses as big as mansions sat in front of us for us to explore. Beelitz Heilstätten is a fantasy for the messed up mind and a playground for the thrill seeker.

The first house we entered was our flirtation to abandoned Berlin. As we shimmied past the metal gate, the stiff cold air hit us strong. To our right, a beaten and worn down staircase led to the basement. To our left, a long, eerie hallway presented a plethora of rooms for us to see. I skipped down the hallway until I came to a large room with part of the roof caved in. Just off center lay a metal bed with a candle sitting in the middle of it. A vast room decorated with random graffiti tags and broken pieces of wood, nails, and glass. Shattered glass was literally everywhere; with every step came a crispy crunch of glass. Imagine this: an opera singer who has the lung capacity and vocal chords to shrill the highest C to break glass. With his/her arms spread out to a T and head tilted back with the mouth gaping open, s/he sings a decibel so high, the windows of all four buildings combust simultaneously. That’s how much glass there was.

 

The second house we explored took some time finding, as all the doors were nailed shut and windows were all boarded up. I ran ahead of the group and came to a broken window where we could all climb through. Once we were all in and free of rusty nail cuts, we walked into a room that had a huge radiator of sorts sitting in the middle. A large room with graffiti on all the walls, this machine looked like an enlarged gas chamber shower head, but Sam persuaded me into thinking it was lights for a cafeteria. Happy thoughts that man.

As the day continued and the rain stayed misty, our exploration of these houses became the highlight of Christmas day. Afterwards, we decided to venture on to Sachsenhausen concentration camp way south of Berlin. Merry Christian! I mean… Merry Christmas. For this little venture, I sort of mislead the group about 10km off track and promised we would see a canal that we never did see… sorry Brad. But we did get to the concentration camp by the time the sun had set. We shivered through the yards and saw the mass graves by the help of modern day technology of the flashlight of the Iphone. By the end of the night, we made it back to the hostel to rest our achy knees and feet by drinking a few bottles of glühwein (mulled wine). I probably drank about two bottles worth myself throughout this trip.

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A few days after Christmas, my group dwindled down from 7 to 4 and then down to myself. I had more abandoned places to explore and if I couldn’t find any interesting folks… er people who were interested, then I would go by myself. So one morning, I hyped myself into going to a former institute of anatomy alone. As I walked out the door, I noticed another lone traveler sitting just off to the corner of the hostel, staring down at her phone. I conversed with myself for about twenty minutes debating whether or not if I should invite this gal to come along. My gut was telling me no, but I invited her anyway. After waiting an hour for to get ready, we finally head out to the S-bahn station. As soon as she began to talk, I knew immediately that this kind gesture was stabbing me in the back. I sat in my seat quietly, grinding my teeth wishing for her to stop complaining about her friend hooking up with the couchsurfer man they initially stayed with and etc. Why did I leave my headphones behind again?

Fortunately for my sanity’s sake, she had to leave in the middle of our 15km trek to the college because she just so happened to forget about her hangout session with a friend. My mood quickly changed and I happily hugged her goodbye and sprinted away towards the college. This abandoned place was located in the center of a well attended college of Freie University and just across the street were family homes. I walked down Peter-Lenne Straße and squeezed myself through the conveniently bent gate. I walked in with a full bladder and tip-toed my way through not to disturb anybody who may or may not reside there. A lecture hall with broken boards covered the floor with pieces of the roof filling the gaps provided a nice bounce in my walk. The building itself wasn’t all that scary until I went down to the basement. With the daylight streaming in, I nervously walked through the rooms until I saw the morgue room. Each container was empty but some had name tags still on them. A quick turn to my left and a propped door invited me in. In the middle of the room sat a surgical table to which I squeaked a little. Constantly turning my head back to make sure no one was behind me, I thought I was surely going to get whiplash one way or another. As I felt my bladder pushing for a release, I turned around to leave, only to find two doors shut with the words,

Don’t Enter, Dead Body

I saw it, peed myself a little, and ran up the stairs so fast, it was like someone had a döner box waiting for me outside. Now, if I were with a few people, I probably would have opened the door to take a little peak, but I wasn’t about to take that chance alone. I imagined shining my phone into the window and have someone jump out at me. I swear, had that happened, I would’ve needed a change of pants.

Abandoned Berlin is probably one of the most exciting ways to see the city. To see a different perspective on history and how things work around such places. I found it quite interesting that these places weren’t torn down, but have actually brought tourists over and some in fact, have guided tours. Some would argue it’s the government trying to take the fun out of life, but at least they’re not tearing it down and making another corporate building.

This side of Berlin not only helped bond our group together on the family holiday, but provided some insight for me — always bring extra pants on adventures like these.