Week 14: Berlin!

  Berlin, Germany
Monday, September 1, 2008

  Here's a (not so) little story about my trip to Berlin. : )

As soon as Ingo told me he would let me stay in his flat in Berlin for free, I knew I'd have to go back. I was actually in Berlin about a year ago as one of my day trips from the Baltic Cruise I took with my family. Though I saw a lot, I knew that I could see much more if I spent more time there. As an added bonus, Ryan had never been to Berlin, so we knew we would have a good time.

We were supposed to leave on Monday. My teammate Sarah had told us about a carpooling service where you can go online and find people who are willing to carpool to certain places. Normally, a train ticket to Berlin is around 100 euro per person, round trip. This way was only around 30 euro per person. So, we went online, called a few numbers-- "sprechen sie English?"-- and finally found someone who spoke English and had room in their car. Sadly, it wasn't until Ryan and I got to Munich's main train station that the guy text messaged us saying his car broke down. So, we trekked back home, a little bummed that we had one less day in Berlin.

We found another ride for Tuesday, and this guy sounded a little more reliable. He told us to meet at a grocery story a few subway stops from our apartment, and we were met by our driver and four other people. We took a minivan to Berlin! It was actually not a bad ride either. We had plenty of room, the car was cool (Germans don't use the AC nearly as much as we Americans do) and we basically slept the whole time. I also met a really nice girl from Kenya who is here for a year as an au pair. She actually lives right by Gauting, which is a funny coincidence. After five pretty short hours, we were in Berlin! Our driver dropped everyone off at the Berlin main train station and Ryan and I set off for Ingo's apartment.

Ingo told us before that his apartment was in the shady part of Berlin, but it really was not what I was expecting (probably because I've seen the shady part of San Bernardino, hehe.) It's in the eastern part of Berlin, so what we gathered was that when it was occupied by Russia after WWII, it wasn't as prosperous as the west side and thus the area is less prosperous and nice. I like it because the food was really cheap and delicious. : )

We arrived in Berlin at about 4pm, and we were out and walking around by 5. We weren't planning on doing any sightseeing that night, but we just wanted to acquaint ourselves to the city. We ended up walking all the way to downtown, which didn't take very long at all. It was interesting how once we crossed that double line of cobblestones, which indicated where the wall had been, you could immediately see a difference in architecture and prosperity. The one thing we did see that night was the Brandenburg Gate. It's a victory gate that was first erected for Napoleon when he returned victorious from war. Most recently, it was known as a very important split between East and West Berlin.

 

On Wednesday, Ryan and I went to the Jewish Museum. I was very impressed by this museum. We were in the modern museum for three hours and almost saw and read everything. It covered all of Jewish history, from biblical times up until recent times. Here are a couple pictures of very interesting exhibits. The towers signify how confusing and off-setting life was for the Jews who escaped the holocaust to different counties. The ground and the pillars were all slanted, so when you walked amongst them, you felt like you were going to fall over. Though the Jews that emigrated escaped the worst horrors, being in a completely unfamiliar new place took its toll as well.

 

This one with the metal faces on the ground was dedicated to everyone who was lost to the tragedies of the WWII war crimes. It was eerie, because as you walked on the faces the clinking metal echoed loudly on the cement walls. Around the corner, outside of the room, it simply sounded like many people working. For me, the exhibit signified how many people actually knew about the horrors of what was happening to these prisoners (stepping on all the faces) and just kept walking. Those on the outside turned their heads and assumed it was for the good of their people.

 

After a long day learning about Jewish history, Ryan and I set out on another walk around the town. We passed Check Point Charlie, where actors posed in American Military uniforms to take pictures for a euro. We took our picture from far away and moved on. Then we went to the downtown area again and walked by some old, beautiful buildings. We walked by one church that looked like it could have been amazing. But one entire side was missing, and you could walk up and see where a bomb had severed one of its sides. One of the more fun things we discovered were these bear sculptures. They are all over the city, and different artists can paint whatever they want on them. These were the only ones we found.

   
 

On Thursday, we went to two more museums: the Pergamon Museum and the Altes (Old) Museum. The Pergamon was obviously the most famous museum, and we quickly understood why. They had four architectural exhibits of the most beautiful and amazing ancient structures. They were entry ways into old cities, temples and rich residences. They were beautiful.

     

They also had an exhibit called "Babylon: Truth and Myth." This was a pretty awesome exhibit. I didn't know much about the stories about Babylon, so it was really interesting to me to learn. Babylon was one of the most prosperous civilizations of ancient times. A Queen of Babylon was even instrumental in creating one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Hanging Gardens. Another amazing structure they built was a tower that spiraled up and supposedly "touched heaven." In the myth section, we learned that this angered God. So he truly confused the Babylonians by making each of them speak a different language. Whereas they could communicate perfectly before, now they could not understand each other. This was called the Confusion of Tongues, and there were a couple modern art exhibits about it as well. One German artist wrote something in German and had it sent to a professional company for translating. He then had that copy translated into a different language. He did this 24 times, and the resulting document, though it made sense, was completely different from the original. This was his way of saying that even perfect translations can be wrong. I thought it was interesting.

After about three hours in the Pergamon Museum, we headed across "Museum Island" to the Altes Museum, where they housed Egyptian artifacts. There we saw ancient Egyptian tools, jewelry, and even hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs were my favorite part. They were preserved meticulously on papyrus, and scholars from around the world go to this museum to study the ancient language. Another amazing artifact was the bust of Nefertiti, shown below. This is one of the most famous sculptures in Egyptian art, and it's no wonder why. It's absolutely beautiful. And though you can't see it in the picture, there is one marble eye that looks so lifelike it's amazing.

   

Another hour or so in the Altes Museum was about all our bodies could take in one day, so we got some more cheap food, walked around for a while more and then headed home. Friday was to be our last day in Berlin, so we needed some rest. When we woke up on Friday morning (which was admittedly, kind of late, oops) we headed to a suburb of Berlin: Potsdam.

Potsdam is a beautiful little city/town. It reminded us more of Munich with how green and nice it was. We started off our day at Schloss Sanssoucci: a palace created from the mind of Frederick the Great, which meant "Without Worry." I had visited the palace on my tour of Berlin the previous yeat, but this time I actually got to go in! It was small, but it was beautiful. We actually walked among the same rooms that Bach and Voltaire frequented. It was awesome. Then we went to Fred's own personal art gallery. This was the first building in Europe to be made specifically as a gallery. Unfortunately, most of the works from the original display were taken by Russian soldiers when they occupied the territory. Though some were given back, nearly 200 are still missing. Now, the holes have been replaced by other famous painters such as Rubens and Caravaggio.

    
 

After our tour of Sanssoucci Palace, we walked around Park Sanssoucci, where there were about 4 other palaces. We didn't go into any of them, but we still had a good time walking around the beautiful park. Here are some pictures of what we saw.

    

   

 

After our tour of the park, we headed into the city's main downtown area. It was beautiful, clean, and friendly. We bought sausages and ice cream from a couple of the various stands that were set up and walked along the cobblestone streets for a while. It was a nice place that reminded me a lot of Disneyland's Main Street. There was even a fairytale-like gate at the end of the street. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of this, because the batteries in my camera died. Oops. After walking around the small area once, we decided to head back into the city one last time.

There was one sight in Berlin that we actually hadn't seen yet. It was a monument to the famous Nazi book-burning act. In May of 1933, the Nazi propaganda machine organized the burning of some 25,000 books that were written by "enemies of the Third Reich." The monument is actually in the ground. When you look down through the plexiglass, you can see empty bookshelves covering four walls. A plaque nearby has the quote, "Where books are burned, in the end people will burn."



After this last stop, we walked along the city's famous street, Unter den Linden, one more time. We even stopped into a gift shop to get a little souvenir I had been wanting. You see, as we were walking the first night, I noticed that the "walk" and "don't walk" signs for the cross walks were pretty funny. Here's what they looked like. I liked them, so I got a postcard. : )

 

Overall, our trip to Berlin was awesome. I really had a good time there and I have to thank Ingo for making that possible. Having a nice place to ourselves, where we could leave our belongings safely while we were out for the day was priceless. I hope you enjoyed the little stories, and if I seem to have missed something, feel free to ask. In the meantime, check out these extra pictures of the Berliner Dom, the perliament building, and some more fun. Have a great week and I will talk to you all soon!