We arrived in Berlin late on Wednesday night. While flying over, we found out that Berlin’s transportation workers were on strike. This meant that the U-Bahn (subway) and the busses were shut down. The S-Bahn was running; however, by the time we had found a hotel from the airport the last one had left and we needed to take a cab. Speaking, of bad timing, there is also a major conference in the city and so all the room rates have been raised. Oh well, bad timing in that respect.
On a more positive note, we haven’t had a rainy day yet. It did snow the day we arrived but it had all melted by the time we got off the plane.
The first day we went on a walking tour (also New Europe - as in London). This was a four hour tour of the whole city. We certainly saw all the major sites and learned about 800 years of history of the city while standing in the places where the events happened. Of course, we walked through the famous Brandburg Gate where Fredrik the Great, Napolean, and Hitler had all marched through when claiming the city for their own. We saw the filled in bullet holes that had wounded the gate in WWII. We stood over the bunker where Hitler eventually shot himself (which today is just a parking lot like any other). Other sites of interest on the tour: the wall, Checkpoint Charlie, and the Reischtag (the parliament).
Side note: since Gina shared her pet peeve about the keyboard in her post, I’ll do the same. There is this really annoying back space that just keeps going. Meaning I’m often rewriting sentences a few times.
One observation about all the sites we’ve seen. A lot of the original buildings no longer exist and have been rebuilt at some point during history by different groups of people. Whether it was the Nazis, Communists, or the Modern day goverment. In one way it’s dissapointing, but in another it is also really interesting to see how the people in power wanted to portray history (or in some cases re-write history). For example, the government is considering pouring thousands of euros into rebuilding the old monarchial palaces - as what? A tourist attraction or something else.
Another example ties into where we were today sachsenhausen (a Nazi work/death camp). Since this camp was in Soviet control after WWII they rebuilt as they saw fit with a giant communist-style monument to the Soviet prisoners and heroes who had been held at the camp. As if they had been the only ones held there (which of course was not the case).
One more example, the Reischtag, was rebuilt by the modern day democratic government so that as you walk up the dome in the center you look down at the members of parliament. Which brings up one more point of interest for me. Berliners - or at least the people they hire to build monuments - really know how to create monuments with meaning. A lot of modern art I see in Canada confounds me as it certainly is modern (and by modern I mean strange) but seems to lack real meaning. Modern art in Berlin definitely has meaning all through it. The monument beneath the square where the famous Nazi book burning is this room filled with empty shelves, for example.
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Gina here.
Apprently when I go travelling I like to do something to make people want to see me again. Apparently I think that the best way of doing this is by removing an odd section of hair from my body. In Thailand for some reason, I allowed someone to shave off most of my eyebrows to make me look more Asian for a Beauty Pagent. This time I decided to attack the hair on my head. I would rather not admit that I brought my hair straightener with me backpacking, however since it makes a good story I guess I’ve already done it. I had been convinced that the straightener would work with our adaptor/convertor, however apparently it simply allowed it to get really really hot! Before I noticed anything, I grabbed a chunk of hair from around the front of my part and allowed the straigtener to fry the section in a matter of a second. So far it hasn’t looked as bad as I expected… but then again, as a result I have worn my hair in a ponytail everday since. I do have a narrow straight section of stubby hair, which sticks up about 2cm in length. One of my first thoughts would be how the hairdresser was going to react and “fix” it for Brenda’s wedding. She already shook her hair and laughed at me at how I had “destroyed” my hair previously when I decided to cut my own hair to save money. Before my own wedding she said she could only mostly salvage the cut.
Anway… thoughts about Berlin…
Chris already mentioned most of what I was going to comment on… however I will add my 2 cents. It has been very interesting to observe a city as it attempts to recover from the travesties of WWII. I had never given much thought to how difficult it was for the people Jews, and other Germans alike, to recover from the effects. It’s interesting to see how the city rejects and tries to distance itself from the previous attitudes by becoming so opposite. Today the city appears to really pride itself on being “open-minded”.
As Chris mentioned, the monuments and other art erected as mermorials really do impress you with their meaning. Through most, you are actually flooded with emotions. One of the most impressive for me was in the Jewish Museum we went to yesterday. The museum itself was built with meaning. The frame of the building was made as a zig-zag with another line running through it, effectively leaving empty spaces, or voids (as the creator calls them) in the building. At the bottom of one of these voids the artist architect has placed thousands of steel faces on the floor. You are allowed to walk over this floor and once you do you are surrounded with the clanking sound of the steel, you are impressed with the looming tall concreted walls on either side of you, and you are filled with horror as you walk over these faces which mirror your horror with their faces.
Another thing I have pondered a lot is whether or not I like the replicated buildings. Brenda, Sharelle … what do you think… you were here. I can’t decide if I like the buildings because there is no way you can experience their grandeur from a picture… however in another way I can’t help but wonder if the present buildings don’t mock what once stood there. The new buildings look fake as they are not constructed with real blocks. Where mortar should be, there is a groove in the plaster (or probably not plaster… but whatever they are made from). There is relatively no work put into these buildings as the previous ones which stood there.
Today we took a tour of a concentration camp (Sachsenhausen)… there’s really not much one can say about the experience… so I won’t attempt to.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Prague… talk to you then!
Chris and Gina
PS- Gellato or Bust is still with us. The Caches we have found have all been too small
