Adventures in Berlin

Berlin looks nothing like I pictured it looking. Perhaps I was missing New York City (and I was), but I had pictured Berlin tall, crowded and no longer recovering from the war. But the war was still everywhere you looked in Berlin. Our youth hostel was located in the neighborhood called "Mitte" (the german word for middle) which is technically the center of Berlin, which would be great, except for that the center of Berlin is not the center of activity. It is walking distance from where the wall was, and therefor all the nothingness that stood next to the wall for so many years. There are as many cranes in this city as there are museums. And, there are a ton of museums. I could spend a month in Berlin and still not be able to do the museums and landmarks justice. My point is that the city was very spread out, and I spent most of my time there walking through the cold from empty neighborhood to empty neighborhood.

After our bus arrived and we ate a classy meal at the youth hostel, and a group of us went exploring. We found ourselves at the Berlinale Film Festival. This film festival is apparently more famous than Sundance, and second only to the Cannes in France. There was a real live red carpet in front of one theater, and press running all over the place. Then we met up with the group and went for a walk to the Reichstag. This is basically Germany's equivalent of the White House, or some important building of government, only no one lives there.


Here is what it looks like at night.


Here is what it looked like when it was wrapped by Cristo as an artistic statement in the 1980's.

After the initial sightseeing, Rory decided that he was in the mood to find a jazz club. The one we found was called The A Trane, and was over an hours walk away. When we finally got there, the live music was amazing, and everyone ordered an expensive cocktail and couldn't stop talking about how perfect everything was. The music was very good, The Trombonist had composed a lot of the songs, and was very entertaining to watch.

The next day, we took a bus tour around the city.

I saw creative signs like these . . .






This is the old library that has Beethoven's 9th Symphony in its collection.


This was next door to Humbolt University, were the Grimm brothers and Einstein once taught.


Here is the sight of the first Nazi book burning. Underground is a memorial with empty bookshelves.

At this point, I broke off from the group and took some pictures on my own.






Around here, I found a stand with old russian men wearing big fur hats. They were selling communist flags and east berlin paraphernalia.


Here I am posing with one of the Berlin Bears (a lot like cows/pigs on parade in major US cities). This was very hard to do, because I was by myself, holding a bear, holding up a camera and looking crazy to every person in the entire city.


This is a picture of the room where members of the german resistance moments were hung and beheaded by the thousands. The back wall still has the hooks attached. This room was probably the most emotionally provoking memorial I have ever seen.

The next day we visited an old Gestapo prison in east Berlin. From the outside, the prison looked like any other house on the block. Inside was filled with retro cameras, small cells that held up to 6 people, and this eerie feeling that this history wasn't far enough back in history for comfort.








Then I wondered around Potsdam for a while and my friends all posed with this random sculpture.


Here I am giving the girl sculpture a little kiss.


This was my lunch. Mmm. This is what is called a (vegetarian) Doner Kabab. Kabob is fun to say when you say "kah-bab." Germany has a very high turkish immigrant population, especially in Berlin. These immigrants were very strongly encouraged to come and help with the reconstruction effort after the war. As a result, I can buy one of these great sandwiches all over Germany for only 2 Euros. It is in a warm, on a thick bread instead of a pita, filled with goat cheese and veggies, and covered with spicy garlic sauces.


This was the man playing accordion in the street. I gave him some coins and asked if I could take his picture. He said no. I took it anyways. I still feel a little guilty when I look at this picture now.


Then the bus took us off to this lovely area full of castles. This is the one where Friedrich der Große (Fredrick the Great) lived with Voltaire for a while. He specified, very specifically, that no woman could live there, and then filled the place with awesome art (very radicle and different art for the times).


He is remembered pretty positively by Germans because he introduced the potato to Germany. (This Was A Big Deal!) So, year round, people come by and place potatoes on his grave. I think this should apply for all graves, everywhere.


And then I tried on (not really) this pretty dress.

That night Rory and I went to see a play called _Germania_ by Heiner Müller. We had read this play for our Germany history class, loved it, and were thrilled that the Deutsches Theater just happened to have a performance that weekend. It is actually a very funny story how we acquired these tickets. I had been online Thursday night at the hostel, trying to find out where we could see this play, and I discovered that it was only showing one night - the 18th at 20:00! That was an hour from that moment. So I ran, grabbed Rory, convinced him to come along, we sprinted to a taxi, had the worst taxi driver in all of Berlin, and finally got there in time to be the last couple in the "last minute tickets" line. They, sadly, ran out of tickets by the time we reached the front of the line. We stood around completely disappointed for a while as we stared at the schedule. All of a sudden, Rory turned to me and said (oh so seriously), "Germania is on Friday." I was like, "Today isn't Friday?"-- but by the time I had finished those three words, my exclamation became "Today isn't Friday!" It turns out that we had been waiting in line to see a Virginia Wolff play all along! We walked over, and promptly bought tickets to see the play we intended to see for the next night.

We decided, with all of our newfound time, that we were going to dress up for this oh so hip play. Rory wore all black and slicked his hair back. I wore a beautiful colorful skirt (I bought it for only 3 Euros at an H&M!), a borrowed scarf, and my pretty new purple jacket. It was perfect. All the build up was well worth it. It was one of the best plays I have ever seen. While watching it, it became really clear to me how much German language and history I have actually grasped. I am very sure now that I am going to put forth that extra work and do a double major at Wesleyan. I will stay a College of Letters major, but then also do a German Studies major. This will only help my job oppertunitys after graduation, and will only require a few extra classes that I will enjoy anyways.

After the play, Rory and I went out for drinks at a hotel bar since it was the only one we could find. I ordered this special Berlin drink-- it is their local beer with a shot of flavored syrup (either lime green or cherry red) in the bottom. It was delicious.

Okay, so, fast forward to the next morning. We were sent on a walking tour through Kreuzberg, a less wealthy, high immigrant population, neighborhood of Berlin.





But I needed some time alone, and took off to do my own sightseeing in the area.


I saw Checkpoint Charlie.


And this is the memorial to those who tried to escape east Berlin and were killed. The left of this picture is a remaining section of the wall, all painted white.


The Topography of Terror outdoor museum.

The whole day was really intense. It involved a lot of walking, and a lot of very emotionally striking history to take in. When I got back, I was ready to be silly. I spent some time with my best female friend here, Lirra.


Here is Lirra. She is from Florida and goes to Wesleyan with me. She is fun to do girly things with, but is also fun to have long conversations about intellectual things like art and music.


And this poster was my favorite thing in the entire city. I don't think any product intended for one's mouth should ever advertise "New York's Taste."

All in all, it was a marvelous trip. I would like to visit Berlin again someday when it is warmer outside. There is a lot to take in there, and it was nice to be back into a city setting. So, what will be my next trip? I think I am might be visiting Vienna, Austria in the near future, but I will try to take some more pictures of Regensburg in the meantime.

Lots of love!
Andrea