After we landed in Berlin, we took the bus to the U-Bahn (a.k.a. the German underground) to some other bus where we eventually got off near Alexander Platz because we were to be staying with Vicky's friend Ala who works in Berlin while taking a year off from studying dentistry. Anyway, after alighting the bus we found this swank hotel that let us stash our bags there until we were to come back for them later. Score. When we had arrived at the airport we saw that there was a free walking tour of Berlin that we could take that would start at one and so we decided to do that. We walked over to where the tour was to start, near the Brandenburger Tor (a.k.a. The Brandenburger Gate), which is where Obama gave his speech when he came to Berlin. Looks like he'll probably be giving it there when he returns as that is the spot where newly elected presidents from all over the world generally give their Berlin speeches. (According to Vicky, this fact caused some to be upset by Obama making an address there before he had won. Oh well!) We decided to walk along until we found a place we wanted to have lunch, which, as I'm sure you know, never really works. We ended up at this "Story of Berlin" restaurant where we had lukewarm-ish not so delicious pasta, but it was all good in the hood. Then we walked to the Starbucks (free gingerbread latté samples! Hooray for cheapness!) from where the tour was meant to leave.
We ended up on a tour with a group of people from all over the place led by Paul. Paul is an amazing tour guide. Vicky and I couldn't decide if we liked him or Ed better. Paul is an Australian from PERTH (a.k.a. home of Heath Ledger). At the end of the tour we asked him what he did when he wasn't giving tours because these tour guides aren't paid and make their living based on tips from tour goers. He said he didn't have another job. But he was awesome enough to be that kind of person. When he was younger he had studied business, then later became a chef and then moved to Berlin because he loved it there so much. Do you love Paul as much as we did? Okay, then we can start the tour.
First we stood in the shadow of the Brandenburger Tor (in Pariser Platz, named so because of the French occupation after WWI) while Paul pointed out
some other sights in the square. The god in the center on top of the Gate was gotten back after Napoleon snatchumsed it during his conquests. They repositioned it so that the god is always looking at the French embassy--"always keeping an eye on them" as Paul awesomely said. The American Embassy is also nearby, and it only returned to its present site, where it stood pre-WWII, somewhat recently. In this square is also the hotel where Michael Jackson hung his baby out the window. Of course. I took a picture. It's a super classy hotel where you get your own butler. I'm pretty sure he said it costs about €300 per night to stay there. Anywhooo, we walked onto the main street and looked at Der Reichstag, which is where the chancellor works. Apparently when Hitler wanted to take over they framed this guy who was always pleading guilty to crimes he didn't commit and had him run around the building while it
was afire yelling "I did it! I did it!" Quesionable. Hitler used this to show the guy in charge, who didn't actually like Hitler, that the people were uneasy and he needed to be put in control. Anyway, it's a lovely building, and one that Vicky visited when she was in sixth or seventh grade. I'm sure you wanted to know. Now they have a huge dome on top where visitors can look at their government wheelin' and dealin'. Paul said it's "to remind them who they're working for. Except it's mostly tourists who don't make a difference anyway." Again, Paul's glorious. (Before he gave us this information, he gave us a really brief history of Germany, which was short partially because Germany didn't really have a whole lot going on until about 1812. Anyway, it was founded on swampland as a fisherman village. That's all I really remember him saying.)We walked down the road a spell until we stopped at the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe." The name of it is significant, since it's not just called a "Holocaust Memorial." I talked to Vicky about how difficult it has been for Germany to get away from the image of Hitler and Nazism that has been inextricably linked to it, and I think that this title really shows the desire to distance itself while still paying for that horrific period. The memorial has no sign anywhere, so that people who don't know wouldn't know what it was. It's a 4.7 acre site with 2,711 concrete slabs (all the same dimensions) at various heights in the area. It's really remarkable to stand in. The designer never said what its meaning
is meant to be, so that there are many different ways to interpret it. Some say it looks like a graveyard, rows of train cars, people waiting in lines, and any number of other things. The ambiguity lends to the memorial's profundity. It's kind of scary to walk inside, though, because the further you go in, the colder it gets as you become completely surrounded by dark grey concrete. There was a bit of controversy surrounding the site when a company produced a chemical paint that was put on the slabs to prevent graffiti. Why the hullaballoo? It was the same company that created Zyklon B, which killed millions of Jews in the gas chambers. I actually think it's just a small way that they can begin to make up for the past, but that's just me.
Then we continued through East Berlin to see where Hitler's bunker was. You would never know that it was there because it's in the middle of a parking lot for some apartment buildings. Paul wanted to know why no one was taking pictures of them as they were built high so as to show off to those in West Berlin as really desirable places to live: central heating and private bathrooms! Anyway, Hitler's bunker was under the plot of dirt on the right. Apparently people used to come looking for the spot and would knock on the doors of the apartments to ask the residents. Getting annoyed, they erected a sign so that people wouldn't be so obnoxious. The sign is pretty simple (like a board at a park, yadadimean?), and I would have taken a picture but the other beezies on the tour were crowding around it and I didn't have time. Anyway, the sign is wooden and not that important looking because no one wants it to look like a shrine to Hitler.
On we walked while Paul pointed out some buildings, and often pointed out
the bullet holes on many of the edifices. To just look at them is really underwhelming, until you think about what it must have been like in Germany when they were all being shot at and to just imagine living in Berlin during World War II is completely unreal. (In the photo, also take note of the graffiti, as it's kind of all over the place in Berlin--or at least, East Berlin, which is where we spent most of our time. I was kind of surprised at the amount of graffiti (and bullet holes, I spooooose). We walked on until we saw this building that had some socialist artwork on the side that showed how happy socialism was supposed to make the people. Everyone is smiling and working together and getting stuff done. People are gleefully working in factories and singing songs about the glory of socialism. What I liked most about this artwork is that it was set behind this water thing (it was like a long, rectangular fountain that had no font, so I don't know what to call it) that had an actual picture of what life under socialism was like for the people of Germany. What building was this, though? It was the side of the building that housed the Nazi party. The building is huge and very imposing. Apparently Tom Cruise wanted to use the actual building in his new WWII movie but he wanted to put up all the swastikas that have obviously been removed. Clearly, people were upset. I can't remember if he managed to convince them with a large donation or not... I guess we'll see in the movie. (Or, maybe you'll see as I don't see Cruise flicks on a regular basis.)
Apparently the building is now the building that houses their taxes (a.k.a. their IRS). "So," Paul said, "it's always been a source of much fear." Amazing.
After stopping for some coffee (a.k.a. hot chocolate for moi), we got to a long stretch of the Berlin Wall that is still standing near Checkpoint Charlie. They
actually erected a fence around the wall because people would often steal bits of it, as I'm sure you've seen. (I want to say I remember my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Whitman, bringing in a piece of the wall in this little plastic box one day. I'm not positive, but it seems like something that's possible..) Anyway, this was one of the three longest remaining bits of wall still intact--at least that's what I think Paul said. They still have two rows of bricks in the pavement going through all of Berlin to remind pedestrians of where the wall stood. (I meant to take a picture but forgot. Sue me.) You'll notice the round tops of the wall, and maybe wonder why they would have that instead of barbed wire or something like that. Well, that wire could actually be used as a hook for people who tried using rope to get over the wall into West Berlin. So, the Eastern bit sent for those round tubes from Western Germany claiming that they were going to do some irrigation maintenance, and then used the sent materials for the wall. There is nothing to grab onto, so people were completely thwarted in their efforts to get to the other side and freedom. After we walked past this we saw some parts of the wall that had been transformed into artwork. I liked that people reused the source of much repression as a means of expression. (Look at that fancy wordwork!) Vicky told me about how her grandmother hid in the trunk of a car to get across the border to meet her fiancé. The only reason she was able to get out of East Berlin was because they were already engaged when the wall went up. It's amazing what people went through while the wall was up.
We walked on to the Gendarmenmarkt, which is where a lot of Huguenots escaped to when persecuted. They formed a little enclave within Germany, and some say that you can still hear
traces of the French-accented German in pockets of Berlin. While we were there, Paul told us about this beer that the French made that they liked better than the German kind. It comes in different colors and flavors. Year round there is red (which tastes like raspberry) and green (which Paul said he could only describe as "tasting like green"). Vicky says that she's had blue in the summer that tastes like blueberry, and that that one is the best. I guess it's a mystery to be solved. In this square, there are two cathedrals (French and German) that flank the concert hall. Like Trinity College in Ireland, the two cathedrals are the exact same design. I don't know why architects back in the day were so lazy/obsessed with symmetry, but it's a little ridiculous.
We walked on to Bebelplatz, which was constructed under the orders of Frederick the Fabulous (as he is often called because of his supposed sexual preferences). Freddie was kind of a baller, and everyone really liked him because of all that he invested in the arts during his reign. (Actually, he tried to escape his ties to the throne during his youth, and his father punished him by making him watch the execution of one
of his friends. Paul says he and his father were really close after that. Cultural differences, people. I'm telling you!) which is a square that has the Berlin State
Opera, Humboldt Universitaet (a.k.a. where Einstein taught before peacing to the U.S.), and St. Hedwig's Cathedral surrounding it. In fact, all of the platzes in Berlin have incredible buildings on all sides--it's almost like the city planners want you to get as much culture in one go as possible! Bebelplatz was also the site of the Nazi book burnings in 1933. So, now, in front of Humboldt they sell books every day. In the middle of the platz there is also a monument underground that is dozens of empty bookshelves. Next to this there is a quotation from Henreich Hein that reads:
"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen."
("Where they burn books, they will also burn humans in the end.")
We then made our way over to Museum Island, which is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of museums on an island in Berlin. That's where our tour ended. Vicky and I walked back to get our bags from the hotel and made our way to her friend Ala's place. After we met up with her we went out for Indian food and Vicky and I went back to the apartment hoping to see some election results (as it was November 4th) while Ala went out to a birthday party. Unfortunately, it was too early in the states to hear anything. But, you all know what kind of message I awoke to from the 'rents and sister! The bombier than ever!
The next day Vicky and I got up and went to KZ (Konzentrationslager) Sachsenhausen (1936), which was the first concentration camp completed and served as the model to the rest of the camps that were built. We went because the company that provided the free tour gave out brochures that described it as "a site not to be missed when visiting Berlin." I can't really describe what being there was like. The weather, gray and constantly barely drizzling seemed appropriate to the somberness of the camp. What I really remember was walking down the long path to the camp's entrance was the gravel crunching under our shoes and the trees that lined the walk whispering in the wind. I felt like everything else in the world had stopped and we were completely alone. There was no other sound or sign of life. I'm not going to put up many photos of this just because there's too much. It's difficult to express what it's like. It is definitely more of an emotional experience than a visual one. Below is the front gate:
"Arbeit Mach Frei." / "Work will set you free."
When we got back to Berlin we stopped for some lunch/early dinner at an italian place where we had some apple thing that's typically German. Then, we ended up meeting with Alex Kreis. Some of you may remember Alex Kreis from St. Brendan School
and the days when I was on the swim team at the LATC. Yes, it's the one and the same. She's studying in Berlin this semester and our fathers ran into each other at the club and, well, the rest is pretty clear. Vicky and I went over to her area on our way to the airport and we had that Berlin beer I mentioned earlier (no blue, though!). I had red and Vicky had green. Green, to me, tastes like syrup and red is raspberry syrup. Alex hadn't tried it yet, so she had some red. Unfortunately, we had to get to catch our flight, so we were only able to meet up for about 30 minutes before blasting on the U-bahn to the airport. Home again, home again, jiggity jig!
Posts Coming Soon:
Oxford!
Leeds/Manchester!
Geneva, Switzerland!
I really hope that everyone realized that "Just Flew in from the Lin-dy Cities" was a direct reference to Calamity Jane. I love Doris Day (and you should too). This song is a piece of cloud cake: "The Windy City." I really do hope you appreciated the thought I put into the title of these two posts. Oh, the cleverness of me!
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