charismatic megafauna since 1985

Berlin

(I’m posting this from Munich; it was written a couple days ago

My first lesson for the day was that even if the ticket says that it’s the same train the whole way, don’t get scared when the conductor says that the train you’re on is not going the whole way. Apparently, a train can stop, force all of the passengers off, make them wait and then board another train (with the same number) and keep going. It’s like if you were flying a “non-stop” plane somewhere in the US, except that they made you lay over somewhere but boarded another flight with the same number. Weird.

Anyways, I got to Berlin without any trouble, just that surprise. Oh, and another surprise: there are ferries that carry trains! The train I was on took a 45 minute ferry ride from Rodby to Puttgarten. The locomotive just pushed/pulled the cars onto the ferry, then did the same once we’d docked. Very nifty.

After I checked into my hostel (the Heart of Gold, with a Hitchhiker’s Guide theme!) I went off exploring a bit Rick Steves’ has a walking guide of Berlin, so I started about in the middle of it and walked along Unter den Linden (named for the linden trees which grow there again after being replanted after Hitler tore the old ones down and replaced them with Nazi flags) for a bit to Museuminsel (Museum Island). Along the way, I stopped at a memorial to book-burning; it’s a room underneath Bebelplatz. It’s an entirely white room, with empty white bookshelves. Next to the plexiglass window that looks down into this room, there’s a quote: “When you start burning books, you end up burning people”.

Around 4pm, I got to the German History Museum. I only had an hour to see it, so I blitzed through the place, looking for things that caught my eye. You’ll get to see what some of those things are if I ever get around to posting pictures.

The next day, I followed the first part of Rick Steves’ tour. I took the 100 bus from the Zoo, up through Tiergarten (“the green lungs of Berlin”) to the Victory Column (which used to live outside the Bundestag in the Platz der Republik) and hopped out at the Platz der Republik.

The Bundestag is where Germany’s parliament works, like the US Capital building. It’s a lot cooler than the US equivalent, though: sorry DC! The outside is all old, but the inside was redesigned and rebuild after it was destroyed during the war. It’s got a beautiful glass dome on top, which you can walk up to the top of and get a fantastic view of Berlin. It’s one of the top tourist sites in the city, so I had to wait in line about 30 minutes. Luckily, there’s a small information book which is both interesting (since I didn’t know how German parliament worked) and passes the time quite effectively.

After that, I walked over to the Branderburg Tor (Gate). There’s a ton you could say about it, but I’ll just leave it at “it’s a beautiful gate.” It’s something that everyone sees, which I could judge by the two women who tried to scam me out of money. At least, I assume that’s what they were trying to do. Each came up to me, asked me if I spoke German, if I spoke English. When I just shook my head and didn’t respond, they moved on to the next tourist-looking person.

Next to the Gate, there’s a bank building designed by Gehry. The outside isn’t particularly different from any of the other buildings around (regulations) but the inside has a giant metal/glass fish. There’s some undulating glasswork which is supposed to look like waves in front of the fish’s gaping mouth. I’m not sure why a bank needs a crazy sculpture inside, but hey, it’s nifty.

There’s a mall next door, which I cut through to get to the aptly-named “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe”. It’s roughly 1700 stone prisms of varying heights. You can walk between them, and the ground slopes down so as you get to the middle of the memorial they’re towering over you. It’s a memorial for contemplation of the Holocaust. Next to it (and below ground) is the information area. It takes a different tack from normal stories of the Holocaust. It does have the general overview, with often gruesome pictures, but that’s not the focus of it. It tries instead to tell some of the stories of families who were torn apart, via photos and video that miraculously weren’t destroyed. Each one is heartbreaking; no more than one or two members of each family survived. If that weren’t terrible enough, the exhibit is nice enough to remind us that those were the lucky ones.

Museuminsel is a collection of 5 museums on, you guessed it, an island in the middle of downtown Berlin. I visited three: the Pergamonmuseum (antiquities, mostly sculpture and buildings), the Altes Museum (antiquities, some sculpture but mostly other stuff), and the Agyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung (Egypt). The centerpiece of the Pergamonmuseum is the front of a temple, likely to Athena and Zeus. It’s remarkably well preserved, including a lot of the sculpture that was around the top of a battle between the Gods and the Giants. There’s also a Babylonian brick arch and wall. It’s huge, with animals sticking out of the brickwork. One of the excavators calculated that it must have taken 1000s of brick molds to create, not to mention the time to paint and glaze them. One nicety of all three of these museums is that an audio guide is included with your admission. Normally I don’t get them (unless they’re particularly recommended, like the one at the van Gogh museum), but the ones at all three of these museums were good, giving more of the background and history than just what appeared on the author tags. I suppose that since they can assume that everyone has the audio guide, they don’t have to put all that on the tags.

I have to say that I didn’t spend too much time in the Altes Museum. I skipped the artifacts that looked like artifacts I’d seen at the Pergamon. It was a combination of just wanting to get to the Agyptisches Museum (mummies! bust of Queen Nefertiti!) and being a bit tired of museums. Anyways, for 6Euro (I’m glad I brought my student ID) to visit all three museums, I’m not disappointed about kinda skipping one of them.

The Agyptisches was fun because I’d never really seen any Egyptian sculpture before, at least that I can recall. The prize piece is a bust of Queen Nefertiti, but there’s sculpture ranging back to the time when “sculpture” was a stone carved with arms and legs. There are only three real positions that people are sculpted in: sitting in a chair (a noble position), walking/standing (one foot straight down, the other forward), and sitting cross-legged (there’s a word for it, but I can’t remember). There are also a lot of masks, generally made for mummies (or practice for such). There’s also some other artwork (I tried to take a picture of some fish for Tess, but the batteries on both cameras had run out) but it’s in the vast minority.

After that, I wandered back to the hostel to pack up, eat dinner, plan the rest of my trip (sort of, I figured out the trains) and have some beer. They only had one beer on tap, a Berliner pilsner. I’m not generally a pilsner fan, but it’s local and wasn’t bad.

The morning of the 13th I hit two exhibits before I caught my first of a series of 3 trains to Bacharach on the Rhine. The first exhibit was the Mauermuseum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie). Checkpoint Charlie was the entrance to the American part of Berlin while the Wall stood, and the building the museum is in was right by the Wall and helped people escape over it. It’s a museum focused on non-violence and telling the stories of people who escaped over the wall (and some who didn’t). The methods of escape range from the typical (climb over when no one’s looking) to the outlandish (mini sub, hot air balloon).

However, the part I was most looking forward to was the Lego Discovery Centre. I’d never even heard of Lego Discovery Centres, but I saw a brochure at the Altes Museum. It’s really designed for little kids and their parents but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. There were a lot of giant Lego sculptures (giraffe, elephant, Batman, a dragon) and some fun little things to do. There was a ride that took you past a bunch of animatronic Lego sculptures, trying to tell the story of a dragon destroying things (I think). There was a room that shows how Legos were made (the story is true (plastic is melted down and injected into a mold), but they aren’t really made in the room) for little kids, but even this big kid got a Lego piece at the end that says “Fabrik 2008”. The last part I went to didn’t have any real Legos; it was a 4D Lego experience. They gave everyone glasses that made the screen look 3D, and there were fans and a mister and something that made snow. The story is about a kingdom attacked by an evil wizard. They use the 3D effect quite well, but periodically used it to have some animal fly at the audience which made all the children scream. I had really high hopes for this, and I’ll be honest and say that I was a bit disappointed but only because it’s not designed to entertain me, it’s designed to entertain kids half my age (or younger).