Day Five - Latte Mystery Solved, U2 Pilgrimage, Slowing Down and Taking It In
I woke today and logged on to find that the DC zoo had a panda cub delivery over night. That consumed about 45 minutes of my morning. I’d wanted an early start, but I read and watched what I could before I forced myself out. Onward I went.
Same breakfast again today. Honestly, there are other things on offer (cold cuts, raisin bread, rolls, hard boiled eggs) but this standard has gotten me through the first four days, why change now?
On my way out, I asked Christian the owner of the B&B when I should leave for the train tomorrow (8:00 a.m. for an 8:45 train to Dresden) and I thought to ask him if the Stasi prison in covered by my Zones ABC transport pass. He did his very best to talk me out of going. He made it seem a mess to get there, and said “you can find much better things to do here.” I didn’t pursue it further, but it gave me pause. Quickly in my head, I reorganized my day, which was a bad thing as I was now out nearly an hour later than usual.
Stopping at Starbucks today, I finally solved the discounted latte mystery. It seems that this month is the 15th anniversary of Starbucks in Germany, so all barista crafted drinks are E1.50. I don’t know much German at all, but I figured out what was written on the chalkboard over the register.
My first stop was to the Victory Column in the center of Tiergarten Park. I took the S-bahn from Savignyplatz to get there and it was quick. Then a walk through Tiergarten to the statue. For the uninitiated, this statue was featured prominently in the Wim Wenders movie “Wings of Desire” and also more importantly, in the U2 video Stay (Far Away So Close). After a brief warmup with the walk to the column, I climbed 270 steps to the top. Now, it was cool this morning but not cold and by the time I reached the top (going of course at step mill speed, not casual stroll speed) I was a big sweaty mess. It felt good as it’s now been over a week since I’ve hit the gym, but I really didn’t want to spend the rest of the day a big sweaty mess. Ah well, I figured if Bono dragged his two pack a day butt up there, I was going to run it up. So I hit that top step and looked out and was overcome with a wave of vertigo that had me grabbing the doorway. I managed to take a few shots up the street towards Brandenburg Gate and one shot overhead to prove I made it to the angels, before I was running back down all 270 steps without having had a chance to catch my breath. Just chalk it up to exercise I suppose.
From here, I walked my way back to the S-bahn, changed to the U2 line (how many U2 references will I make in this daily installment anyway?) and got off at Mendelsohn Park. I hadn’t planned to do any sort of U2 pilgrimage on this tour, but I looked up Hansa Studios last night and realized I’d already walked by it about 10 times this week already. This studio was where most of Achtung! Baby, my favorite album, was recorded. And Depeche Mode has recorded there as well. It seemed silly since it was so convenient, not to stop by. So I did.
What I never realized is how close to the Wall the studio was, and U2 recorded here mere months after the wall came down. Potsdamer Platz is the closest U-Bahn stop, and that was one of the ghost stations from 1961-1989. The band was really in the thick of things when they were here recording. Interesting trivia for me.
From here, I walked up to Brandenburg Gate again and decided to walk up Unter den Linden (that means “Under the Linden Trees”) to Museum Island. This was an interesting walk, passing by the American and Russian Embassies, past a few nice book stores (browsed, did not buy!) and right up to the area where the tour was on Saturday, near the Neue Wach, Humboldt University and the museums.
I’d been meaning to save the museums and that part of the city for when I return here after Dresden (and am staying up in that area) but I’d read about the DDR Museum and decided to head that way. I got slightly sidetracked though when I realized I had plenty of time today and I popped into the Berliner Dom in time for its noontime prayer service. I’m always curious to see what “the biggest church in…” whatever city or country is. Given that this church isn’t even that old (1899, I think), it was understandably modern in feel, compared to a St. Paul’s or St. Peter’s for sure. But it was pretty and huge and it was nice to sit and listen to the music and the sermon, even though I understood not a word. It was only 15 minutes, so a nice break from the day.
I should mention that by this point, I’d long shed my jacket and rolled up my sleeves as it felt nearly 80 outside, warmer in the sun. So while it was a beautiful day to be enjoying outside, the occasional break and air conditioning was welcome too.
Before the DDR Museum, I needed to renourish. There was a nice looking river-side café where I sat and had, yes, yet another currywurst and fries. Oh yes, and a caramel gelato to wash that down. I may be wearing leggings knee length sweaters when I go back to work if I keep this up.
The DDR Museum was actually a great find. I liken it to a discovery museum for adults. Adults in the “strong historical content” sense, not the “explicit material” sense. All of the exhibits were meant to be experienced by touching, listening, viewing. Most of it was interactive. I’d never been to a museum like it before. The first half of the exhibit covered daily life in the DDR (this was East Germany) after the wall went up. There was a Trabant car to sit in, a model kitchen and living room to walk through, a model Stasi prison cell. When you opened certain drawers or cabinets, you’d learn more about things like “Women’s Day” (when all men did all the housework for one day) or what foods were available and not available at the time. There is a very thorough account of schooling, right through college and to the first job. The children were raised to be good socialists with the expectations of becoming good workers. In college, students went through all the course work together in the same group. When they graduated they were expected to work right away.
There was a surplus of jobs and not enough workers. Because of the low tech nature of most of the work, a lot of people didn’t want to do a lot of the available jobs. However, those found to be “work shy” or not actively working on a regular basis, were imprisoned because they did not follow the standards set for citizens to follow. In some jobs, a person could be put into a work team and the expectation was that the team would not only work together, but also socialize outside of work all the time too. Promoting this type of brotherhood seemed to be the norm.
Vacations weren’t very common because you couldn’t go too far outside of East Germany or other communist block nations. Many people went to lakes nearby and oddly enough, nude sunbathing became the norm. From what I could gather, it was the one thing they could do that wasn’t regulated to death. But when the country merged in 1989, the first thing the government did at these beaches was make the “clothing optional” beaches “clothing required” and vice versa. Sort of switching the balance between clothed and unclothed without making anything outright illegal.
Another tidbit I learned was that under DDR health care, every female was given oral contraceptives. It became so widespread that cases of veneral diseases increased drastically because no one used condoms any longer.
The back half of the exhibit was more about the politics of the time, the military service required for men, how interrogations went when the Stasi called you in. The informant culture was vast. People either volunteered, were pressured into informing or paid for doing it. Citizens would inform on just about anyone to get ahead and stay ahead. The Stasi listened, read and watched just about everyone do everything. Files were kept on everyone in Stasi archives. After the country united, they could go and request to read their file and learn why things had happened to them in life; why they’d gotten a job or been refused, why people around them disappeared, why just about anything happened to them while they were being watched. Sometimes things only became clear after they read their files, sometimes things only got worse if they found out who was informing on them. No one could be trusted.
Initially after the wall went up, no one could travel between east and west. After a time, Westerners could travel into the east periodically to visit family. After a bit more time, Easterners could petition for visits in the west for special circumstances. It seems to me that all this gradual loosening of restrictions led to the eventual uprising in the Eastern Bloc nations. They kept getting more and more bites of freedom until finally it was too much to bear.
I could go on for ages about this. I’ve read a lot of books on life in the DDR, so ask me if you want recommendations.
After the museum, it was still gorgeous outside, so rather than go to another museum, I jumped on a boat ride around the canals near the Dom and Museum Island. It was just really an out and back ride, but seeing the Dom, Reichstag and some of the government buildings from that viewpoint was interesting. And it was a nice day to just kick back and put my feet up and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. It occurred to me that I don’t often just stop at home. A very good friend of mine wrote me over the weekend and said “don’t forget to just stop and take it in.” Today I took her up on that and it paid off well. It was the first day I didn’t worry about home, and it felt good.
After the boat ride, I walked to Hackesher Markt, which is a series of small markets off of courtyards that are linked together over several blocks. I walked in and out of some cute and trendy shops (bought a scarf even) but just strolled and enjoyed watching the people and exploring the area. By dinner time, it was still warm and sunny, so I sat in a café with a glass of Reisling and listened to a brass oom-pah band. They were a group of about 6 young guys and they were quite entertaining.
Dinner tonight was a slight deviation in plans. As Berlin has a substantial Turkish population, I decided to eat Turkish tonight. I went to a place in Hackesher Markt called Hasir. There I had an appetizer of fried eggplant, jalapeno peppers and tomatoes with a yogurt sauce. I was really craving veggies and that seemed to hit the spot. My main dish was a kebab medley of lamb, beef and some form of sausage with a tomato sauce and more garlicky yogurt dip. Both were really very tasty and I was pleased with my choices. I did not have dessert here, as I spied an Amorino gelato stand, of the Paris Amorino variety, down the street. I had a small cup with caramel, mascarpone and milk-free chocolate gelatos.
Back to the hotel early tonight to pack up and watch a bit of panda cam before bed. Today, life is good. Really good.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Germany Day Four
Day Four -- Lions, Tigers, Parliament and the Wall (again)
Today, play it all again, except today I remembered deodorant and wouldn’t stand in the hellacious line at Starbucks. Christian, the owner of this B&B, gave me a second pillow yesterday and it enabled me to sleep more uninterrupted than the night before, so I was well recovered from my late night out last night.
Which is a good thing, because I had a mission. I was going to the Berlin Zoo. I’m really a sucker for zoos, and especially big cats and baby animals. I had hoped to see the zoo’s panda Bao Bao, the last living gifted (rather than leased) panda from China to any other country. But alas, Bao Bao passed away at the age of 34 just a month ago. He’d been quite ill, so I’m glad he didn’t hold on for me.
Many thanks to Petra for all of her assistance and advice about the zoo. I loved it! I’ve never seen so many species in one place, and there were animals I’d never seen before at any zoo at home (sand cat, anyone?) With no panda in residence, I headed immediately to the big cats. I found they were all inside. The indoor enclosures here are not glassed in but rather just bars, and the animals are quite close, so I got to see exactly what I’m missing at home with Morley, a whole lot of sleeping cats. Although I could swear the tiger was awake, his tale gave him away when I “encouraged” it to open its eyes.
I had one other goal of this visit to the zoo and that was to see the polar bears who lived with (and one mothered) Knut, the famous polar bear cub who died in early 2011. On my way there, however, I went by the elephants and found a 5 week old baby elephant. She was absolutely gorgeous and a joy to watch. I spent a whole chunk of time watching her and taking a zillion photos (testing out the camera for safari, you know!). She really is a cutie and her mom takes such good care of her. I would return here a few times before I left.
I found the polar bears, who seemed so far away in their enclosure but I got to zoom right in with the camera. I also stumbled upon a few leopards in my travels (next time I see those will be in Africa, none at the zoos at home!) as well as the hippos who were swimming and coming up for air on the odd occasion. Before I knew it, it was almost noontime and I had to move on for my 1:00 appointment at the Reichstag.
I jumped on the U2 at Zoo Station (how I have wanted to write that! HA!) but not before I had another currywurst outside the station. Petra said I have good taste as that one was voted best of Berlin. It really was delish!
Earlier this summer I’d applied for a time to get a guided tour of inside the Parliament building here. There was a fair amount of formality, and security was tight going in (passport check, two security checks). But all this was totally worth it. Our guide was engaging and entertaining, and the tour had the right mix of history, politics and trivia. It ended at the entrance to the glass dome that is on the roof. Skip the next few paragraphs if you don’t want to learn anything about German politics.
Parliament is the lower house. Members get elected either by a majority vote of the constituency or if they rank high enough on their party’s list. Members get fined 40 euro for every mandatory vote they miss. Roll call votes are done either by show of hands, electronic card voting (red, blue, white cards with bar codes on them) or by walking out one of three doors which say either Yes, No or Abstain. The guide pointed out where Angela Merkel sits, and explains that the party whips sit in the first couple of rows of seats, but after that it’s first come first serve for the seats. It behooves members to be there early to get closer to the front so they get more tv face time, especially close to election season. Each member gets 8000 euro a month (about $10,600) plus living expenses. The aforementioned fines would come directly out of that stipend.
The Reichstag was burned by the Nazis in 1933. Tarek, my guide on Saturday, said that the Nazis burned it in order to put citizens in a panic and get them to more easily accept the Nazis in an election that week. The guide in the Reichstag says that no one knows exactly who burned it, but that the Nazis blamed the Soviets and that the hunt is still on for who did it. Hmmm.
We got access to the Parliamentary chamber, then one of the party antechambers where bargaining for majorities goes on. The guide let us out on the front balcony so we could look out over the big lawn and see the other nearby government buildings. On the way up to the dome, he pointed out in the hallways the graffiti in Russian that was left from when the Soviets occupied the building. The architect who rebuilt the Reichstag in 1999 wanted to preserve the graffiti, so it’s been left in place and sealed so that it won’t fade further.
As today was one of those warm, bright, sunny days, the view from the dome was unlimited. You can see just about everything from up there, and the dual ramps (one for up, one for down) make it easy to get to the very top with very little effort. There is a free audio guide that changes the track as you walk around the dome so that it is always describing what you are facing.
I made my way to the S-bahn to head to north a bit to the Berlin Wall Memorial. On my way, I attempted to get into a very crowded Starbucks, and couldn’t, so I grabbed a Fanta and a piece of cherry strudel for a snack instead.
This memorial is in a neighborhood that was literally split right up the middle when the wall went up in 1961. In fact, in some locations, the house was in the east but the sidewalk in front of it was in the west, so residents would jump out the windows to escape. That is before the East Germans came along and bricked up all the windows.
Really, when you think about it, there were some unexpected logistics to walling off West Berlin from East Berlin. Like the U-Bahn and S-Bahn (the subways). Some ran through East Berlin neighborhoods as the line progressed from one part of West Berlin to another. So the East Germans had to come up with security to ensure that no one could sneak into Western stations along the tracks. They also closed the Eastern stations and they became “ghost stations” where no one got on or off and armed guards patrolled the platforms. In some cases the above-ground stops would disappear entirely, to eliminate any chance of people using them as an escape route. The Nordbanhof stop, where I got off to visit the memorial, has a lot of photos and captions (in English even!) showing how the stations were just closed up and left until the 90s when they reopened. That explains why some of those stations look trapped in the 60s, because they are!
There are two information centers along the walk that covers the memorial. The walk is organized into four sections, and I had the energy left at the end of the day to cover two of the four sections (about 25 minutes of walking, up and back). The literature and two short films (free at the information center) explains how the walls and security were set up, with dead man’s land, trip wires, beds of nails, guard houses, dogs, mobile units and the like. They left nothing to chance, folks were not going to escape alive over these walls. And the initial propaganda trying to convince East Berliners that this was a good thing was incredible. There was a temporary exhibit on what they were told and how things changed immediately (lots and lots of meetings at work and going to a 6-day work week can’t actually be interpreted as positive, I wouldn’t think!)
In this particular neighborhood, where the East Germans determined the wall should be cut right along a cemetery and right over a church. Initially congregants were allowed to enter the no man’s land for church, but that came to an end pretty quickly. Eventually the East Germans dug up graves and moved bodies to expand the border zone and at the same time they demolished the church entirely because it prevented them from having an unobstructed view of the no man’s land. Indeed, nothing was sacred.
Throughout the area between the east and west walls, there are stations with more information about what happened at a particular spot (say, a mass grave, an escape attempt, etc.) so as I walked, I learned things at each spot. I would say that this is an extremely well done presentation of a challenging subject. They’ve managed to maintain the importance of history while not threatening (at least noticeably) the balance in the neighborhood.
While I wasn’t even a figment of anyone’s imagination when this wall went up, I remember clearly when it came down. With this trip, I learned more about the politics behind it, how it came about that it came down. I bought a book in the shop that is a photo documentary of the wall coming down. To me, now that I’ve been here and seen all the sights for myself, to look at photos of them with the wall around them is just so hard to believe.
After a day spent entirely on my feet, I was beat around 5:30. I headed back to my part of Berlin and stopped at a little place called Zillemarkt, right under the S-bahn tracks in Savignyplatz. It is a cute little biergarten that the trains run right over, but it is surprisingly not annoying (or dangerous). I had the potato soup to start (a Berlin speciality, allegedly) and then cabbage stuffed with pork with a ham sauce over it, which was enormous and very hearty. I managed to squeeze in a delicious slice of apple strudel with vanilla sauce. And I had yet another delicious glass of white wine, I just wish I remembered to write them down. Who knew I’d like them all that much!
Off to bed early. Tomorrow’s my last day in Berlin as I’m off to Dresden on Tuesday.
Today, play it all again, except today I remembered deodorant and wouldn’t stand in the hellacious line at Starbucks. Christian, the owner of this B&B, gave me a second pillow yesterday and it enabled me to sleep more uninterrupted than the night before, so I was well recovered from my late night out last night.
Which is a good thing, because I had a mission. I was going to the Berlin Zoo. I’m really a sucker for zoos, and especially big cats and baby animals. I had hoped to see the zoo’s panda Bao Bao, the last living gifted (rather than leased) panda from China to any other country. But alas, Bao Bao passed away at the age of 34 just a month ago. He’d been quite ill, so I’m glad he didn’t hold on for me.
Many thanks to Petra for all of her assistance and advice about the zoo. I loved it! I’ve never seen so many species in one place, and there were animals I’d never seen before at any zoo at home (sand cat, anyone?) With no panda in residence, I headed immediately to the big cats. I found they were all inside. The indoor enclosures here are not glassed in but rather just bars, and the animals are quite close, so I got to see exactly what I’m missing at home with Morley, a whole lot of sleeping cats. Although I could swear the tiger was awake, his tale gave him away when I “encouraged” it to open its eyes.
I had one other goal of this visit to the zoo and that was to see the polar bears who lived with (and one mothered) Knut, the famous polar bear cub who died in early 2011. On my way there, however, I went by the elephants and found a 5 week old baby elephant. She was absolutely gorgeous and a joy to watch. I spent a whole chunk of time watching her and taking a zillion photos (testing out the camera for safari, you know!). She really is a cutie and her mom takes such good care of her. I would return here a few times before I left.
I found the polar bears, who seemed so far away in their enclosure but I got to zoom right in with the camera. I also stumbled upon a few leopards in my travels (next time I see those will be in Africa, none at the zoos at home!) as well as the hippos who were swimming and coming up for air on the odd occasion. Before I knew it, it was almost noontime and I had to move on for my 1:00 appointment at the Reichstag.
I jumped on the U2 at Zoo Station (how I have wanted to write that! HA!) but not before I had another currywurst outside the station. Petra said I have good taste as that one was voted best of Berlin. It really was delish!
Earlier this summer I’d applied for a time to get a guided tour of inside the Parliament building here. There was a fair amount of formality, and security was tight going in (passport check, two security checks). But all this was totally worth it. Our guide was engaging and entertaining, and the tour had the right mix of history, politics and trivia. It ended at the entrance to the glass dome that is on the roof. Skip the next few paragraphs if you don’t want to learn anything about German politics.
Parliament is the lower house. Members get elected either by a majority vote of the constituency or if they rank high enough on their party’s list. Members get fined 40 euro for every mandatory vote they miss. Roll call votes are done either by show of hands, electronic card voting (red, blue, white cards with bar codes on them) or by walking out one of three doors which say either Yes, No or Abstain. The guide pointed out where Angela Merkel sits, and explains that the party whips sit in the first couple of rows of seats, but after that it’s first come first serve for the seats. It behooves members to be there early to get closer to the front so they get more tv face time, especially close to election season. Each member gets 8000 euro a month (about $10,600) plus living expenses. The aforementioned fines would come directly out of that stipend.
The Reichstag was burned by the Nazis in 1933. Tarek, my guide on Saturday, said that the Nazis burned it in order to put citizens in a panic and get them to more easily accept the Nazis in an election that week. The guide in the Reichstag says that no one knows exactly who burned it, but that the Nazis blamed the Soviets and that the hunt is still on for who did it. Hmmm.
We got access to the Parliamentary chamber, then one of the party antechambers where bargaining for majorities goes on. The guide let us out on the front balcony so we could look out over the big lawn and see the other nearby government buildings. On the way up to the dome, he pointed out in the hallways the graffiti in Russian that was left from when the Soviets occupied the building. The architect who rebuilt the Reichstag in 1999 wanted to preserve the graffiti, so it’s been left in place and sealed so that it won’t fade further.
As today was one of those warm, bright, sunny days, the view from the dome was unlimited. You can see just about everything from up there, and the dual ramps (one for up, one for down) make it easy to get to the very top with very little effort. There is a free audio guide that changes the track as you walk around the dome so that it is always describing what you are facing.
I made my way to the S-bahn to head to north a bit to the Berlin Wall Memorial. On my way, I attempted to get into a very crowded Starbucks, and couldn’t, so I grabbed a Fanta and a piece of cherry strudel for a snack instead.
This memorial is in a neighborhood that was literally split right up the middle when the wall went up in 1961. In fact, in some locations, the house was in the east but the sidewalk in front of it was in the west, so residents would jump out the windows to escape. That is before the East Germans came along and bricked up all the windows.
Really, when you think about it, there were some unexpected logistics to walling off West Berlin from East Berlin. Like the U-Bahn and S-Bahn (the subways). Some ran through East Berlin neighborhoods as the line progressed from one part of West Berlin to another. So the East Germans had to come up with security to ensure that no one could sneak into Western stations along the tracks. They also closed the Eastern stations and they became “ghost stations” where no one got on or off and armed guards patrolled the platforms. In some cases the above-ground stops would disappear entirely, to eliminate any chance of people using them as an escape route. The Nordbanhof stop, where I got off to visit the memorial, has a lot of photos and captions (in English even!) showing how the stations were just closed up and left until the 90s when they reopened. That explains why some of those stations look trapped in the 60s, because they are!
There are two information centers along the walk that covers the memorial. The walk is organized into four sections, and I had the energy left at the end of the day to cover two of the four sections (about 25 minutes of walking, up and back). The literature and two short films (free at the information center) explains how the walls and security were set up, with dead man’s land, trip wires, beds of nails, guard houses, dogs, mobile units and the like. They left nothing to chance, folks were not going to escape alive over these walls. And the initial propaganda trying to convince East Berliners that this was a good thing was incredible. There was a temporary exhibit on what they were told and how things changed immediately (lots and lots of meetings at work and going to a 6-day work week can’t actually be interpreted as positive, I wouldn’t think!)
In this particular neighborhood, where the East Germans determined the wall should be cut right along a cemetery and right over a church. Initially congregants were allowed to enter the no man’s land for church, but that came to an end pretty quickly. Eventually the East Germans dug up graves and moved bodies to expand the border zone and at the same time they demolished the church entirely because it prevented them from having an unobstructed view of the no man’s land. Indeed, nothing was sacred.
Throughout the area between the east and west walls, there are stations with more information about what happened at a particular spot (say, a mass grave, an escape attempt, etc.) so as I walked, I learned things at each spot. I would say that this is an extremely well done presentation of a challenging subject. They’ve managed to maintain the importance of history while not threatening (at least noticeably) the balance in the neighborhood.
While I wasn’t even a figment of anyone’s imagination when this wall went up, I remember clearly when it came down. With this trip, I learned more about the politics behind it, how it came about that it came down. I bought a book in the shop that is a photo documentary of the wall coming down. To me, now that I’ve been here and seen all the sights for myself, to look at photos of them with the wall around them is just so hard to believe.
After a day spent entirely on my feet, I was beat around 5:30. I headed back to my part of Berlin and stopped at a little place called Zillemarkt, right under the S-bahn tracks in Savignyplatz. It is a cute little biergarten that the trains run right over, but it is surprisingly not annoying (or dangerous). I had the potato soup to start (a Berlin speciality, allegedly) and then cabbage stuffed with pork with a ham sauce over it, which was enormous and very hearty. I managed to squeeze in a delicious slice of apple strudel with vanilla sauce. And I had yet another delicious glass of white wine, I just wish I remembered to write them down. Who knew I’d like them all that much!
Off to bed early. Tomorrow’s my last day in Berlin as I’m off to Dresden on Tuesday.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Germany Day Three
Day Three – Museum Day
This morning dawned rainy and damp. I’d pretty much already decided that I was scratching the day trip to Potsdam to see everything I wanted to here first. I would have anyway, with the rain and all. Plus, my creaking joints were saying enough with all the walking/standing, so I decided to dial it back for a day.
Same breakfast as yesterday, only today I chatted with a retired couple from Toronto who were here starting 3 weeks in Germany. We talked about travel and what we’d seen and where we’d eaten so far. Nice folks. They affirmed my decision to get to the Jewish Museum today.
I headed out and realized half-way down Ku’dam that I’d forgotten deodorant today. Rather than obsess about it or go back to the hotel, I stopped into an apothecary and bought some. That’s always fun, talking to the pharmacist about your personal needs and having them find what you need and hand it to you. I should see what they have for knee and neck pain next time I pass by. I also stopped into Starbucks, where Benito the sorta hot barista undercharged me yet again for the apple crumble latte. What the hell, it makes me feel less guilty for drinking 600 calories in one go.
My first stop was the Gemaldegalerie, or Painting Gallery. This museum houses many old European masters in the 13th-18th centuries. The museum is only one floor, and organized regionally and then by century within regions. I exercised restraint and paid homage in the Flemmish and German galleries before I ran for the Dutch section at the far end of the building. I had read that this museum has one of the largest collections of Rembrandt outside of Holland. I was not disappointed. There were 19 that I counted, and some wonderful ones at that. There were portraits of both of Rembrandt’s loves, Saskia and Hendrijke. There were a few religious works unlike any I’d ever seen by him, like the Moses holding the tablet overhead. The mythical Rape of Persephone was just gorgeous, with Persphone being spotlit in the center of the painting and Jupiter and goddesses fighting over her between them, but barely seen. The golden work on her dress was gorgeous. There was a Christ profile which I wonder if I saw in Philly last year. There was a gorgeous holy family scene in a tiny frame that was just beautiful. I was smitten. And if that was not enough, there was a Vermeer around the corner. The Glass of Wine was on view, the other Berlin Vermeer is in Tokyo. Not that first time that’s happened to me, I’ll just have to come back! The Glass of Wine is pretty typical Vermeer, I think. I enjoyed seeing it, but it is not one of my favorites. Two more await me in Dresden (neither on loan, thankfully!)
The Italian section had a wonderful Caravaggio a Botticelli’s Venus and a Rafael Holy Family tondo. That was all pretty impressive, but I was drawn back to that Rembrandt room more times than I remember.
After a couple hours there, I walked back up to Postdamer Platz, where I had a lunch of currywurst and fries. Not terribly healthy, but it hit the spot.
My next stop was the Jewish Museum, which deals specifically with the Jewish experience in Germany which, yes, goes far beyond the Holocaust years. The architecture of the building is something to behold, with an almost palazzo-like main building a steel lightning bolt of an edifice next to it. There is no visible bridge between them, as you enter the permanent exhibit in the newer building from a tunnel. The tunnel has three axes (axises?): Axis of the Holocaust, Axis of Exile and Axis of Continuity. The first two deal with exactly what they say. The Holocaust axis ends in a tower which is unheated and darkened and lit only by natural light from the very top; the sensory deprivation of it, being able to just see light and just hear noise from outdoors is meant to represent the void in life from the loss of so many Jews. The Exile axis ends in a small square garden with tall pillars in it. As I walked on the uneven ground and lost myself in the maze of pillars, that was meant to represent the uncertainty and unsettled feeling those who moved in exile felt in their new lands. Ok, so far, I was hooked. Along each axis were mementos from various victims of the Holocaust or stories of those who were exiled.
The Axis of Continuity led to the rest of the permanent exhibit, which walked through the entire Jewish experience in Germany, starting in the Middle Ages. Since I’m not shy about saying when I learn something and how ignorant I feel not to know what I probably should, I’ll say it again here. I learned so much it was almost embarrassing. As I wound my way through the Middle Ages to the age of Enlightment (when, for a brief period before the Nazis came to power, Jews were equal to all other Germans) and even learning about the faith and its customs, I realized there was so much more to learn and understand. Of course this museum too spent a significant portion of the exhibit covering the stages of the Holocaust, from Kristalnacht to the various laws passed against Jews to moving to the camps, but then it also gave fair play to the return of Jews who survived the camps and how many ended up leaving, feeling that they could not stay in a place where something so violent happened.
One particularly interesting space was the Memory Void, which was another cold and seemingly empty space, except there were 10,000 steel faces piled on to the floor. They were larger than dinner plates and hard to move. They represented the void left by those lost to us and walking over them (which you were meant to do) you could not walk easily over them or move them out of your way, the resilience of the large plates as they clanged and refused to move was chilling.
I think that as much as I’ve made it sound sort of somber or morose, I also saw dozens of representations of how Jews contributed to society here and more than made their mark. There was a great section on innovation and famous German Jews (hello, Einstein and the Mendelsohns to name a few). This was one of the most thorough and positively navigable museums I’ve been to on any one subject. It’s definitely not to be missed.
After a quick stop at the hotel to rest up and change, I headed out to meet Petra, a fellow panda fan who lives here in Germany. We spent a great night talking about shared interests like travel and animals over a great Indian meal. I had a hot chicken tikka and a mango lassi. I don’t find great Indian food at home, so this was a great treat, and to share it with such a dear new friend was a bonus! Thank you Petra!
After midnight now, so signing off. Hoping for favorable zoo weather tomorrow or Monday!
This morning dawned rainy and damp. I’d pretty much already decided that I was scratching the day trip to Potsdam to see everything I wanted to here first. I would have anyway, with the rain and all. Plus, my creaking joints were saying enough with all the walking/standing, so I decided to dial it back for a day.
Same breakfast as yesterday, only today I chatted with a retired couple from Toronto who were here starting 3 weeks in Germany. We talked about travel and what we’d seen and where we’d eaten so far. Nice folks. They affirmed my decision to get to the Jewish Museum today.
I headed out and realized half-way down Ku’dam that I’d forgotten deodorant today. Rather than obsess about it or go back to the hotel, I stopped into an apothecary and bought some. That’s always fun, talking to the pharmacist about your personal needs and having them find what you need and hand it to you. I should see what they have for knee and neck pain next time I pass by. I also stopped into Starbucks, where Benito the sorta hot barista undercharged me yet again for the apple crumble latte. What the hell, it makes me feel less guilty for drinking 600 calories in one go.
My first stop was the Gemaldegalerie, or Painting Gallery. This museum houses many old European masters in the 13th-18th centuries. The museum is only one floor, and organized regionally and then by century within regions. I exercised restraint and paid homage in the Flemmish and German galleries before I ran for the Dutch section at the far end of the building. I had read that this museum has one of the largest collections of Rembrandt outside of Holland. I was not disappointed. There were 19 that I counted, and some wonderful ones at that. There were portraits of both of Rembrandt’s loves, Saskia and Hendrijke. There were a few religious works unlike any I’d ever seen by him, like the Moses holding the tablet overhead. The mythical Rape of Persephone was just gorgeous, with Persphone being spotlit in the center of the painting and Jupiter and goddesses fighting over her between them, but barely seen. The golden work on her dress was gorgeous. There was a Christ profile which I wonder if I saw in Philly last year. There was a gorgeous holy family scene in a tiny frame that was just beautiful. I was smitten. And if that was not enough, there was a Vermeer around the corner. The Glass of Wine was on view, the other Berlin Vermeer is in Tokyo. Not that first time that’s happened to me, I’ll just have to come back! The Glass of Wine is pretty typical Vermeer, I think. I enjoyed seeing it, but it is not one of my favorites. Two more await me in Dresden (neither on loan, thankfully!)
The Italian section had a wonderful Caravaggio a Botticelli’s Venus and a Rafael Holy Family tondo. That was all pretty impressive, but I was drawn back to that Rembrandt room more times than I remember.
After a couple hours there, I walked back up to Postdamer Platz, where I had a lunch of currywurst and fries. Not terribly healthy, but it hit the spot.
My next stop was the Jewish Museum, which deals specifically with the Jewish experience in Germany which, yes, goes far beyond the Holocaust years. The architecture of the building is something to behold, with an almost palazzo-like main building a steel lightning bolt of an edifice next to it. There is no visible bridge between them, as you enter the permanent exhibit in the newer building from a tunnel. The tunnel has three axes (axises?): Axis of the Holocaust, Axis of Exile and Axis of Continuity. The first two deal with exactly what they say. The Holocaust axis ends in a tower which is unheated and darkened and lit only by natural light from the very top; the sensory deprivation of it, being able to just see light and just hear noise from outdoors is meant to represent the void in life from the loss of so many Jews. The Exile axis ends in a small square garden with tall pillars in it. As I walked on the uneven ground and lost myself in the maze of pillars, that was meant to represent the uncertainty and unsettled feeling those who moved in exile felt in their new lands. Ok, so far, I was hooked. Along each axis were mementos from various victims of the Holocaust or stories of those who were exiled.
The Axis of Continuity led to the rest of the permanent exhibit, which walked through the entire Jewish experience in Germany, starting in the Middle Ages. Since I’m not shy about saying when I learn something and how ignorant I feel not to know what I probably should, I’ll say it again here. I learned so much it was almost embarrassing. As I wound my way through the Middle Ages to the age of Enlightment (when, for a brief period before the Nazis came to power, Jews were equal to all other Germans) and even learning about the faith and its customs, I realized there was so much more to learn and understand. Of course this museum too spent a significant portion of the exhibit covering the stages of the Holocaust, from Kristalnacht to the various laws passed against Jews to moving to the camps, but then it also gave fair play to the return of Jews who survived the camps and how many ended up leaving, feeling that they could not stay in a place where something so violent happened.
One particularly interesting space was the Memory Void, which was another cold and seemingly empty space, except there were 10,000 steel faces piled on to the floor. They were larger than dinner plates and hard to move. They represented the void left by those lost to us and walking over them (which you were meant to do) you could not walk easily over them or move them out of your way, the resilience of the large plates as they clanged and refused to move was chilling.
I think that as much as I’ve made it sound sort of somber or morose, I also saw dozens of representations of how Jews contributed to society here and more than made their mark. There was a great section on innovation and famous German Jews (hello, Einstein and the Mendelsohns to name a few). This was one of the most thorough and positively navigable museums I’ve been to on any one subject. It’s definitely not to be missed.
After a quick stop at the hotel to rest up and change, I headed out to meet Petra, a fellow panda fan who lives here in Germany. We spent a great night talking about shared interests like travel and animals over a great Indian meal. I had a hot chicken tikka and a mango lassi. I don’t find great Indian food at home, so this was a great treat, and to share it with such a dear new friend was a bonus! Thank you Petra!
After midnight now, so signing off. Hoping for favorable zoo weather tomorrow or Monday!
Friday, September 14, 2012
Germany Day Two
Day Two – The Oddest Starbucks Experience, The Longest Tour, The Best Meal
For those who don’t travel across time zones, you will not understand what I’m about to say. For those who do, you’ll nod your head and say “oh yeah.” Last night I slept that first day jetlag sleep of the dead sleep. I literally fell asleep typing the blog last night, woke up, finished the blog AND uploaded photos and then was out cold for 10 ½ straight hours. That’s partially because I hadn’t slept for 36 hours and ran the first day sightseeing rat race yesterday. And partially because sleep hasn’t been plentiful of late…
Anyway, I woke to a nice chilly room (slept with windows open but there’s a gorgeous duvet on the bed that kept me warm) and took a hot shower. Breakfast here was good. I had what I think were Sugar Smacks (granola, schmola, I can have that at home), a yogurt and two soft waffles with cherry jelly. Whenever I see cherry jelly I have it because I never find it as good at home.
I headed straight out to meet my tour with Insider Tours of Berlin. That was at the other end of Ku’dam and I had to pass two Starbucks on my way. At the second one, I ventured in to order the Apple Crumble Latte I spied yesterday. Used to mortgaging the farm for a barista-crafted drink, I handed the cashier 4.10 (euros that is, about US$5.30) and he looked at me puzzled. “It is only 1.50.” Huh? I though, looking down at the Apple Crumble Latte sign in front of me that said 4.10. I shrugged and figured I’d be getting water or steamed milk for that price, and he just didn’t understand me. Lo and behold, it WAS the Apple Crumble Latte. And it was heavenly. This was a very auspicious start to the day in terms of food. And I will be repeating that every day!
I met the Insider Tours folks in front of Zoo Station. I was assigned to the guide Tarek, a young, handsome devil who turned out to be a half-German, half-Egyptian New York City born architect now living in Berlin. This was meant to be a 4 hour tour hitting all the major sites and a lot of hidden ones. Our tour lasted nearly 5 ½ hours. Not that that is a bad thing, given that I got a discounted rate of 9 euro for the tour (thank you Welcome Berlin card!) but I did have other things I wanted to get to today, and didn’t. But in the end, with all I learned, it was worth it.
Let me warn you now, my minor obsession with German history is about to take over the blog. I learned that once again in order to learn what I should have learned in junior high, I have to spend two grand and travel 3000 miles. But this is why I travel. I love a day when I can look back on it and realize that my own thoughts and beliefs were challenged, when I was made to reflect, made to evaluate how I see things, made to realize what I hadn’t already. Tarek made that all happen. One thing Tarek said to kick off the tour was meant to put things in perspective for us: “history is the lies of the victors and the self-delusions of the defeated.” Basically, take everything you learn with the source in mind.
We started at Museum Island in former East Berlin. I’ll be heading there at the end of next week (when my last hotel is nearby) to see all there is, but I got to learn that the royal palace was torn down, and is being reconstructed, in ready made pieces in China. The Berliner Dom, which is meant to rival St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s was also fairly new in design (late 1800s). Tarek gave us all the relevant history of Germany up to about 1913 in about 15 minutes and then spent the rest of the day bringing us up to the present day.
The first stop that gave me pause was Neue Wache (new guardhouse), which looks pretty similar to the Pantheon in Rome and even has the oculus through which the bright September sun was shining through today. The building has been a few different things over time, including the Prussian War Memorial and a guardshack. When it was destroyed and then rebuilt following WWII, it became a memorial to victims of fascism and militarism. There is a modern sculpture by Kathe Kollwitz of a Pieta inside, and that is it that we can see, but the remains of an unknown concentration camp victim and a unknown soldier are buried inside and that makes the vacant space a bit more profound.
Here, Tarek explained to us that “crimes are only as bad as the number of memorials you build to commemorate them.” And he says that Berlin has an inordinate number of memorials to all of the crimes of the Nazis and Third Reich. He then asked us to compare the memorials in the countries of two of Hitler’s contemporaries, who were equally guilty of the same if not more crimes. Russia and Japan both had leaders at the same time and neither country has take steps to commemorate or publicly acknowledge the victims through any memorials at all. I’d never thought of that, and asked Tarek if he felt that Germany’s “owning up” to those crimes through memorials is almost detrimental, because ask anyone in the US if they know what Russia or Japan did at the same time, and many, many people would be hardpressed to respond. Ask them about Hitler, and everyone nails the quiz.
Back to what I learned that I should have when I was 12. Starting in 1961, Berlin and Germany as a whole was split amongst the US, French, British and Russians. Berlin itself though was in the Russian section of Germany, which meant that the US, French and British has to travel through Russian-occupied Germany to get there, so dedicated highways and flight patterns were created for that reason. (I know, a lot of you know this, I am just now catching up on my public school education). The “Wall” around West Berlin was put up to keep the East Berliners from getting into West Berlin because once they were in West Berlin, they could very easily use the dedicated thoroughfares set up for the Allies to get in and out to get out East Germany altogether. The Wall was at first barbed wire, and was gradually converted to cinder blocks and then the pre-fab slabs we see now. Checkpoint Charlie, which Tarek said is the biggest ado about nothing, was the only way the Allies could get between East and West Berlin. That’s why we all know it, that’s why it’s an utter tourist trap today. In fact, nothing that’s there that I took pictures of yesterday is actually real or original. It’s all set up to take advantage of the pop culture phenomenon that it became over time.
Tarek took us to another section of wall (he couldn’t know that I walked a mile of it yesterday) and this was more rundown and not all painted up. It traced the outer limit of the Topography of Terror, which I came back to after the tour. From there we went on to a residential neighborhood where we found an apartment complex that was built on the site of Hitler’s bunker (where he and his wife killed themselves). Tarek said that it is purposefully not indicated where the bunker was so as to prevent obsessive crazies from creating shrines and worshipping at it. He says the Third Reich cults exist and they really get carried away, so that’s probably a good thing. I’d watched a Discovery Channel show on Hitler and his life before he came to power and into his rule as fuhrer. I found it odd that he allegedly loved Eva Braun but reportedly they never had sex. Today Tarek told us that Hitler didn’t ever marry Eva until right before they committed suicide because he was always married to Germany first. Ok, sure… But it was a sign that he’d given up Germany when he married her, and then they both bit the cyanide pill and shot themselves in the head. So it was a brief commitment.
No intro tour to Berlin would be complete with discussing the Holocaust. Tarek said from the beginning that he is not out to exonerate the Germans to be correct many assumptions that we have about them and the “facts” we know about them. He said that so many people think the Holocaust was about eradicating Jews from the face of the earth, but 6.5 million Jews were killed by Hitler’s regime AND 7 million others: Poles, homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled, “enemies of the state”. Holy crap! As Tarek said “every time someone says something about the Jews and the Holocaust, 7 million other victims are rolling over in their graves screaming ‘what about us?’” That definitely gave me pause. Truly.
His mother being German, Tarek has been asked if Germans at the time knew what was going on when Holocaust victims were taken away. He said that his mother knew there was no way you couldn’t know, you would most certainly hear the boots marching up stairs, the yelling of revolt, and notice that day after day after that intrusion, the neighbors were missing. What they might not have known though is what happened to them. As all the concentration camps were well outside the cities in remote areas (so no one saw the chimneys spewing smoke or smelled the burning), Germans may not have known the ultimate fate of these people. His explanation for why no one stood up to stop this from happening is three-fold: 1) apathy – it’s not me or mine; 2) opportunity – buying up goods or real estate of the departed; 3) fear – would you have opened the door up if you heard that going on next door?
Again he said that he doesn’t want to sound the apologist for Germans, but the Nazis did contribute to society as well. They introduced the torch at the Berlin Olympic Games, it actually was a Nazi symbol. The Nazis invented the autobahn here. And the support the Nazi Party got was remarkable. They employed Krupps coffee maker company to help make tanks. Hugo Boss designed the Nazi uniforms. DeutscheBank financed the building of the concentration camps. IBM made machines to help them “count things” in the camps. Tarek pointed out that a lot of the Nazi efforts would not have been successful without at least some support somewhere along the way both from corporations and individuals. Corporations obviously played along. Yikes.
We stopped back at the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe, where I’d been yesterday but today I got a better appreciation of it with a guide. It was designed so that the deeper you go into it, the more sunken you feel, the further away the sky seems, the taller the plinths are. It is meant to make you feel more distant from what is safe above you. It was strategically placed right along the direct route to the Reichstag (Parliament) so that politicians, in theory, would have to see it.
It is also right next to the American embassy, which I don’t think is intentional. The embassy had our flag at half staff today due to the killings in Libya.
One more stop at the Brandenburg Gate, which was quick as we were approaching the 5 ½ hour mark on the tour. One thing Tarek pointed out was the Hotel Adlon on the square there, which is famous for all visiting dignitaries staying there and Michael Jackson almost dropping his kid out the window. Cool.
Somewhere in this tour, we stopped for lunch, which was just a grilled chicken bagette. Nothing fancy, but it did leave me feeling peckish, despite the handful of Irish candies from duty free in Dublin I’d stashed in my bag and the half Luna bar I ate along the way. So I grabbed a Bounty ice cream bar, which was just dreamy: dark chocolate coated coconut ice cream.
My next stop on my own was the Topography of Terrors. This was built on the bombed out remnants of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office (home of the SS, SD and Gestapo). As I mentioned earlier, remnants of the wall line one side and the “museum”, if you can call it that, is made up of an indoor and an outdoor exhibit. Outdoors presents the story of Hitler’s regime on Berlin. Inside presents the entire story: affected victims, countries, organization, rise and fall. This took me nearly 2 hours to comb through. The combination of text to read and photos and artifacts to look at was enough to keep me going. My feet finally gave out around 5:45, so I headed back to the hotel and changed for dinner.
Last weekend from home I’d called Marjellchen, which had been highly reviewed on Trip Advisor and on certain forums I’d read. I know when I write these blogs it sounds like I trip over good meals, but I research my restaurants almost as much as my itinerary. I knew Marjellchen was going to be golden. And it was. This restaurant has been run by the same women for 27 years. They’re older now and look like your typical Prussian grandmother. They run the 12 indoor tables and 6 outdoor tables in sneakers. One seems to work the bar, another chats up the diners and asks “Do you like a toothpick now?” when you’re done with your main course. The décor is old and dark, the music a best of eastern European hits.
The food is incredible. It’s meant to be Prussian family specialties that the owner’s grandmother passed down. It was so freaking good, I nearly passed out. I started with borscht (beet soup with sour cream and beef in it). It was just as good as what I had in Russia, if not more so with the beef in it! It arrives at the table in that violent orangey reddish pink with the sour cream melted through it and smells amazing. My main course was a pork chop stuffed with prunes, apples and rye bread. I am not exaggerating when I say it should be criminal to make stuffing that good. I ate every ounce of it. The chop had a sauce over it which the server “warned” me had cinnamon in it (who doesn’t like cinnamon?) but I thought it pulled it all together so well. It came with potato dumplings (basically big balls of mashed potato) and boiled cabbage. Unreal. I paired it with a German red wine that was stunning and I wished I remembered what it was. For dessert, apple dumplings with vanilla ice cream. Utter perfection. I will probably spend the rest of the week trying unsuccessfully to beat that meal. I almost asked them to reserve me a table for Sunday or Monday but realized I need to explore more and try other things. Hmmmph.
So back here now, I hear the rain beating down, let’s hope that passes by morning. I think I am scratching Potsdam from the itinerary because there is just too much left in Berlin I want to get to before I go to Dresden on Tuesday. I may sleep in a bit in the a.m. and head out to the Gemaldegalerie for some art when that opens at 10.
More randomness….
Paying for the trains/trams/buses/subways work on the honor system here. I bought a 5 day pass and validated it on the first day. I never show it or stamp it again, but may be subject to a search by undercover employees. If I don’t have a valid ticket, I get booted off the train and fined 40 euro on the spot. This seems to work here (and it did in Vienna, which did it the same way) but I can’t imagine this working at home. It’s just such a different mindset.
This is yet another city that has communication on their lines down pat. Just about every mode on every line I’ve taken has displays of time until the next train. And they’re always accurate. Now there’s a thought!
For those who don’t travel across time zones, you will not understand what I’m about to say. For those who do, you’ll nod your head and say “oh yeah.” Last night I slept that first day jetlag sleep of the dead sleep. I literally fell asleep typing the blog last night, woke up, finished the blog AND uploaded photos and then was out cold for 10 ½ straight hours. That’s partially because I hadn’t slept for 36 hours and ran the first day sightseeing rat race yesterday. And partially because sleep hasn’t been plentiful of late…
Anyway, I woke to a nice chilly room (slept with windows open but there’s a gorgeous duvet on the bed that kept me warm) and took a hot shower. Breakfast here was good. I had what I think were Sugar Smacks (granola, schmola, I can have that at home), a yogurt and two soft waffles with cherry jelly. Whenever I see cherry jelly I have it because I never find it as good at home.
I headed straight out to meet my tour with Insider Tours of Berlin. That was at the other end of Ku’dam and I had to pass two Starbucks on my way. At the second one, I ventured in to order the Apple Crumble Latte I spied yesterday. Used to mortgaging the farm for a barista-crafted drink, I handed the cashier 4.10 (euros that is, about US$5.30) and he looked at me puzzled. “It is only 1.50.” Huh? I though, looking down at the Apple Crumble Latte sign in front of me that said 4.10. I shrugged and figured I’d be getting water or steamed milk for that price, and he just didn’t understand me. Lo and behold, it WAS the Apple Crumble Latte. And it was heavenly. This was a very auspicious start to the day in terms of food. And I will be repeating that every day!
I met the Insider Tours folks in front of Zoo Station. I was assigned to the guide Tarek, a young, handsome devil who turned out to be a half-German, half-Egyptian New York City born architect now living in Berlin. This was meant to be a 4 hour tour hitting all the major sites and a lot of hidden ones. Our tour lasted nearly 5 ½ hours. Not that that is a bad thing, given that I got a discounted rate of 9 euro for the tour (thank you Welcome Berlin card!) but I did have other things I wanted to get to today, and didn’t. But in the end, with all I learned, it was worth it.
Let me warn you now, my minor obsession with German history is about to take over the blog. I learned that once again in order to learn what I should have learned in junior high, I have to spend two grand and travel 3000 miles. But this is why I travel. I love a day when I can look back on it and realize that my own thoughts and beliefs were challenged, when I was made to reflect, made to evaluate how I see things, made to realize what I hadn’t already. Tarek made that all happen. One thing Tarek said to kick off the tour was meant to put things in perspective for us: “history is the lies of the victors and the self-delusions of the defeated.” Basically, take everything you learn with the source in mind.
We started at Museum Island in former East Berlin. I’ll be heading there at the end of next week (when my last hotel is nearby) to see all there is, but I got to learn that the royal palace was torn down, and is being reconstructed, in ready made pieces in China. The Berliner Dom, which is meant to rival St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s was also fairly new in design (late 1800s). Tarek gave us all the relevant history of Germany up to about 1913 in about 15 minutes and then spent the rest of the day bringing us up to the present day.
The first stop that gave me pause was Neue Wache (new guardhouse), which looks pretty similar to the Pantheon in Rome and even has the oculus through which the bright September sun was shining through today. The building has been a few different things over time, including the Prussian War Memorial and a guardshack. When it was destroyed and then rebuilt following WWII, it became a memorial to victims of fascism and militarism. There is a modern sculpture by Kathe Kollwitz of a Pieta inside, and that is it that we can see, but the remains of an unknown concentration camp victim and a unknown soldier are buried inside and that makes the vacant space a bit more profound.
Here, Tarek explained to us that “crimes are only as bad as the number of memorials you build to commemorate them.” And he says that Berlin has an inordinate number of memorials to all of the crimes of the Nazis and Third Reich. He then asked us to compare the memorials in the countries of two of Hitler’s contemporaries, who were equally guilty of the same if not more crimes. Russia and Japan both had leaders at the same time and neither country has take steps to commemorate or publicly acknowledge the victims through any memorials at all. I’d never thought of that, and asked Tarek if he felt that Germany’s “owning up” to those crimes through memorials is almost detrimental, because ask anyone in the US if they know what Russia or Japan did at the same time, and many, many people would be hardpressed to respond. Ask them about Hitler, and everyone nails the quiz.
Back to what I learned that I should have when I was 12. Starting in 1961, Berlin and Germany as a whole was split amongst the US, French, British and Russians. Berlin itself though was in the Russian section of Germany, which meant that the US, French and British has to travel through Russian-occupied Germany to get there, so dedicated highways and flight patterns were created for that reason. (I know, a lot of you know this, I am just now catching up on my public school education). The “Wall” around West Berlin was put up to keep the East Berliners from getting into West Berlin because once they were in West Berlin, they could very easily use the dedicated thoroughfares set up for the Allies to get in and out to get out East Germany altogether. The Wall was at first barbed wire, and was gradually converted to cinder blocks and then the pre-fab slabs we see now. Checkpoint Charlie, which Tarek said is the biggest ado about nothing, was the only way the Allies could get between East and West Berlin. That’s why we all know it, that’s why it’s an utter tourist trap today. In fact, nothing that’s there that I took pictures of yesterday is actually real or original. It’s all set up to take advantage of the pop culture phenomenon that it became over time.
Tarek took us to another section of wall (he couldn’t know that I walked a mile of it yesterday) and this was more rundown and not all painted up. It traced the outer limit of the Topography of Terror, which I came back to after the tour. From there we went on to a residential neighborhood where we found an apartment complex that was built on the site of Hitler’s bunker (where he and his wife killed themselves). Tarek said that it is purposefully not indicated where the bunker was so as to prevent obsessive crazies from creating shrines and worshipping at it. He says the Third Reich cults exist and they really get carried away, so that’s probably a good thing. I’d watched a Discovery Channel show on Hitler and his life before he came to power and into his rule as fuhrer. I found it odd that he allegedly loved Eva Braun but reportedly they never had sex. Today Tarek told us that Hitler didn’t ever marry Eva until right before they committed suicide because he was always married to Germany first. Ok, sure… But it was a sign that he’d given up Germany when he married her, and then they both bit the cyanide pill and shot themselves in the head. So it was a brief commitment.
No intro tour to Berlin would be complete with discussing the Holocaust. Tarek said from the beginning that he is not out to exonerate the Germans to be correct many assumptions that we have about them and the “facts” we know about them. He said that so many people think the Holocaust was about eradicating Jews from the face of the earth, but 6.5 million Jews were killed by Hitler’s regime AND 7 million others: Poles, homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled, “enemies of the state”. Holy crap! As Tarek said “every time someone says something about the Jews and the Holocaust, 7 million other victims are rolling over in their graves screaming ‘what about us?’” That definitely gave me pause. Truly.
His mother being German, Tarek has been asked if Germans at the time knew what was going on when Holocaust victims were taken away. He said that his mother knew there was no way you couldn’t know, you would most certainly hear the boots marching up stairs, the yelling of revolt, and notice that day after day after that intrusion, the neighbors were missing. What they might not have known though is what happened to them. As all the concentration camps were well outside the cities in remote areas (so no one saw the chimneys spewing smoke or smelled the burning), Germans may not have known the ultimate fate of these people. His explanation for why no one stood up to stop this from happening is three-fold: 1) apathy – it’s not me or mine; 2) opportunity – buying up goods or real estate of the departed; 3) fear – would you have opened the door up if you heard that going on next door?
Again he said that he doesn’t want to sound the apologist for Germans, but the Nazis did contribute to society as well. They introduced the torch at the Berlin Olympic Games, it actually was a Nazi symbol. The Nazis invented the autobahn here. And the support the Nazi Party got was remarkable. They employed Krupps coffee maker company to help make tanks. Hugo Boss designed the Nazi uniforms. DeutscheBank financed the building of the concentration camps. IBM made machines to help them “count things” in the camps. Tarek pointed out that a lot of the Nazi efforts would not have been successful without at least some support somewhere along the way both from corporations and individuals. Corporations obviously played along. Yikes.
We stopped back at the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe, where I’d been yesterday but today I got a better appreciation of it with a guide. It was designed so that the deeper you go into it, the more sunken you feel, the further away the sky seems, the taller the plinths are. It is meant to make you feel more distant from what is safe above you. It was strategically placed right along the direct route to the Reichstag (Parliament) so that politicians, in theory, would have to see it.
It is also right next to the American embassy, which I don’t think is intentional. The embassy had our flag at half staff today due to the killings in Libya.
One more stop at the Brandenburg Gate, which was quick as we were approaching the 5 ½ hour mark on the tour. One thing Tarek pointed out was the Hotel Adlon on the square there, which is famous for all visiting dignitaries staying there and Michael Jackson almost dropping his kid out the window. Cool.
Somewhere in this tour, we stopped for lunch, which was just a grilled chicken bagette. Nothing fancy, but it did leave me feeling peckish, despite the handful of Irish candies from duty free in Dublin I’d stashed in my bag and the half Luna bar I ate along the way. So I grabbed a Bounty ice cream bar, which was just dreamy: dark chocolate coated coconut ice cream.
My next stop on my own was the Topography of Terrors. This was built on the bombed out remnants of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office (home of the SS, SD and Gestapo). As I mentioned earlier, remnants of the wall line one side and the “museum”, if you can call it that, is made up of an indoor and an outdoor exhibit. Outdoors presents the story of Hitler’s regime on Berlin. Inside presents the entire story: affected victims, countries, organization, rise and fall. This took me nearly 2 hours to comb through. The combination of text to read and photos and artifacts to look at was enough to keep me going. My feet finally gave out around 5:45, so I headed back to the hotel and changed for dinner.
Last weekend from home I’d called Marjellchen, which had been highly reviewed on Trip Advisor and on certain forums I’d read. I know when I write these blogs it sounds like I trip over good meals, but I research my restaurants almost as much as my itinerary. I knew Marjellchen was going to be golden. And it was. This restaurant has been run by the same women for 27 years. They’re older now and look like your typical Prussian grandmother. They run the 12 indoor tables and 6 outdoor tables in sneakers. One seems to work the bar, another chats up the diners and asks “Do you like a toothpick now?” when you’re done with your main course. The décor is old and dark, the music a best of eastern European hits.
The food is incredible. It’s meant to be Prussian family specialties that the owner’s grandmother passed down. It was so freaking good, I nearly passed out. I started with borscht (beet soup with sour cream and beef in it). It was just as good as what I had in Russia, if not more so with the beef in it! It arrives at the table in that violent orangey reddish pink with the sour cream melted through it and smells amazing. My main course was a pork chop stuffed with prunes, apples and rye bread. I am not exaggerating when I say it should be criminal to make stuffing that good. I ate every ounce of it. The chop had a sauce over it which the server “warned” me had cinnamon in it (who doesn’t like cinnamon?) but I thought it pulled it all together so well. It came with potato dumplings (basically big balls of mashed potato) and boiled cabbage. Unreal. I paired it with a German red wine that was stunning and I wished I remembered what it was. For dessert, apple dumplings with vanilla ice cream. Utter perfection. I will probably spend the rest of the week trying unsuccessfully to beat that meal. I almost asked them to reserve me a table for Sunday or Monday but realized I need to explore more and try other things. Hmmmph.
So back here now, I hear the rain beating down, let’s hope that passes by morning. I think I am scratching Potsdam from the itinerary because there is just too much left in Berlin I want to get to before I go to Dresden on Tuesday. I may sleep in a bit in the a.m. and head out to the Gemaldegalerie for some art when that opens at 10.
More randomness….
Paying for the trains/trams/buses/subways work on the honor system here. I bought a 5 day pass and validated it on the first day. I never show it or stamp it again, but may be subject to a search by undercover employees. If I don’t have a valid ticket, I get booted off the train and fined 40 euro on the spot. This seems to work here (and it did in Vienna, which did it the same way) but I can’t imagine this working at home. It’s just such a different mindset.
This is yet another city that has communication on their lines down pat. Just about every mode on every line I’ve taken has displays of time until the next train. And they’re always accurate. Now there’s a thought!
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Germany Day One
Day One – Wurst, Apple Crumble WHAT?, the Wall and the schnitzel
After being escorted on to the plane from the lounge ahead of (literally) everyone else, Aer Lingus managed to make one of the fastest flights ever to Dublin. I don’t ever remember a flight going by so far (about 5 ½ hours) but then again after 16 hours Chicago to Beijing, everything else feels like the shuttle to Laguardia. I ate the airline food, which wasn’t bad (cheese ravioli). But I note that since the last time I flew Aer Lingus (maybe in 2005?) they have done away with free liquor (sigh, but I dinged them in the lounge, don’t you worry) and breakfast, so now dinner comes about 2 hours into the flight. If you choose to eat, by the time you’re done, you only have about 2 hours to sleep. I watched “The Five Year Engagement” on the plane entertainment system, which was fine plane viewing.
I won’t say I slept well, but I did sleep, both on the Dublin and the Berlin flights. It was only 1 hour 55 min to Berlin but bumpy. No one in the middle seat so I curled up and kept scaring myself awake which I’m sure thrilled Mr. Businessman on the aisle who kept trying to wedge his briefcase on to said empty middle seat which now had my legs on it…
I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, it was about 38 euro, which is high but I was in no mental condition to figure out the train situation. The hotel is on a quiet residential street off Kudam (main shopping thoroughfare). It’s on the fourth floor and there’s the tiniest elevator pretty typical in this sort of European building. I’ve seen similar in Italy and France: just big enough to hold your luggage and you, but tough to get two sets of doors closed to make it run!
My room is pretty and big. It’s a queen bed and big bright and airy windows and smallish shower/tub combo (the type you step way up and over into, without glasses I am destined to kill myself, or launch myself out the window next to it). I showered and unpacked quickly, packed my day bag and off I went. Christian is the owner of the hotel and he convinced me to buy the Welcome Berlin card for 5 days. That gets me unlimited public transportation as well as discounts on many of the places I want to visit. It was 35 euro, I think, and I’m fairly certain I put a dent in that today just in subway rides alone.
I walked down Kudam first. It reminds me a lot of a very uncrowded Champs Elysees in Paris. There is practically no one out there walking, which is puzzling. All the big designer houses are at my end of Kudam, and the further up you walk, the closer to the bigger train stations, the seedier it gets, like in any other city. I went up that way to catch the underground (this line being U2) to get closer to the Brandenburg Gate.
It was in front of Zoo Station that I had my first currywurst. I’ve never been a fan of street food, but…BUT…this was good! As a newbie to it, I just ordered it plain, which meant I got one big ass sausage that had been steamed and grilled. The vendor cut it into chunks, sprinkled a hell of a lot of curry on it and dumped a gallon of ketchup on it. This, you think, sound horrible, but believe you me, served on that little paper plate with a tiny plastic fork, it hit the spot. Too late I realized I could have had French fries to mop up the remnants of that mess! Tomorrow…
A change or two later and I was walking there and figured out that I was approaching Brandenburg Gate from the side. On the way I passed the Memorial to All Jews Murdered in Europe, which is very chilling. It is 2177 slabs of concrete of different heights that to me look like coffins. I didn’t do much more than stop and look, as I know it’ll be covered on the city tour I do.
Brandenburg Gate is very pretty and it is large width-wise, but I think the Arc De Triomphe is higher. It just feels that way. I won’t say I was underwhelmed but I definitely expected there to be more space around it, remembering the photos of the square in front of it where people were protesting, it just seemed larger. The Reichstag is right across the street, but I want to save that for when I go for the prebooked visit on Sunday.
Taking advantage of the nice weather (low 70s, sunny, blue sky) I decided to go a bit out of the way and see the East Side Gallery, which is the only permanent remnant of the Berlin Wall left. Artists had painted on the eastern side of the wall when the wall came down and they were all invited back to touch them up for the 20th anniversary a few years back. This segment of wall in a mile long and the art on it runs the gamut from tagging to Klimt or Picasso imitations to political cartoons. But each makes a statement about the wall, its short term and long term effects. I took seemingly a zillion photos and walked the entire mile long length of it.
After that I figured what the hell, I’ll go see Checkpoint Charlie then, so I did (bear in mind, all this navigating subways/trams and walking on now 24 hours of no substantive sleep!) So I made my way there, scoffing down a caramel coated shortbread I spied in a shop window to fortify me. This ended up being sort of kitschy but cool. The former border crossing is now a tourist stop, where fake soldiers will stamp your passport with former East German stamps or pose for photos. The guard shack is there as well as the “you are now leaving” sign and the photos of the Russian and American soldier. There is also a Checkpoint Charlie museum which I’d read from several sources that it was a big cluttered mess with a few interesting bits to get out of it, and that’s an understatement if you ask me. The museum tells the story of the Cold War, not just the border crossing, so room after room after room was floor to ceiling textual panels telling the story in a few different languages. Here and there, there was a photo. There were a few exhibits of how folks managed to get smuggled out with either clever disguises or usually by rigging the car somehow to hide the person escaping. That was all interesting to me, but they lost me with so much text over three floors. I think even not jetlagged, I would not have had the patience to read so much in one sitting.
After that, I was beat and it was 4:30. I headed back toward my hotel, aiming for dinner nearby. I shopped on Kudam a bit (Hard Rock Café and Starbucks). (We must discuss the “Apple Crumble Latte” that Starbucks has here. I WILL be trying it!) Then I headed to Dicke Wirtin’s for dinner. I’d seen this recommended in a few place I read and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s located off a pretty little square called Savignyplatz and it was a pub style restaurant serving “Berlin specialities.” I had potato soup, the wienerschnitzel over warm potato salad with a mixed green salad and a glass of Reisling and a shot of their homemade cherry brandy it was 28 euro and delicious. The schnitzel were two patties each about the size of a dinner plate and just yummy. I could only manage to eat one though! The soup was yummy, with a light creamy broth and big chunks of potato, carrot and sausage floating about.
I got back to the hotel around 7 and crashed. Not bad for a jetlagged first day. Looking forward to a nice quiet night in a comfy bed!
Random notes:
A lot of bikers here. Not bikers for recreation or fitness, but bikers who are using the bike as an important mode of transport. This is more so than just about every other place I've been to in Europe, except Amsterdam. And here, none of them wearing helmets, like they don't in Amsterdam either.
Everyone who wears glasses has awesome frames. I have no idea how they got so chic, but every single pair of eyeglasses frames I've seen are heavenly cool.
Everyone drinks beer, whenever. I saw more people having a midday day beer at the train station, at a street stand and everyone (but me, the non-beer drinker) at dinner drank beer. It's kind of weird to look over at two old ladies out for dinner together with huge steins of beer in front of them.
After being escorted on to the plane from the lounge ahead of (literally) everyone else, Aer Lingus managed to make one of the fastest flights ever to Dublin. I don’t ever remember a flight going by so far (about 5 ½ hours) but then again after 16 hours Chicago to Beijing, everything else feels like the shuttle to Laguardia. I ate the airline food, which wasn’t bad (cheese ravioli). But I note that since the last time I flew Aer Lingus (maybe in 2005?) they have done away with free liquor (sigh, but I dinged them in the lounge, don’t you worry) and breakfast, so now dinner comes about 2 hours into the flight. If you choose to eat, by the time you’re done, you only have about 2 hours to sleep. I watched “The Five Year Engagement” on the plane entertainment system, which was fine plane viewing.
I won’t say I slept well, but I did sleep, both on the Dublin and the Berlin flights. It was only 1 hour 55 min to Berlin but bumpy. No one in the middle seat so I curled up and kept scaring myself awake which I’m sure thrilled Mr. Businessman on the aisle who kept trying to wedge his briefcase on to said empty middle seat which now had my legs on it…
I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, it was about 38 euro, which is high but I was in no mental condition to figure out the train situation. The hotel is on a quiet residential street off Kudam (main shopping thoroughfare). It’s on the fourth floor and there’s the tiniest elevator pretty typical in this sort of European building. I’ve seen similar in Italy and France: just big enough to hold your luggage and you, but tough to get two sets of doors closed to make it run!
My room is pretty and big. It’s a queen bed and big bright and airy windows and smallish shower/tub combo (the type you step way up and over into, without glasses I am destined to kill myself, or launch myself out the window next to it). I showered and unpacked quickly, packed my day bag and off I went. Christian is the owner of the hotel and he convinced me to buy the Welcome Berlin card for 5 days. That gets me unlimited public transportation as well as discounts on many of the places I want to visit. It was 35 euro, I think, and I’m fairly certain I put a dent in that today just in subway rides alone.
I walked down Kudam first. It reminds me a lot of a very uncrowded Champs Elysees in Paris. There is practically no one out there walking, which is puzzling. All the big designer houses are at my end of Kudam, and the further up you walk, the closer to the bigger train stations, the seedier it gets, like in any other city. I went up that way to catch the underground (this line being U2) to get closer to the Brandenburg Gate.
It was in front of Zoo Station that I had my first currywurst. I’ve never been a fan of street food, but…BUT…this was good! As a newbie to it, I just ordered it plain, which meant I got one big ass sausage that had been steamed and grilled. The vendor cut it into chunks, sprinkled a hell of a lot of curry on it and dumped a gallon of ketchup on it. This, you think, sound horrible, but believe you me, served on that little paper plate with a tiny plastic fork, it hit the spot. Too late I realized I could have had French fries to mop up the remnants of that mess! Tomorrow…
A change or two later and I was walking there and figured out that I was approaching Brandenburg Gate from the side. On the way I passed the Memorial to All Jews Murdered in Europe, which is very chilling. It is 2177 slabs of concrete of different heights that to me look like coffins. I didn’t do much more than stop and look, as I know it’ll be covered on the city tour I do.
Brandenburg Gate is very pretty and it is large width-wise, but I think the Arc De Triomphe is higher. It just feels that way. I won’t say I was underwhelmed but I definitely expected there to be more space around it, remembering the photos of the square in front of it where people were protesting, it just seemed larger. The Reichstag is right across the street, but I want to save that for when I go for the prebooked visit on Sunday.
Taking advantage of the nice weather (low 70s, sunny, blue sky) I decided to go a bit out of the way and see the East Side Gallery, which is the only permanent remnant of the Berlin Wall left. Artists had painted on the eastern side of the wall when the wall came down and they were all invited back to touch them up for the 20th anniversary a few years back. This segment of wall in a mile long and the art on it runs the gamut from tagging to Klimt or Picasso imitations to political cartoons. But each makes a statement about the wall, its short term and long term effects. I took seemingly a zillion photos and walked the entire mile long length of it.
After that I figured what the hell, I’ll go see Checkpoint Charlie then, so I did (bear in mind, all this navigating subways/trams and walking on now 24 hours of no substantive sleep!) So I made my way there, scoffing down a caramel coated shortbread I spied in a shop window to fortify me. This ended up being sort of kitschy but cool. The former border crossing is now a tourist stop, where fake soldiers will stamp your passport with former East German stamps or pose for photos. The guard shack is there as well as the “you are now leaving” sign and the photos of the Russian and American soldier. There is also a Checkpoint Charlie museum which I’d read from several sources that it was a big cluttered mess with a few interesting bits to get out of it, and that’s an understatement if you ask me. The museum tells the story of the Cold War, not just the border crossing, so room after room after room was floor to ceiling textual panels telling the story in a few different languages. Here and there, there was a photo. There were a few exhibits of how folks managed to get smuggled out with either clever disguises or usually by rigging the car somehow to hide the person escaping. That was all interesting to me, but they lost me with so much text over three floors. I think even not jetlagged, I would not have had the patience to read so much in one sitting.
After that, I was beat and it was 4:30. I headed back toward my hotel, aiming for dinner nearby. I shopped on Kudam a bit (Hard Rock Café and Starbucks). (We must discuss the “Apple Crumble Latte” that Starbucks has here. I WILL be trying it!) Then I headed to Dicke Wirtin’s for dinner. I’d seen this recommended in a few place I read and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s located off a pretty little square called Savignyplatz and it was a pub style restaurant serving “Berlin specialities.” I had potato soup, the wienerschnitzel over warm potato salad with a mixed green salad and a glass of Reisling and a shot of their homemade cherry brandy it was 28 euro and delicious. The schnitzel were two patties each about the size of a dinner plate and just yummy. I could only manage to eat one though! The soup was yummy, with a light creamy broth and big chunks of potato, carrot and sausage floating about.
I got back to the hotel around 7 and crashed. Not bad for a jetlagged first day. Looking forward to a nice quiet night in a comfy bed!
Random notes:
A lot of bikers here. Not bikers for recreation or fitness, but bikers who are using the bike as an important mode of transport. This is more so than just about every other place I've been to in Europe, except Amsterdam. And here, none of them wearing helmets, like they don't in Amsterdam either.
Everyone who wears glasses has awesome frames. I have no idea how they got so chic, but every single pair of eyeglasses frames I've seen are heavenly cool.
Everyone drinks beer, whenever. I saw more people having a midday day beer at the train station, at a street stand and everyone (but me, the non-beer drinker) at dinner drank beer. It's kind of weird to look over at two old ladies out for dinner together with huge steins of beer in front of them.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Travel Tips, again
If flying Aer Lingus, I highly recommend doing web checkin and web bag drop. I completely circumvented the check in line and was brought directly to security, which no one can avoid. From there though, I came to the Aer Lingus lounge (membership has is privileges) and they say they will "take us up" to board. Maybe there is a secret squirrel back door to the plane. My only concern is getting my in-flight water en route. Unless I scoff a handful of 8 ounce bottles from here....
Honestly, the total silence here is worth the price of admission. Downstairs in Terminal E is a nightmare.
Honestly, the total silence here is worth the price of admission. Downstairs in Terminal E is a nightmare.
You've got to leave it behind
Who would have thought that I'd be quoting U2's second worst album ever.... But that's the way I'm feeling right about now...just leaving it all behind. The last 9 months have been hell. Work hell. Home hell. Health hell and worrying about the cat hell. If you know me, you know why, but suffice to say, I'm ready to go. Someone somewhere thinks I've earned this break, because more than a few times in recent weeks, I haven't thought it was even going to happen. Sigh.
So here I am, kicking back in the Aer Lingus lounge. And thank goodness. Walking through Terminal E, you would never know there is a semi-recession and people aren't traveling. It is a madhouse. There's not a seat to be had, either in the departures area or in my usual pre-flight restaurant. And this is not a madhouse my fragile nerves and TMJ care to deal with. Here in the semi-darkness and free open bar of the Aer Lingus lounge, I have no idea what's going on downstairs, won't have to fight into a bathroom and can get a buzz on before I pop a Melatonin or two and sleep my way to Dublin.
Seriously, the cute little receptionist here says to me with a Irish accent thick as morning fog, "help yourself to the bar." I want to say "Lady, after the last 9 months, you better be ready to restock." Except that I'm a savvy traveler and know not to dehydrate myself on free booze. Or at least, I know my limit. One glass of Sauv Blanc down...and did I just see a bottle of Bailey's????
So it's Boston to Dublin to Berlin. Dublin. I have never been there and not stopped. I've never just transferred there. There is so much wound up into Dublin that it will be sad and difficult and maybe even painful not to stay. I'm just hoping it's still dark when I land and take off tomorrow morning that the gorgeous green ground beneath me doesn't make me weep. But if it does, it's ok. I've earned that too.
I've sort of sussed out Day One in my head. I need to slap myself visually and awaken my inner explorer, so I think heading out of my hotel and up the Kufurstendam (""Ku'dam", shopping street at the top of my street) and then to Brandenburg Gate and East Side Gallery is just the trick. If that doesn't tell me I'm in Berlin, I don't know what will.
So about 6 hours to Dublin, change planes, 2 hours to Berlin. Child's play after 16 hours to China. Seriously, this is like a hop to D.C.
I'm moving from the plugged-in bar of the lounge to a big, soft comfy chair. I have a stack of magazines and a good book, and unlimited Bailey's at my disposal for another hour. Let vacation begin!
So here I am, kicking back in the Aer Lingus lounge. And thank goodness. Walking through Terminal E, you would never know there is a semi-recession and people aren't traveling. It is a madhouse. There's not a seat to be had, either in the departures area or in my usual pre-flight restaurant. And this is not a madhouse my fragile nerves and TMJ care to deal with. Here in the semi-darkness and free open bar of the Aer Lingus lounge, I have no idea what's going on downstairs, won't have to fight into a bathroom and can get a buzz on before I pop a Melatonin or two and sleep my way to Dublin.
Seriously, the cute little receptionist here says to me with a Irish accent thick as morning fog, "help yourself to the bar." I want to say "Lady, after the last 9 months, you better be ready to restock." Except that I'm a savvy traveler and know not to dehydrate myself on free booze. Or at least, I know my limit. One glass of Sauv Blanc down...and did I just see a bottle of Bailey's????
So it's Boston to Dublin to Berlin. Dublin. I have never been there and not stopped. I've never just transferred there. There is so much wound up into Dublin that it will be sad and difficult and maybe even painful not to stay. I'm just hoping it's still dark when I land and take off tomorrow morning that the gorgeous green ground beneath me doesn't make me weep. But if it does, it's ok. I've earned that too.
I've sort of sussed out Day One in my head. I need to slap myself visually and awaken my inner explorer, so I think heading out of my hotel and up the Kufurstendam (""Ku'dam", shopping street at the top of my street) and then to Brandenburg Gate and East Side Gallery is just the trick. If that doesn't tell me I'm in Berlin, I don't know what will.
So about 6 hours to Dublin, change planes, 2 hours to Berlin. Child's play after 16 hours to China. Seriously, this is like a hop to D.C.
I'm moving from the plugged-in bar of the lounge to a big, soft comfy chair. I have a stack of magazines and a good book, and unlimited Bailey's at my disposal for another hour. Let vacation begin!
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