Berlin

Sorry about the horribly long delay in our blog. We've been pretty busy for the past while. There are other entries we were going to submit but due to popular demand we are going to go straight to the Berlin Blog.

We were both really excited about visiting Berlin! So, as soon as we were off the plane I (Ry)started taking pictures...or at least I wanted to. The previous week I had kinda sorta dropped our brand new camera. I thought it was fine but then I tried to take a picture and this is what I got.

If you look really carefully you can sort of see funky pattered seats on the S-bahn. But more importantly you cannot see much else. It seemed to me that the camera could only take pictures from certain angles. Mainly low angle shots...and it was making a very bad rattling noise in the lens part. I was very very sad.

I may have pouted a bit...and for good reason! New camera, broken, no more pics...no more blog. It made my heart ache. It seemed like I could still take pictures but only from low angles and I couldn't use the zoom feature without the camera going "click click click scurrrr chink vilp" and then shut off. Man was I upset. But never fear, me being the expert handyman from Saskatchewan that I am, I was determined to fix it. Unfortunately, I had no duct tape...so what could I do? That's right, I shook the hell out of it and gave it a smack...go figure the zoom started to work again. This bike was about 100ft. away. when I took this picture.

Boy was I happy!
It even worked at different angles!

Enough of that for now. The camera was working and I could now take photos.

We got in quite late on Thursday night, but managed to find a 24 hour restaurant just a few doors down from our hostel where Ry enjoyed a schnitzel and Amy had her first spatzel. We felt it was an appropriate way to begin the weekend. The restaurant was actually really nice, although we suspected its purpose was to serve the customers of the many 'red light' establishments that surrounded our cheerful little hostel. Yes, we picked quite the neighbourhood! However . . .

On our first day we took a walking tour of the city that was absolutely amazing. Our guide was incredible and it was a terrific way to get a feel for the city and to brush up on our history! For any members of Ry's family that may be reading this, our guide reminded us so much of Guillaume that we're convinced the saying that everyone has a twin must be true.

Berlin is an awesome city that has a whole lot of not so awesome history. Being the capital of Germany it naturally is filled with constant memories of the war. You can tell which buildings survived the war and have not been rebuilt because they are heavily marked with bullet and mortar marks.

This is the Holocaust Memorial.

The Holocaust Memorial was something else...I've never really had an experience like it before. It was very moving. From the outside, it doesn't look so bad. Nothing overly moving about it...but then you walk into the memorial and the pillars start getting higher and higher until you are surrounded. The ground is uneven and rolls up and down giving a sensation of the ground dropping out from beneath your feet. Without realizing it you are surrounded, and isolated, and very cut off from the rest of the world. Some say it is an interactive monument that gives you the sensation of what being in Nazi Germany was like. Creeped me out.

Not all of Berlin is morbid.

Humboldt University was the center of some of the most influential thinkers of the world.

But then again, the Bebelplatz square in front of it was the very famous site of the Nazi book burnings on May 10, 1933, when books by authors such as Heinrich Heine and Freud were destroyed.

This is a plaque which has the following quote on it. "Wherever they burn books, in the end will also burn people." - Heinrich Heine ...again...creepy.

Here is the memorial for the book burning...it's a bit more literal. A room full of empty shelves measured to hold the same number of books that were burned. It is a clear reminder of the knowledge that is gone and cannot be replaced.

Berlin's history is powerful and very present, both in these kinds of memorials scattered around the city and also just in its 'feel'. It is a beautiful city though, with sharp contrasts between gorgeous buildings that have been restored to their post-war glory, like those below in Bebelplatz Square, and empty lots that have yet to be re-built. Fascinating.

This is the Berliner Dom, which is a massive Protestant Cathedral, and behind it you can see the Fernsehturm. You will see more of the Fernsehturn below as it was one of our most useful landmarks for navigating the city.

There is kind of a funny story around the Fernsehturn. It is a TV tower that was built with the intention to boast about East Germany's technological prowess. Unfortunately, they needed the assistance of Swiss engineers (who were reportedly brought in under the cover of darkness) to build it. The really funny part is that when the light hits the dome, a crucifix appears. Apparently the GDR did everything they could to make it go away, but failed. People call it "Papsts Rache" - the Pope's Revenge.

Below is one of the five museums on Museumsinsel (Museum Island). This was where our tour ended and where our guide told us the incredible story of how the Wall fell.

Once the tour ended, we embarked on our own adventure for the evening.

Below is one of the many theatres in Germany. We stopped in to see if we could catch a show, hoping perhaps for a dance or musical piece, but alas - it was all serious theatre and all in German. We took a pass. We did however manage to see a show later in the weekend by the Berlin English Theatre Company. It wasn't playing in quite as grand a theatre as this one, and we had to brave several odd and somewhat sketchy back alleys to find it, but it was fun to see nonetheless.

This is a shot of the river Spree which cuts through the city on a roughly east-west heading. There are all kinds of barges and river cruises dotting the river, one of which is shown below.

We followed our guide's advice and explored a really fun area in East Berlin for our dinner and drinks that night. We ended the night in a great little spot he had told us about where you pay 2 euros for a glass and help yourself to wine all night. Then, at the end of the night you pay what you think is reasonable for what you had. The bar is filled with different sizes and shapes of tables, couches, lounge chairs, etc. - but the best part of it was that we met a really interesting group of people from around the world and had a ton of fun muddling through with a combo of English, German (not us so much), Spanish and French. It was great!

Day Two - the sun was shining and we were ready to set out and explore some more!

This is the Schlos Charlottenburg. It is a huge Baroque palace not far from where we were staying. We didn't tour the inside, but the grounds were amazing and would be truly incredible in the summer.





This is the palace Mausoleum, now the resting place of members of the royal family.

This is the Belvedere (still in the grounds of the palace). It was built as a tea house and now holds the royal family's porcelain collection.

After leaving the palace, we continued our wanderings, heading for the Tiergarten which is the huge park in the centre of the city. The broken cathedral you see here is the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtniskirche. It was shattered in WWII bombings and has been left as is as a reminder of the war. We found it to be one of the most poignant reminders because it really brings home the kind of destruction that swept the city. We heard one stat that says 70% of Berlin was destroyed in the war. Many of the historic looking buildings are actually new because they have been re-built, while other areas have incredibly modern, cutting edge design. It is a really interesting mix.

Below is one of the many bears that dot the streets of Berlin. Berlin's maskot is the "Berlin Bear" -and they are everywhere!

The next few pictures are of the Sony Centre - and talk about modern cutting edge design! Neither of us had ever seen anything like it! It is hard to describe, but is a complex centered around an indoor/outdoor square covered in a massive fan-like roof that can be seen from around the city. The centre houses all kinds of bars and restaurants, the Sony centre (of course), several entertainment centres and a lot of high level offices!

This is a random statue. Ry loves statues.

Day Three - another beautiful sunny day. Man were we feeling lucky! At this point, we felt as though we had seen and experienced a good portion of the city, but had a few more key sites we wanted to hit.

Below is the Dokumentationszentrum der Berliner Mauer. It is a documentation centre and memorial of the Berlin Wall. The Centre has an unbelievable documentation record of the events leading up to the raising of the Wall, of the period of the GDR and of the Wall's fall. The record consists of hundreds of photographs, secret documents, audio records, broadcast recordings and more. It really was overwhelming and so many of the personal stories were truly heartbreaking.

The picture below shows all that you can see of what was the Wall, in most of Berlin. There are only a few spots in the city where parts of the Wall still stand, but this stone ribbon cuts its way across the entire city - through streets, parks and buildings - to mark exactly where the Wall once stood.

This is the Todesstreife (death strip). It shows the space between the two Walls where countless people died trying to cross. It is a somewhat controversial memorial to "victims of the communist tyranny". This view is from the platform of the documentation centre.

This is the part of the Wall that remains in front of the documentation centre. It truly was incredible to see and there really are no words to describe how it makes you feel, especially when you can so clearly imagine the way it divided the city, neighbourhoods and families.

On a lighter note . . . in East Berlin, they have different traffic markers than in West Berlin. This sturdy little guy has a name (that we can't remember), and was a product of GDR times that remained after reunification because former East Berliners couldn't bear to see him go.

Standing on both sides of the Wall . . . you can see how the marker really does run through whatever is in its path.

Just an interesting bridge . . .

These next pictures are of the East Side Gallery. It is the longest remaining portion of the Wall (about 1.3 km) and is also apparently the world's largest outdoor art gallery. Artists were originally brought in from around the world in 1989 to celebrate reunification by decorating the slabs of the Wall with their art. Grafitti artists subsequently covered their work and the artists were brought back in 2000 for touch ups. The graffitti has moved in again, and it is now a crazy mix of all kinds of work with more messages than you can imagine. It was quite the sight to absorb!

From there we went on to the Pergamon Museum which has an amazing ancient history collection.

This is the Alter of Zeus (180 BC).

This is the Ishtar Gate of Babylon (575 BC).

Below is the very famous Brandenburger Tor. It is the gate that was originally built as a tribute to peace in the 18th century, it later became a tribute to victory after the defeat of the French, then became a barricaded gate to nowhere when the Wall came up right behind it, and finally which served as the backdrop for the massive celebrations that followed the Wall's collapse. It is now said to be the most poignant emblem of reunification.

Here we have the Reichstag - rebuilt of course, as the original was destroyed in the fire that allowed Hitler to declare a state of emergency and seize power. It is now once again the seat of government and its most amazing feature is the glass dome top which is open to the public to climb. From the dome, you can see right down into the government chamber. The theory is that it represents the transparent nature of Germany's government and allows the people of Germany to supervise their leaders. We climbed the dome at the end of our last day in Berlin, and what a way to end the trip! The views were incredible and we were able to catch the sunset.

It was a great way to end a terrific trip!

We've had a few more excursions since Berlin and promise to try to get them up ASAP. Thanks to all of you for your 'gentle reminders' about updating the blog - it makes us feel harassed but loved!