Auf Weidersehen Berlin: Final Adventures and Thoughts

I finished up my time in Berlin with some final sightseeing and culture program activities with Goethe. Some highlights included a walk based around street art:

Note: The last piece is on the underside of a subway track.

I also visited the Grunderzeit Museum, a museum with a wide collection of antique furniture from the late 1800s, a period in Germany known as the Grunderzeit (Founding Time).

Although the furniture, and in particular the old musical instruments, were interesting, the most interesting aspect of the Grunderzeit Museum isn’t really the museum itself, it’s the women behind the museum, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf:

For simplicity's sake, here's a link to the Wikipedia article about her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_von_mahlsdorf

Initially, I learned about the museum and Charlotte through seeing the play based upon her life, “I Am My Own Wife”, in Minneapolis last fall. The play is fantastic (I highly recommend seeing it-it’s had a number of showings in the US) and it was great to see the museum in person knowing Charlotte’s story in advance.

I also had a wonderfully delicious potluck with my course from the Goethe Institute where we each brought a dish from our home country. There was so much delicious food from all over the world eaten with a wonderful group of people. In typical Minnesota fashion, I made tater tot hot dish.

Finally, on my last day in Berlin, I did a photo shoot with a few friends throughout the city. We wrote words that encapsulated our time in Berlin on our bodies (usually on our arms) and took photos at various locations in Berlin (primarily in or near public transit stations). My personal word choices were “Humble Pie” and “Understanding/Appreciating”. The latter I picked as it summed up my academic experiences in Berlin. Learning to live and speak in German is probably one of the hardest experiences I've gone through. Simply put, learning to speak a foreign language is something that does not come easy to me and as someone who’s been wonderfully fortunate to be able to get through school pretty easily, it was a new challenge. Although I adjusted pretty well by the end of the time in Berlin to living in German, I still find it challenging at times to express myself and am continuing to eat a huge piece of academic humble pie.

The understanding and appreciating, on the other hand stands for understanding change and appreciating continuity, which refers to my thoughts regarding German politics and history. As I’ve mentioned on the blog before, as I’ve learned about Germany’s history, I’ve been continually struck by its ever changing nature and have realized how lucky I am to live in a country with a comparatively stable political system. Now thinking about it more, I suppose it also refers to understanding and appreciating the new culture I'm living in. 

Overall, Berlin was a wonderful experience. I loved getting to explore and live in such an exciting city, thoroughly enjoyed my course at the Goethe Institute, and was lucky enough to have a wonderful host family experience with Ulrike. If nothing else, the amount I’ve missed Berlin since leaving and the excitement I’m feeling at the prospect of going back for a weekend trip this summer with a friend, make it clear how much Berlin meant to me. And who knows, maybe I’ll wind up living there again someday? 

Entlang der ehemaligen Grenze and straight on to Greifswald

So, I realize it's been a month since I last blogged and since any of the things talked about in this blog post actually happened. Know that everything has been great but busy in the meantime so I've fallen behind on blogging but fully intend on catching up at some point.

On my last full weekend in Berlin, Goethe’s culture program led a bike tour along the former border between East and West Berlin. Altogether, the ride was of my favorite culture program events. The weather was gorgeous so the four hour long bike tour was wonderful. It was great to get some exercise, explore the city in a new way, and learn more about one of the most important aspects of Berlin’s history.

Throughout the tour, I was mostly struck by how tragic the wall was for Berlin. Here's one of the guard towers, preserved as a memorial to a young man, one of the first to be killed attempting to escape as he swam across the Spree River:

This art installation is at the former Chausseestrasse border crossing. There are a number of hares placed in the sidewalk and street around the street intersection as hares were one of the few animals who were able to live in the "death strip" between the two walls:

By far the most interesting and moving part of the tour was along Bernauer Street. Before the building of the wall, there were a number of large apartment buildings on the East side along the border. During and after the building of the wall, significant numbers of people jumped (at times several stories) out of their windows into West Berlin until the East German government boarded up the buildings and eventually tore them down, an act truly showing a real desire to escape the East at all costs. Along this part of the street today, there's a memorial where the wall is set up as it was during the separation:

After living in the city for two months, I honestly can't imagine a Berlin where these two walls and the empty space in between ran through the entire city and I think in some ways, to my generation born after the end of the Cold War, this separation in Berlin and the larger separation of the world will never be fully imaginable.

On a lighter note, I traveled to Greifswald, a small town of 50,000 on the coast of the Baltic Sea, for a day trip. In addition to some wandering through the typically provincial German town center:

we ran across the cool ruins of an old monastery:

and of course visited the Baltic Sea's coast:

Overall, a wonderful weekend.

Hamburg

So several weeks ago (yes, I'm definitely behind on blogging) I had the opportunity to visit Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany. Overall, it's a very lovely port city on the River Elbe in northern Germany.

Hamburg also happens to be the hometown of my wonderfully nice host mother Ulrike who visited her family the same weekend and gave me and a couple of my friends a ride to the city. It was great to spend the car ride with her and hear more about her life. Particularly interesting were her stories about how the separation of Germany affected her family (she lived in Hamburg in West Germany with her parents while her grandparents lived in East Germany in Magdeburg).

We were lucky enough to visit Hamburg while the Aussenalster (one of Hamburg's two artificial lakes) was entirely frozen over for the first time in 15 years. A huge number of people were on the lake throughout the weekend and we naturally joined them. As someone who comes from a state where ice fishing is a popular pastime, the whole experience didn't seem particularly out of the ordinary, but it was nevertheless fun. Here's some photos (including an artsy shot of the ice):

Throughout our few days there we took in many of Hamburg's sights including the Chile Haus, a shipping company building known for its unique architecture:

 the old shipping warehouse district (currently an emerging arts and culture center):

several beautiful old churches:

 the Hamburg History Museum, and a ferry boat ride down the river to see the current harbor:

We also visited the St. Nikolai Kirche. This particular church was heavily destroyed during the 1943 bombing of Hamburg and was purposefully not rebuilt after the war so the church could stand as a memorial against war:

Today, people can ride an elevator up to the top of the church tower to see the city as well as visit a small museum exhibit about the bombing of Hamburg. I found it difficult to visit the exhibit and see the church, in large part because I had never heard of the bombing of Hamburg before. To be honest, I hadn't really heard much about the bombing of any city in Germany before (perhaps with the exception of Dresden). To give a brief historical background, the attack, called Operation Gomorrah, was a series of bombings during a week in early July of 1943 that created a huge firestorm which engulfed huge parts of the city. Temperatures reached 1500 degrees Fahrenheit (enough to melt asphalt). In all, 42, 600 civilians were killed.

As I learned about the event and saw a variety of photos in the exhibit showing the aftermath of the bombings, I became troubled by the lack (at least in my experience) of awareness and recognition in the US of the destruction our military has caused. While I definitively think the US was right to fight against the Axis in World War II and I am truly proud of our veterans for fighting for the freedoms I have today, particularly in this war, I found it troubling that my US public school system education included minimal information regarding the impact of World War II upon civilians in the nations against which we were fighting (with the notable exception of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan). Perhaps because I generally hold the "most German citizens were pretty innocent in World War II" opinion and perhaps because I am living in a country that has directly experienced modern warfare for the first time in my life, I'm having very mixed emotions and thoughts about war and World War II in particular. Mostly, the main question that comes to mind is: "Was it really necessary?" and while that question is impossible to answer, the second question that comes to mind is: "How do we deal with what happened in the hopes of insuring it doesn't happen again?" And fundamentally, that's the point of places like St. Nikolai Kirche. My only concern is that we haven't done enough of that in the US, because we haven't had to. And my larger concern is that because the US has never had to deal with the past in this way, we have a tendency to engage ourselves in problematic wars (Iraq immediately comes to mind) without truly addressing and dealing with the consequences of our actions for civilians in these countries. So I guess the one major, rather peace loving hippie point coming out of this random rant of feelings and thoughts is that I hope the US (and really the world for that matter) starts asking itself: "Is it really necessary?" before the fact and "How do stop war from happening again?" all the time.

Anyway, on a more uplifting note, I also visited the gorgeous Rathaus (city hall) of Hamburg. It's absolutely beautiful inside and out and houses Hamburg's Senate and Parliament. Here are some photos:

Museums, Museums, Museums

As the title of this post suggests, I've been to a lot of museums lately. Most of my museum visits in the past couple weeks were on Berlin's Museum Island, a small island in the Spree river with five major museums including:

1. The Bode Museum, an art museum with lots of paintings and sculptures from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque eras. Some favorites included an intricately carved set of wood side tables from around the 1500s:

and a special exhibit with religious treasures from the Middle Ages:

2. The Alte Nationalgalerie, an art museum with mostly paintings by German painters from the Classical and Romantic eras. While the paintings were stylistically similar to most other paintings of the era I've seen, it was cool to visit an art museum with a uniquely German focus. In addition to being introduced to some new artists, I was able to see some works by Casper David Freidrich, one of the most famous German painters in history:

3. The Altes Museum, which has a large collection of Greek and Roman artifacts. I particularly enjoyed this mosaic. In addition to mosaic being one of my favorite ancient art forms, both the intricacy and preservation of the work are impressive:

4. The Neues Museum, which houses Germany's Egyptian artifacts and exhibits on early history (Stone Age, Bronze Age, pre-Roman Europe, etc.). This museum houses one of Berlin's most famous artifacts, this bust of Nefertiti which visitors aren't allowed to take photos of:

It was one of the most impressive collections of Egyptian artifacts I've seen. My favorites included the sarcophagi collection and these tomb walls (I'm pretty sure I've never seen this much hieroglyphic text at one time):

5. The Pergamon Museum, which houses Berlin's Middle Eastern artifacts including the remains of Pergamon, an ancient Greek city in Turkey. Here's the recreation of the altar from Pergamon with the original reliefs:

and the Ishtar Gate from Babylon:

On the whole, I found all of the museums to be really great, especially the ancient history museums. Similarly to other European and American ancient history museums, namely the British Museum, Berlin's museums bring up a wide variety of questions regarding ancient artifacts and their ownership. Understandably, Egypt and Turkey would really like the Nefertiti Bust and Pergamon Alter, respectively, to be returned to their original location. While I have no idea how this particular international issue should be resolved, I enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about ancient history and see some amazing artifacts.

Another interesting part of the Neues Museum was a very small exhibit discussing the history of the museum. In particular, I found the section discussing the Second World War to be interesting. The museum both  evacuated the artifacts to other parts of Germany and hid some of them in air raid shelters in Berlin to protect them from bombing attacks. Despite their efforts, many of Germany's ancient artifacts were destroyed in the bombing. Additionally, soldiers from the Soviet Union stole many of the gold artifacts from Troy, an incident mentioned numerous times in the exhibit (for the record, Russia also hasn't returned any of these artifacts). 

Overall, this section of the museum got me thinking about the consequences of war. While not unsurprising, I had never thought too much about the consequences of war for cultural centers. How do you protect your nation's treasures? What do you decide to protect? When is the right time to protect your cultural past? As someone who grew up in a country that's rarely been attacked on home soil, these were issues and questions I've never really had to think about. 

Political Decisions and Revolutionary Change

Last week I attended two Goethe culture program events that continued my ruminations on political decision making and revolutionary change in Berlin. One of these events was a walk which focused on the events leading up to the fall of the wall in 1989. It was really interesting to hear first hand (our guide lived in East Berlin and was active in resistance groups) about the events leading up to reunification. Some thoughts:

• The DDR broke down as a country in a shockingly short amount of time. While popular opinion in favor of reunification had been building for some time, the whole process of massive demonstrations and the fall of the wall occurred over a few months. 
• Churches played a significant role as meeting places, information centers, and the locations of protests and demonstrations during the fall of '89. For example, this church:

the Gethsemanekirche, was open 24 hours a day beginning October 2, 1989 as a place to gather information about what was happening in Germany and the rest of the Eastern block, a place for opposition groups to meet, a place to pray for peace, and a place to demonstrate against the government. Today, the role of churches in the fall of the DDR is evident in the large number of informational markers (there are a series of metal columns throughout East Berlin with information about the events of 1989) in front of churches. 

While the role of religion and churches in the fall of the DDR isn't entirely surprising given the historical tendency of churches to be actively involved in political movements (the American civil rights movement immediately comes to mind), it was interesting to hear about the role of religion in this particular case. It also led to continued contemplation on the relationship between religion and government on my part (I took a class entitled Church and State in America last semester). While that particular relationship is endlessly complicated, there is certainly something special about religion as an institution which makes it a uniquely powerful source for revolutionary change. 

My other excursion was to the Bundeskanzleramts, the building where the head of the German parliament (currently Angela Merkel) works.   

Similar to the Reichstag, the building was designed in a very modern fashion with imagery intended to signify bringing together East and West and transparency. While the tour wasn't the most exciting (seeing the state gifts was  probably my favorite in part as it reminded me of West Wing episodes revolving around state gift mistakes). 

The building was built in 2001 and looks as such stylistically:

The top photo is of the main conference room and the lower is where the German version of the Cabinet meets. Fun Fact: The Finance Minister doesn't have a real chair-he uses a rolling chair.

The building is also full of modern art installations:

Due to the modern stylistic elements, I found myself again questioning as I did after visiting the Reichstag how the stylistic elements of governmental spaces effect the functioning of government. 

Museums, Nightlife, and the Top of the World

Museums


So Berlin has one of the cooler city wide events I've ever participated in- Lange Nacht der Museen. Basically, twice a year, with a 15 euro (or in my case discounted 10 euro) ticket, people can visit a huge number of museums all over the city in one night from 6pm-2am.

Throughout the night, I hit up a variety of museums. These included:

• The special exhibits at the Deutsches Historisches Museum (which included exhibits on the relationship between the German people and the forest and a collection of photos from the annual German youth photo competition). Random fun fact from the museum: Bambi was originally a German children's book. This has nothing to do with the exhibits, but the lighting in this space between the main museum and special exhibits is really cool:

• Deutsches Guggenheim Museum which was currently staging a exhaustion about language entitled "Lost in Translation". One of my favorite pieces was the following which consisted of a variety of comic strip frames with the words removed:

• Science Center Medizintechnik, an interactive museum about the human body. 
• and the Gemäldegalerie, which had lots of old Renaissance paintings.

Mostly, I really just appreciated the existence and experience of the event. Huge numbers of the city's residents attend Lange Nacht der Museen and during the event, I couldn't help but think that a comparable event in the US celebrating a city's museums wouldn't be so well attended and successful. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic about my home country, but in either case, kudos to Berlin for loving and celebrating its rich museum culture. I feel lucky to have experienced it for a while.  

Nightlife


So, I realized in this blog I've talked a lot about typical tourist things I've seen during the day and not about the "hanging out in the city with friends" part of my life. So here's a small section about that:

In addition to visiting museums, important sites, etc. I've also really enjoyed hanging out and living in the city: visiting cafes, cooking dinner with fellow students at one of our houses, going out to bars and clubs on the weekend, etc.

One highlight of my social life thus far was visiting der Klub der Republik. It is (or rather was as it closed on Feb 1) a nightclub celebrating the DDR and Ostalgie (nostalgia for the DDR). However, as it was located in Prenzlauer Berg, it was forced to close as part of the gentrification process occurring there. We hit up der Klub der Republik on its last full weekend of operation. The club had cool DDR reminiscent decor, chill music, lots of hipsters, and a bit more smoke than I would have liked. Overall, a pretty great experience that felt remarkably similar to typical Macalester house parties. Here's a few photos of said DDR decor:

The text translates to production outcomes.

And this light is from the Palast der Republik, the former DDR parliament building:

The Top of the World


Although it's not actually the top of the world, I did reach one of the higher points of Berlin when I climbed the 285 steps of the Sieglesäule, a famous national monument in Tiergarten, Berlin's largest city park. 

To give some historical background, construction of the Sigelsäule began in 1864 to commemorate Prussia's victory in the Danish-Prussian War. However, by the time the monument was completed in 1873, Prussia had also won the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, it is now a general symbol for the military victories of the Prussian Empire. As part of commemorating history, there are large bronze reliefs and the following mosaic about a fourth of the way up the tower depicting the victories. 

There's also a bronze statute of Victoria (the goddess of victory) on the top as well:

I climbed up the Siegesäule to right below the Victoria statue:

which offered some great views of the city:

Along with a walk through Tiergarten, it made for a chilly, yet lovely, afternoon.