A Saturday in Berlin

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I felt like hell again today, but determined to go on w/ my program. Had my usual usual healthy apartment breakfast then was out the door by 11:00 AM. Less than 10 minutes away is the the big Winterfeldplatz Saturday street market which is always good for a wander....as long as one remembers that all purchaes need to be packed and carried back to the US of A. It was probably only in the loiw 60s and I was all bundled up as I walked pass the crowded outside cafes. I spoted an empty seat and table right next to an outside heater in front of Cafe Berio.....so I grabbed it. For about $8.00, I had a coffee and a tureen size bowl of cream of asparagus soup with french bread on the side......yummy. The outside cafe next door did offer better padded seats, but only had blankets instead of heaters.

The goal for the day, besides the market, was a relatively new multi-meidia exhibition called "The Story of Berlin",which I new highly recommend to anyone visiting the city. You get thru the parts of the city's beginiings up to 1932 pretty quickly then you start decending stairs, feeling a sense of dread with every downward step. A wall of perhaps 80 faces appears as you start decending; that wall reappears 4 or 5 times....each time with faces replaced by the words....emigrated, deported, murdered, arrested until very few faces are left. When you've reached the bottom of the stairs, you feel like you've arrived in hell in March 1945. Then, like a phoenix, the city rebuilds.....only to have your soaring spirits crashed when the city is divided in 1961. 2 living rooms show the familiar yet different lifestyles on both sides of the wall. Of course, it also shows the Wall falling, but what about all those Cold War years? With the intension of showing the West Berliners that the city cared about them, the city government started building a series of nuclear fallout shelters. A key opens a very non-descript door leading to a set of stairs into one of these shelters. It could even be activitated today with about 2 weeks notice if necessary. No reservations could be taken for you and 3,599 of your closest friends for this one shelter. It was first come, first served but you had to be quick, cause all the new shelters could really only accommodate 1% of the city's population at that time. Standee cots and 2 bathrooms for 30 men and 2 bathrooms for 30 women at a time were available. The air was filtered but there were totally inadequate food and medical facilities for these folks who were expected to spend up to 2 weeks avoiding nuclear fallout. With the fall of the Wall, it all seemed so unnecessary, but the city fathers have held on to these shelters "just in case".

More tomorrow.

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