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Published: June 19th 2007
Well, not really. I suppose I could call myself a jelly donught, but I’d rather not. I’m just Kira…. Who just returned from visiting Berlin for the first time! What a neat trip! I’ll get into it in just a minute. Before I do, I wanted to announce where I will be heading in two weeks! By the narrowest margin in “Cultural Enrichment Idol” history (Okay, okay. This thing has no history), Sweden won! I will actually be going to Scandinavia with a guy named T.J.., who is a junior at RIT. We will be heading to Sweden and… *surprise twist*…. Norway!!! So yes. I’ll definitely put up a blog of our adventures in Scandinavia!
So! Back to traveling. I arrived in Berlin around 3pm and, after settling into the hotel, immediately began to see the sights! The tricky thing with Berlin, I quickly discovered, is that one really has to decide just what they want to see. Berlin is fantastic for all things 19th-century German culture. Friedrich Schinkel, the main architect in Germany during the 19th century, has buildings practically everywhere, for example… and the Alte Nationalgalerie? Don’t get me started! I was up to my ears in
Adolph Menzel and Max Liebermann paintings.
But… Berlin also has this strange, dark tone to it leftover form the DDR and Cold War. Perfect example? My hotel. I stayed on a street called Mauerstrasse, and the name of the street didn’t dawn on me until I looked closer at the location of the hotel. I was within 5 minutes of Checkpoint Charlie (the border between the US and Russian sectors). So… “Mauerstrasse?” Yeah. It’s called that because there used to be a BIG WALL there! Ha!
The Hotel was very nice and new (obviously- it couldn’t have been built before 1989 or so), but I could kind of feel that the area in which I was staying was the former dead zone of Berlin. Seriously. Friedrichstrasse was a block away, which helped (it’s like a 5th Ave, I suppose-Gucci and Prada stores, etc.)… But few people actually occupy that space after dark. It’s just a commercial zone with buildings filling up the space that used to be no-man’s land. It was a little creepy sometimes, to be honest.
So… that was slightly weird. And since there are layers of history in Berlin, that also meant you could
have a 19th-century town square on one street followed by a STASI museum on the other. Perhaps it was simply the first time that I understood just how deathly strange and alarming the DDR and Cold War was.
Berlin overall is quite neat, though… I’m glad I went. So here’s a recap of what I did!
Thursday- Hit up Museuminsel for the free museums on Thursday evenings. Ended up in the Pergamonmuseum and then wandered down Friedrichstrasse, Unter den Linden, and eventually hit the Brandenburg Tor. Neat-o! I saw a huge line outside the Reichstag and, being nosy, decided to stand in it, too, and see where it led! It eventually lead into the Reichstag, where we got a mini-tour and a ride up to the top of the building! From the top of the Reichstag, you can climb this odd cyclone-shaped thing which leads to an excellent view of Berlin’s skyline. At that point, it was about 11pm, though. And you know me and bedtime. A wild night for me is staying out till about 12 (maybe). Ask Bjoern, who had to put up with this behaviour last week (poor thing). Random comment before I move onto
Friday: I think all 3 nights I was in Berlin, I was subjected to the most violent thunderstorms I’ve ever experienced. They beat out Atlanta, the city of thunderstorm warnings and flash flood watches. Every night I was woken up by violent storms and had to run around with my suitemates trying to close doors and windows before they smashed. Seriously! They were that bad. The daytimes were lovely, though. Sunny, 80s… odd, no?
Friday:
Breakfast (Connie, not as good as Salzburg, but it’ll do). Headed off to the Gendarmermarkt, which was very enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed the Deutscher Dom, a museum devoted to the history of German democracy (a very interesting topic. Think about it.), and the Huguenot Museum in the French cathedral next door. (I particularly enjoyed playing “Guess the late nineteenth/early twentieth century political parties” game in the Deutscher Dom. Much fun. And a good refresher.) Wandered around a bit to see what was in the area and stumbled upon the Schinkel museum, and then headed off to the Berliner Dom.
The Dom is beautiful, and overall I had an even more enjoyable experience because two students from the Berlin Musikhochschule were practicing inside the
Dom! Free organ and Baroque trumpet concert! But after that, um… well… remember that experience with the tower in the medieval town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber? Yeah. I accidentally found myself walking up about 300 stairs again. Sometimes I, simply as a human being, fascinate myself. While I was walking up the stairs I kept on asking myself just where I was going, but never actually stopped to turn around or anything. And remember when I ate that fish sandwhich in Hamburg, even though I don’t like fish? I always do that to myself! Or Connie pointed out only last week on the travelblog that I once absent-mindedly ate 2 mini-snickers bars right in front of her in college, even though I HATE snickers. What’s driving me sometimes? Obviously it’s not my conscious self…
Anyway. After the Dom, I headed to the Alte Nationalgalerie, where I was happily preoccupied for several hours staring at profound works of art. I am SUCH a fan of 19th-century German art. This past year in grad school I really started getting into it. Good stuff! I finished off the evening back at the hotel with dinner and then a wander down to
Berlin Alexanderplatz which, I’ve discovered, is crazy. It doesn’t seem to matter what time it is. That place is nuts!
Saturday: Headed over to the Musikinstrumentemuseum and caught the one tour of the week solely by accident. Good tour, though! The guide played a variety of instruments, including krumhorns and lutes. He also demonstrated how the keyboard has changed throughout the centuries by playing the same Bach Minuet on different keyboard instruments (harpsichord, a clavichord, fortepiano, etc.). He also played a Beethoven sonata on an original fortepiano, which definitely made my day. At the end of the tour, the guide actually gave a 40-minute recital on the 1929 Wurlitzer organ there! He played film music from the 1920s, including themes from Der Blaue Engel, King Kong, and Metropolis. It was actually really cool…
After the Musikinstrumentmuseum, I headed over to the concert hall where the Berlin Philharmonic (among other orchestras) plays for a tour of the building! So much fun! Everyone who signed up for the tour were total music geeks and oohed and aahed whenever our guide mentioned names like “Herbert von Karajan” and “Claudio Abbado.” That totally made my day, too. I haven’t been around music
geeks since early May or so. The tour was much appreciated. After the tour, I headed off to Gemaeldegalerie for some excellent 14th-18th century art. Highlights include Jan van Eyck, Peter Paul Rubens, Caravaggio (yes, Kerry, Caravaggio!), and some very good German and northern European renaissance art (Hans Memling and Albrecht Duerrer, to name a few).
I was going to go to the Neue Nationalgalerie to catch their exhibit on French impressionist works but they had a wait-time of an hour. Just to get into the museum. And the cashier said I would have to pay an additional 6 euros on top of my museumskarte! Not cool! And I also realized while standing in line, that their French impressionist exhibit-all 160 paintings- were from the Met and the Louvre, both of which I visited last summer. So… I didn’t go. 😞
Highlight of the day, though? Going to a fabulous and trendy new restaurant and then heading off to hear Richard Goode play a Mozart piano concert (B-flat major?) with the German Symphony Orchestra. They also played Anton Bruckner’s Romantic Symphony, which I keep on forgetting about for some reason. What do people think about it? I’m just
The view from the top
If you look up, you can see a great view of the sky...curious… Honestly? The orchestra did such a fantastic job of it that I’m still not sure if I liked the piece or just the orchestra playing it. I was more definitely enthralled by that ensemble. An orchestra really CAN persuade the audience…
Sunday: Last minute sights, Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall...Long train ride home.
Okay. Well. I need to get going. But I’ll send more updates of my adventures abroad later on!
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Connie
non-member comment
So many "views from above"...
... I'm so proud of you, taking all of these panoramic photos at those heights... I love it! Also, I'm stoked, of course, that you picked Sweeden! And Norway! (was that originally on the list? I forget now...) I can't wait to hear about it! (And see it!) I'm slightly jealous that you got to indulge in your "music nerdiness" over the weekend... how I miss it... Continue to enjoy yourself, m'dear. I love you thi---------------------------s much!