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Published: September 14th 2006
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Berlin, where do I start? I feel like we packed 2 weeks of visiting into 5 days. We were going to visit our German boy, Nicolas (well, he isn’t a boy now), who lived with us for 1 semester in 1996/97 and a bonus was being able to visit Marlene, who lives in East Berlin. Marlene was one of the students in our group whom we became very close to. So Berlin was a two for one bonus. We want to say a huge thank you to Nicolas. He put himself at our disposal and dedicated himself to ensuring Mike & I had a wonderful stay in his city. The only thing we were able to do for him was cook him dinner. He really missed my cooking so I prepared his favorite meal (eggplant parmesan) and I think he ate half the pan himself.
The Chinese terra cotta army was such a bonus for us. In case you haven’t heard of them I’ll give a short intro. The first big Chinese emperor had an entire army crafted out of terra cotta and buried in his tomb with him, 10,000 soldiers including weapons and horses and chariots. Each soldier is
different with different clothing and faces. The army was discovered by accident by some farmers digging for a well in the late 80’s. I had seen a television program about it but never thought I would ever see it. On this day we had parked in front of the old east German government building and were preparing to go our own ways to different sites when Nicolas looked up and asked did we want to see the special exhibit? When I realized what it was I got just a bit excited (that’s an understatement). They had brought in about 100 figures and set up a display to show what they looked like when found. Such a thrill.
Berlin is the home of more museums than I can count and was able to make a dent in at least some of them. The archeology alone is world class. I saw entire temples dedicated to Greek gods, relics from the fabled city of Babylon and King Nebachannezer (did I spell that right?) and the bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. One of the most important sites was the Berlin Wall. We learned quite a bit about the life and death of
the wall from both Nicolas and Marlene. Marlene lives in East Berlin and was about 11 years old when it came down. Between the two of them we had a very balanced information source. We visited Checkpoint Charlie (the entrance from the East to the American sector of Berlin) and the Berlin Wall Memorial. We saw the death strip and all the white crosses representing the people who were killed trying to cross. We ventured into old East Berlin with Marlene and saw the difference between the east and west. It’s like we went back in time to the 1950’s in black and white. There was very little color anywhere, the buildings were all falling apart, the cars on the street were much older and there were still some Russian made cars to be seen. Marlene explained to buy a car (behind the wall) you needed to be a waiting list for several years.
We lunched in a place called Aleksander Platz which was the main meeting place for East Berliners. It is a large open square with a fountain in the center and a large sundial type clock off to the side. We bought a wurst and a
Alecksande Platz
Graffiti covered water fountain; lunch with Nicolas and lots of sun. coke from a stand and went to sit on the edge of the fountain and appreciate the musicians playing. On one side of us was a family, in the fountain behind us a dog was playing in the water and on the other side of us were some neo nazi type teens. The place was wonderful, the sun was shining and musicians were great.
One of the more interesting churches we visited is called the The Dome. It was built in the late 1800s and we hiked up many stairs to get to the top of the dome. It was a beautiful church with many statues, but for me the best part was the crypt in the basement. Before Germany was Germany it was Prussia. In the basement were the coffins of about 140 of the royal Prussian family dating from as early as 1400’s. Very ghoulish and fascinating. It was in great condition, unlike another church in West Berlin which suffered much damage during WWII. Rather than rebuild it they left it as is and made it a memorial to the war.
The Helmut Newton (famous German photographer) photo exhibit, to Mike’s delight, had just opened this
year in Berlin so we made it a must visit. Nicolas’ mom had been meaning to go herself and decided to meet us there. We got to visit with her several times during our trip and we had a great time getting to know the person who raised Nicolas.
Another way for us to say “Thanks” to Nicolas for being the best tour guide ever, was to treat him to a show of Blue Man Group. We discovered that they now had a performance team in Berlin, that were trained by the original group from New York. The show consists of high energy music, bizarre and funny looks at life, combined with wild visual imagery and is performed by 3 men painted blue and dressed in black. They also have a group in Las Vegas, but we never took advantage of seeing the show while we where there, so this was a special treat for us.
By day 4 Nicolas and Mike needed a break from the museums so they left me on my own while they went to the top of Berlin’s Space Needle. From the observation deck they could see all of Berlin. They sat at
a table in the spinning restaurant located one level up and ate icecream while Nicolas pointed out important buildings in both East and West Berlin. Even though the wall has been down for over 10 years, a large contrast remains between the two halves of what is truly a fascinating city.
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