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tenayaIt's been a while since I updated this, so l'll do that now.
Obviously, I'm back from my 3 weeks in Germany and Paris. Berlin exciting, rewarding and just so different. Before we left, for months I had Tivo get anything travel or history related about where we were going and I must say viewing all that added depth to our travels. To know what had happened to Berlin and then to see this amazing city that now lives, was at times difficult to hold both realities in my brain at the same time. We were there for 4 nights and concentrated on the museums for the most part. The Pergamon, The Altes, Ägyptian (Why, yes, I am partial to Ancient Greek and Egyptian civilizations, why do you ask?) and the Gemäldegalerie. The Pergamon was so wonderful, just an absolute delight. We also walked through the Brandenburg Gate on a frosty night, and caught the bus in front of the Reichstag which is a sentence I never thought I'd utter. We stayed in a neat hotel between the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial and the Bahnhof Zoo station, which actually was turned out to be well situated for a number of reasons. Berlin's new buildings were shiny and well lit, with unique designs and the old buildings hardly existed at all. As a native to Southern California, I'm used to thinking something built in the 1920s is old, so it was odd to see a city that was even newer than what I'm used to. And then there was that moment we were resting under a colonade between museums on Museum Island and an English speaking tour group wandered by. The guide pointed out the thousands of pock marks in the structure and stated they were probably caused by Russian machine guns during the Battle of Berlin. I pondered that 12 years before I was born, this city lay as rubble while possibly 600,000 people died in the conflict to take/defend the city. Then there was the revenged inflicted upon the city's survivors, and I wondered, why aren't there more ghosts here? Shouldn't there be a lingering sense of all that anguish? Aside from those bullet holes and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial, there was no visible remains from the two WWs in Berlin, or for that matter, the rest of Germany (that I saw in my brief 2 weeks there.) They've repaired and replaced all the damage. It's odd...almost like those events are erased. I don't know what I expected and I certainly don't expect hairshirts on everyone, but the lack of reference to even WW2 left me vaguely worried. Take the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial, a fragment of a cathedral steeple left in its ruinous state. Was it a veiled accusation of what the Allies wrecked upon that city? Is it a reminder to the natives of what their ancestor's actions had called upon them? Or to paraphrase Patsy from AbFab: "Is it art, darling?" Anyway, I wish we had had more time there, but that is always the way of it, isn't it?
We took a Regional Express train to Schwerin, where my grandmother's great grand father came from. We stayed at a gasthaus hotel that was a built in the late 1700s. I love old buildings and try to stay in them as much as possible. This area had been in East Germany. They had a mall there and I have to say the stores in there made my local mall look tatty and cheap. Obviously, what was East Germany has had no problems catching up to Western consumerism.
End of this part. More tomorrow.
Obviously, I'm back from my 3 weeks in Germany and Paris. Berlin exciting, rewarding and just so different. Before we left, for months I had Tivo get anything travel or history related about where we were going and I must say viewing all that added depth to our travels. To know what had happened to Berlin and then to see this amazing city that now lives, was at times difficult to hold both realities in my brain at the same time. We were there for 4 nights and concentrated on the museums for the most part. The Pergamon, The Altes, Ägyptian (Why, yes, I am partial to Ancient Greek and Egyptian civilizations, why do you ask?) and the Gemäldegalerie. The Pergamon was so wonderful, just an absolute delight. We also walked through the Brandenburg Gate on a frosty night, and caught the bus in front of the Reichstag which is a sentence I never thought I'd utter. We stayed in a neat hotel between the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial and the Bahnhof Zoo station, which actually was turned out to be well situated for a number of reasons. Berlin's new buildings were shiny and well lit, with unique designs and the old buildings hardly existed at all. As a native to Southern California, I'm used to thinking something built in the 1920s is old, so it was odd to see a city that was even newer than what I'm used to. And then there was that moment we were resting under a colonade between museums on Museum Island and an English speaking tour group wandered by. The guide pointed out the thousands of pock marks in the structure and stated they were probably caused by Russian machine guns during the Battle of Berlin. I pondered that 12 years before I was born, this city lay as rubble while possibly 600,000 people died in the conflict to take/defend the city. Then there was the revenged inflicted upon the city's survivors, and I wondered, why aren't there more ghosts here? Shouldn't there be a lingering sense of all that anguish? Aside from those bullet holes and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial, there was no visible remains from the two WWs in Berlin, or for that matter, the rest of Germany (that I saw in my brief 2 weeks there.) They've repaired and replaced all the damage. It's odd...almost like those events are erased. I don't know what I expected and I certainly don't expect hairshirts on everyone, but the lack of reference to even WW2 left me vaguely worried. Take the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial, a fragment of a cathedral steeple left in its ruinous state. Was it a veiled accusation of what the Allies wrecked upon that city? Is it a reminder to the natives of what their ancestor's actions had called upon them? Or to paraphrase Patsy from AbFab: "Is it art, darling?" Anyway, I wish we had had more time there, but that is always the way of it, isn't it?
We took a Regional Express train to Schwerin, where my grandmother's great grand father came from. We stayed at a gasthaus hotel that was a built in the late 1700s. I love old buildings and try to stay in them as much as possible. This area had been in East Germany. They had a mall there and I have to say the stores in there made my local mall look tatty and cheap. Obviously, what was East Germany has had no problems catching up to Western consumerism.
End of this part. More tomorrow.