Berlin

I’m going to try and get caught up with posting this week. That unfortunately means, however, that the quality of these next few posts might not be that great. So, apologies in advance to the two of you who read this (Mom, Dad).

A few weekends ago Justin, Sarah, Molly, Christy, Sandy, and I went to Berlin. The city is so new and sparkling and well, un-European, if I may say so. Since it was practically destroyed during WWII, and then totally neglected during the Cold War, everything seemed to be younger than I am. It felt alot like the trendier parts of Dallas or Austin. Every now and then, however, you would stumble across places of immense historical significance — the spot where Hitler committed suicide, leftover sections of the Berlin Wall, the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby out the window. It was surreal to see epic pieces of the past juxtaposed to the humdrum of living in the present.

On Saturday we took the New Berlin Free Walking Tour, which was great. The guides work on a tip-only basis, so they do a really good job. We saw all the major sites, the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Tor, the Holocaust memorial, the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Bebelplatz (the location of the infamous Nazi book-burning), I could go on. That night we had Mexican food, and it was delicious.

The next day, Justin and I wandered around the city while the girls went museuming. We stumbled across a wonderful street market with the best quiche and olives I have ever had. It was a really international moment – a Swedish woman with an American boyfriend selling French pastries on the East side of Berlin to an American studying in the Netherlands. We then walked to the grassy square on Museum Island and people watched for a few hours, lots of fun. We met up with the girls at the Pergamon Museum, which houses a very impressive collection of loot from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Near East. They reconstructed an entire Greek temple inside the place, along with the Ishtar Gate from Babylon and an excellent selection of Greco-Roman nude sculpture.

My most lasting impressions came from Berlin’s reactions to its Nazi and Communist past. Although the war ended more than 60 years ago, they still wear shame on their sleeve. The Holocaust memorial is huge, unsightly, and in the very middle of town–not to mention the official name, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial in Bebelplatz bears the inscription, “Where they burn books, they will also burn humans in the end.” What must it be like, to be a German today, knowing that your parents or grandparents were part of such a terrifying movement? With regards to Communism, however, they seem to be doing their best to forget. During our walking tour, we crossed between East and West Berlin continuously, and I would not have known had it not been for our guide. When I look at the last 100 years of my family’s history, visiting Berlin becomes one of the more important events in my life I think. The idea that I sent my grandparents who fought in WWII and raised families during the Cold War a postcard from East Berlin staggers me.

Since Berlin, we’ve been to Colmar (small provincial town in France) and Prague – and this weekend I’m off to the Black Forest in Germany and the Swiss Alps – exciting!