Actual Culture
Day two in Berlin was the big day. We were going to see all the sights and check the must see items off our list. Instead of trying to navigate our way through the city ourselves we decided to take a walking tour with an actual tour guide. We still looked like tourists, but at least we weren't constantly checking our map to find each sight and then our Rick Steve's book to find out exactly what is was we were looking at and why we should care. Instead we followed our friendly guide around as we made our way from place to place.
The tour started at Pariser Platz in front of the Brandenburg Gate. While we were waiting for the tour to get going we had some time to take a few pictures. Don't you love the striped car in the background?
Anyway, after the picture taking and fight stopping we finally started the tour. After learning about the history of the Brandenburg Gate we walked through the gate and heard about the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building. We didn't go inside even though I wish we could have. Maybe we'll get to Berlin another time?
Our next stop was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe made of of 2,711 grey concrete blocks of different heights set up in a precise grid across an entire city block. I think it's kind of a weird memorial; very abstract and without any real reference to those the memorial is to remember. We walked through it, from one side to the other, and it was an interesting experience to me. At the edges of the memorial the blocks aren't very tall, but as you work your way inside they get taller and taller -as you can see from the picture of Jared and the girls above. By the time I was in the center of the memorial I couldn't see out to the city around me and at one point I couldn't see the rest of my family either. For just a minute it made me think about what it must have been like to be Jewish in Europe during the second world war - isolated, alone, lost, separated from family.
After a quick stop at the site of Hitler's bunker, now a dirt covered parking lot, we moved on to a huge government building which was the site of the East German uprising in June 1953. This mural on the building depicts East Germans living happy socialist lives. I'm sure it was meant to be inspiring, but it definitely had a military-like look and was kind of creepy to me; it was like art as propaganda.
We then walked to the other side of the ginormous building to one of the remaining sections of the Berlin Wall. It was interesting to learn more about the history of the wall, which went up virtually overnight in 1961, and about what it was like to live in a divided city. Today there is not much of the wall left but the city has installed a double row of cobblestones that follow the route of the wall on streets and sidewalks in central Berlin.
The next stop was Checkpoint Charlie, the main Berlin Wall crossing point between East and West Berlin. After more than two hours of walking, we were all cold, tired, and hungry and we had seen just about everything we wanted to see. We tipped our tour guide, said goodbye, and found a place to eat.
Natalie, who had been crying and whining all day about being cold, tired, and BORED finally cheered up once we sat down in a warm restaurant and got food in her system.
We took a quick detour on the way home to Kurfurstendamm, Berlin's main shopping area. Everyone found a fun souvenir at the Berlin store, fed some pigeons, and did some window shopping. And that was the end of our day and this is the end of this super long post, phew! If you made it to the end, thanks for reading.
Thanks so very much for sharing this culture with us.
ReplyDeleteMade it to the end! Thanks for sharing your fun vacation
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful post! We rate the Jewish Museum as one of the ten most profound experiences we had in Europe (right up there with Skellig Islands!). Too, we're all insanely jealous of your visit to the Ritter Sport store--how did we EVER miss that place? Thanks for posting!
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