| September 14/15:
Our trip this weekend was to Berlin. I have to admit, I really didn’t know what to
expect since my history with Berlin has been around the Berlin Wall and that era.
Hadn’t really thought about it before or after too much.
We went via train from Dusseldorf which is a 4 hour train ride through the country. It
gives you an opportunity to really see what the countryside is like. Still very green even
though it is getting well into the Fall season here. Lots of farmland where they have
completed their crops for the season, you can see roll after roll of hay (I think). It is
mostly flat like Kansas would be but imagine a green lush Kansas countryside. The homes
seem to be built from almost the same architectural plan all through the rural areas. All
are without the usual porch or deck that we have, just open the door and step outside.
Everyone has extremely neat yards planted with lots and lots of flowers, with a style of
the gabled roofs and very colorful trim. Even the barns and other supporting buildings
will have the same color plan.
We had hotel reservations at a place not far from the train station; once we took a cab
from the station to the hotel, we knew how to walk back to the station. It is still
amazing to me that people listen to American music but can’t speak English. They love
our music and you hear it everywhere with everyone around you speaking German as with our
cab driver. He spoke not one word of English but his choice of music on the cab radio was
older American English songs. I guess he just hums along.
.On Saturday we took a tour of the city and yes it rained BUT this time we were
prepared with our Amsterdam ponchos and Dusseldorf umbrellas. In the year 2000, Berlin was
considered the biggest construction site anywhere in the world. They had/have
approximately 5,000 construction workers busy at any point in time. They are working
vigorously to rebuild what was destroyed during the war and the years following when the
city was divided. This makes an architecturally interesting proposition since their new
architecture is very much leaning toward the bleeding edge with all that can now be
accomplished with glass and chrome. Whenever there is part of a structure standing, they
have tried to incorporate it into the new, which makes for a different approach. Imagine
part of a church that was built in the 17th century (bricks and all) tucked
into a corner of an ultra modern glass design. Yep, its there. I don’t have the
vocabulary to describe all of the different active construction zones you see around the
city especially in what was the old Eastern side.
Over time Berlin has been built/incorporated from 20 different Burgs (local government
areas) and they plan on bringing a couple more into the fold. The city now has a
population of over 3 million residents. They have a good municipal transportation system
and are building a beautiful new smokey glass enclosed central train/streetcar/municipal
railway structure that is still a year or two from completion.
A couple of their main streets were developed from a plan brought back many years ago
from Paris so you can get a feel like you are in Paris as you walk down these wider
streets which are lined with trees and the areas in front of the shops have been enlarged
to encourage outside café’s with an area for people to mingle about.
Berlin has built what is to be considered one of the largest shopping centers in Europe
called the KaDeWe. They say in its food specialty shops, they have over 2,000 different
types of sausages and over 1,500 different kinds of cheeses. I would be so baffled by the
selection that I could never make up my mind to buy. They employ 3,500 people in this
shopping center. We didn’t have time to visit so I can’t tell you what it was
like on the inside.
I have never seen first hand the aftermath of a war zone and even though the wall has
been down for over 12 years, there are still areas that have not been rebuilt yet.
We took a canal trip. Yep, canals in Berlin. I never realized that they had them …
must have skipped Geography that day. Anyway Berlin has an island of museum’s, which
are for the most part all still closed and under renovation. During the Berlin Wall
period, East German placed pieces of wire with metal prongs sticking out of it to prevent
people from escaping via one of the canals. To this day, the canals have not all been
cleared and warnings are issued accordingly. The tours on the canals are only done in
German, which leaves a lot to your imagination when your German is very limited.
We went to Potsdamer Platz where a piece of the Berlin Wall remains and has been placed
under Historical protection from the ":Wall Peckers". Name given to people who
came over and were taking pieces of the wall as souvenirs. They have a new Jewish Museum,
which is absolutely a work of art and can make you feel some of the isolation and
depression experienced by the Jews in Germany during Hitler’s reign.
We saw Checkpoint Charlie. For many of you, you are far too young but for those who
lived this era, it gives you the strangest feeling to be at that point. You see the signs
hanging in the street telling you that you are entering/leaving the American zone. There
is a big picture of an East German soldier looking into the West and a large picture of an
American solider looking into the East. At Checkpoint Charlie there is a museum in which
we spent most of Sunday and never got completely through it. It is a chronology of the
people and events from about 1950 through 1989. They have pictures and documentation of
the different ways people used to get out of East Germany., We humans are an amazing bunch
when it comes to survival. They crawled into small (and I do mean small) places behind
motors in cars, in backs of radios, curled up in suitcases, underneath running boards in
cars. Amazing.
The actual hot air balloon which was made by 2 families and used to take 8 people to
the West is there with their story. The platform on that balloon is tiny and a wonder that
they all fit.
The train system in Europe prides itself on prompt arrivals and departures. A train
will only stay in the station for a minute or two and then off it goes. I didn’t
realize that this applied to tour buses also but saw this in effect. Usually a tour bus
will sit around and keep everyone waiting for the last couple of stragglers but not here,
we went to the Brandenburg gate and when it came time to leave a couple of people had not
returned but we left at the scheduled time without them. Hopefully they knew how to get
back from whence we started.
Our only near mis-adventure was getting home. Due to the large number of people going
to Dusseldorf from Berlin this past Sunday, a special one time train was put in place and
we were ticketed for this train. We always have to ask at the train station as to which
platform the train will be arriving/departing but we deviated this time in that we
didn’t go inside to the reservation center but went to the information booth outside.
Track 1 the man said and off we went. Well,,, I know my German is very weak but when the
sign flashed that the 14:12 train on platform 1 was heading toward Munich, I knew we were
in trouble. Munich is in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. We take off back
downstairs and Jim cuts in front of this lady to ask for clarification from the agent. The
Agent looked at us and said this train has left already from Track 3. The discussion
almost goes down hill from there but eventually I poke Jim in the ribs and mumble that you
don’t loose your temper in a foreign country where you can’t speak the language.
Take whatever she says, apologize and ask for help. We eventually got some but now we had
to take a train with a couple of stop overs. Our trip home took us a bit longer than
getting there so today is a looonnnggg day in the office.
Take care and stay tuned, we are off to Munich next weekend if work permits. I
understand there will be literally thousands of tourists for the next two weeks drinking
beer, eating sausages and dancing in the streets at the various Oktoberfest activities and
Munich is a prime candidate for many of the events. It will be a tough decision… try
to see the landmarks or participate in the festivities. Uhmmmmmmmmm |