Berlin over Easter

I came back from Berlin over a month ago. I finally have my pictures up here. I visited over my week and a half long Easter break, flying out of Basel on Thursday after my last class. The visit was wonderful-- a much needed break from the surprising and somewhat hidden stresses of study abroad. I didn't realize just how much I had missed seeing familiar faces and even somewhat familiar places until I came to Berlin and got to Esther and Reinhard's apartment. Mama was there, which was lovely, and I saw a lot of relatives I hadn't seen in six years, also lovely. Additionally, I got to see Claudia's husband, Sven, and my second cousin, Leona, for the first time, and was lucky enough to be there to see her brand new sister, Paula!

Me, Großmama, and Mama

Mama and I made a lot of trips to Potsdam to see Großmama, who is happy in her beautiful little room there, right on the Tiefer See across from Babelsburg and across the street from where she went to teacher's school 60+ years ago. It is a poetic, circle-of-life situation, I think, though she said many times during our visits when Mama explained to her where she was and that she had gone to school just across the street, "you know more about my life than I do!" She remembered who I was, though, and we took many nice walks around the area, including one long and fun walk around the Heilige See- Großmama has not lost her sense of humor, and there were many times when Mama and I would be doubled over from laughter at her antics.

I got to see a lot of Potsdam in general during this visit. Early on in my stay, Mama and I walked from Großmama's place down across the Glienicke Bridge and then by the water, going along a street that used to be an island of East Germany in what was otherwise West Berlin. We crossed into Babelsberg and walked by the water some more, passing through a neighborhood full of beautiful old villas that used to belong to the wealthy people involved in the Babelsberg film industry. Mama said they looked much better now than they did when she lived nearby, more than 30 years ago. We stopped by one of Mama's old school buildings and she told me some stories about growing up there as we walked all the way to downtown Babelsberg that day. The next day, again, after a visit to Großmama, Esther, Reinhard, Mama, and I walked around in Park Babelsberg, the work of Frederick the Great, still featuring well-kept paths and gardens, a castle, and Flatow Turm (tower), one of my favorite places in the park from lots of earlier visits.

Park Babelsberg

Another day Mama, Esther, and I walked around Sanssouci, again, one of Frederick the Great's summer palaces, a magnificent example of lavish Rococo architecture, with fountains, statues, gardens, fake ancient ruins, and a giant Chinese tea house. Mama and I continued walking through all of downtown Potsdam that day, going down the main commercial district and then through the Dutch Quarter, a neighborhood of brick houses made to look like houses from the Netherlands, a ploy to attract skilled Dutch laborers to the area by another of those crazy Prussian kings. Potsdam is a truly beautiful area-- it was the place for Prussian kings to go in the summer and relax and unwind, and with its many small lakes, rivers, parks, and forests, it has remained a natural location for people from Berlin to come for weekend hikes and bike rides. We saw many people out doing just that during the Easter holidays.

Sanssouci

On a last excursion in Potsdam, Esther, Mama, and I took Großmama on a walk to the Friendship Island, a beautiful park in the middle of Potsdam, located on an island on the Havel. We walked around, Mama and Esther admired the plants, Großmama collected seeds, and I took lots of pictures. There was a huge, gorgeous tree that made for some great pictures, and lots of sculpture, too.

Mama and Großmama on Friendship Island

Großmama and me on Friendship Island

Mama and I also did two days of sightseeing in Berlin. I had seen a lot of the major attractions in the city in previous visits, but for some reason I hadn't made it to the Reichstag yet, so Mama and I started off our first day in the city there. We were almost going to leave the long entrance line, when a women who heard Mama speaking German came up and asked us if we wanted to come to a presentation in the plenary chamber (the main parliamentary chamber of the Bundestag) in a few hours and bypass the lines. We happily agreed, walked down Unter Den Linden a bit, saw the Brandenburger Tor again and walked down to Gendarmenmarkt, a big square with two churches, and came back just in time to enter the Reichstag through a special group entrance, bypassing the line and even the admission fee. After going through security the group of maybe 60 of us or so were seated in the visitor's section of the plenary chamber and heard a 40 minute or so presentation in German about the building and Bundestag. The party system is different than in the USA, and it was interesting to see how the chairs in the room can be reorganized and regrouped to accomodate different numbers of people from different parties depending on how their percentages change from one election to the other. He talked a lot about how votes are tallied and how people who don't show up to vote get fined. He explained the architecture a bit-- the building is a combination of the old Reichstag building from the 19th century and a new, modern structure built within and around it, completed in 1999. The most notable feature is the huge glass and steel dome on top of the building, which visitors can climb up inside and walk around in. There are also huge glass panes in front of the building, inside the old exterior-- representative of how what goes on in the building should be apparent to the outside world. Indeed, you can see right into the plenary chamber from outside. The building is a large tourist attraction, the most visited parliamentary building in the world, and the second-most visited building in Germany (behind the Kölner Dom).

The Reichstag

One final interesting thing I learned in the talk: a huge, flat, metal eagle, the symbol of Germany, hangs in the plenary. The architect thought it was too grim for the building (it's massive and imposing and fierce looking), but as it's an official symbol (it's the eagle that appears on the German one and two euro coins), the side that faces out into the parliament is the official frowning eagle, but the other side, not accessible to the public, sadly, that faces out (through another glass wall) in the other direction, apparently has a friendlier face and not such imposing claws.

Inside the Reichstag

After the presentation, we rode the elevator up to the roof, which afforded great views of Berlin. Like a lot of European cities, Berlin doesn't really have a distinctive skyline, and since it was a divided city for so many years, there is not one distinctive downtown area, so every direction had a different imporant or famous site to look at from afar. Finally, we went up the winding path inside the dome. There is a huge, multi-faceted pillar of mirror running up the inside of the dome, and I thought the many reflections in the middle of this giant glass and steel structure were beautiful. I thought the whole building was beautiful; a well-crafted blend of old and modern architecture with interesting and accessible areas for the public to see.

Dome on top of the Reichstag

After visiting the Reichstag, Mama and I walked to Alexanderplatz, past the museum island and by parks filled with lots of sunbathing Germans. There is a giant TV tower at Alexanderplatz, a church, and Neptune's Fountain. We took the 100 bus across the city to Tiergarten, passing by a lot of famous sites along the way, including the Berliner Dom and the Siegesaulle. We were both tired by this point, though, so we called it a day and headed back to Esther and Reinhard's apartment.

On our second visit to the city, Mama and I visited the Holocaust Memorial. Actually, it's not officially the Holocaust Memorial-- the proper name is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. There are separate memorials to homosexuals and Roma people killed in the Holocaust across the street. The memorial is controversial for that reason, and also because the architect never explained the meaning behind the hundreds of black stone slabs that make it up. Walking through the memorial really was an experience, though. The slabs gradually get higher the deeper in your go. They are arranged more regularly than I thought, but not all of them are perfectly straight or parallel. The effect is disturbing and a little claustrophobic. We visited the museum/information area underneath the memorial, which gave a brief history of Jewish persecution during the Holocaust and personal stories from diaries, photographs, and the like.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

After that sobering experience, we walked to Potsdamer Platz, a huge public square. The Berlin Wall used to run right through the middle, but in years since its destruction, many new buildings have been built there, including the Sony Center, a huge, beautiful center with theaters, restaurants, and shops enclosed within a beautiful glass, metal, and sail roof. We ate dinner at a potato restaurant and walked around a bit before heading back to visit Paula, my new second cousin.

Leona meets Paula for the first time

I got to see a lot of family over this visit to Berlin, which was, as always, wonderful. There were many afternoon coffee and kuchen meetings, in Reinhard and Esther's garden and Daniel and Claudia's apartment. Reinhard took us Geocaching one day in a city park that used to be an S-Bahn station, and there were lots of relaxing evenings spent at Esther and Reinhard's apartment. We spent Easter Sunday at Großmama's. Mama and I brought some Niederegger marzipan eggs and hid them around her room and had Großmama find them. In the afternoon everyone came over, and we had more sweets and coffee and cake.

Großmama finds an Easter egg

Easter 2009

Like I said above, visiting Berlin really was a great time. It was a needed break from the first month of study abroad, and when I got back, I was ready to get into the swing of things in Freiburg-- university classes, IES courses, and generally getting into a regular schedule here.