Berlin (Part 1)

Last weekend (and by weekend I actually mean thursday through sunday) us Lafayetties were fortunate enough to have a class trip to Berlin. Berlin is the third German city and my favorite of those I've visited thus far, with the first two being Hamburg and home-sweet-home Bremen. Interestingly enough, these three cities are Germany's only three city-states.

Day 1.

We travelled to Berlin by double-decker bus, which I think was is even more comfortable than traveling by train. We had Jacob's personal travel agent, Frank, with us, as well as a tour guide which we picked up when we arrived at the outskirts of Berlin. Throughout the four days, the two of them provided more information about Berlin than anybody could hope to possibly retain, although most of it was very interesting and I probably would never have known had I visited Berlin on my own. We began our tour by bus, stopping a few times at key locations, including the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Churches, two cars in concrete, Sieges Saeulle (Victory Monument), Jimmy Carter's Smile, the German Holocaust Memorial, Hotel Adlon, the Brandenburg Gate, (not at big as you would think it would be, like the Mona Lisa) Berliner Dom, the Berlin Wall, and the Berlin TV Tower. At this point I began to understand how physically large Berlin is in actuality (second only to London in terms of area). Afterward, we had a welcome dinner at a local restaurant, and proceeded to check into our hotel, a European Best-Western. A few random notes about the hotel, the beds (once again with just a pillow and comforter-within-a-sheet) were extremely comfortable, far more comfortable than the Jacob's beds, or even my own bed at home, although my nearly instantaneous sleep might be contributed to the three exhausting days beforehand as well. Also a continuing trend from Jacob's to Berlin was the toilet with two flush buttons. The only other thing of note in the hotel was the lighting system, which required you to put your access card in a slot in order to activate electricity in the room. I really like the idea in terms of saving energy, although this led to a few students locking themselves out of their rooms. We solved this little situation by using a student ID card for the lights and kept the access card safely in my pocket.

Day 2.

On Friday, I elected to go with a few students down the road to Potsdamer Platz to visit the Deutsche Kinemathek (German Film Museum). Along the way we saw our first set of large above-ground pipes. Apparently these pipes are temporary structures that are set up at every construction site to pump water out as the foundation is being laid (due to Berlin's high water table), once the foundation was complete, the pipes would be disassembled and relocated elsewhere in the city. Going back to the film museum, I was originally unsure whether or not I would enjoy the museum, as I had zero previous knowledge or interest in German films. The museum, however, turned out to be very interesting, consisting of a large repertoire of artistically created and individually themed interactive display rooms, ranging from the first panoramic shot filmed to huge rooms that immersed you into the landscape of famous german movies (METROPOLIS), to a featured exhibit on Alfred Hitchcock. We continued our tour of Berlin, visiting sites such as the Bundesrat (second house of government), Sony Center, Berlin Wall Division, the memorial to those who didn't make it across the wall, and met with two parlimentary members in the governmental sector. We also took an extensive tour of the Reichstag (Yes, that' a crocodile standing there, and bonus points to whoever figures out what the statue is holding, my vote goes to hair dryer), where the German Parliament meets, including walking up the external dome at the top. After it was burned down (it was blamed on communists, but a covert Nazi operation is suspected), the Reichstag was completely redone on the inside, with an interesting set of interior decorations, Russian graffiti from the occupation of Berlin. One particular piece of graffiti is definitely fake, however, E. Kennedy U,S,A, 13th May 1945. This is blatantly a European graffiti, due to the european 1's that look like ^'s, 9's that look like g's, backwards date (day/month/year as opposed to month/day/year) and using commas instead of periods to write U,S,A,
Later that night, after the mandatory events were over, we attended the famous Berlin Film Festival, the Berlinale, which we were lucky enough to be in town for. The film featured that night was a Bulgarian film called As, Grafinjata (The Countess) about a young woman who fights for her individuality at a woman's re-education camp in 1968. We then explored the Kreuzberg portion of Berlin, otherwise known as "Little Istanbul."