Beautiful, Beguiling Berlin

Part of this wonderful Neptune fountain and sculpture in the centre of Berlin in what used to be East Berlin

So I spent today walking around Berlin.  Retracing my steps with Marcus but also adding a visit to three museums plus following the wall and generally getting caught up in all that was going on in this very active, very vibrant, very beautiful city.  I had no idea what to expect and it has far exceeded my expectations.  Even though the place is crawling with visitors, which is apparently like this all year around, it is not the same as when tourists were crawling all over Dubrovnik from the cruise ships.  These visitors are from everywhere and of every type.  There is also a very youthful air.  The hostel I am staying at, right in the centre, is also great.  So all in all, set up very well to see an amazing city full of creativity, vigour and beauty.  I am really blown away by it and I have only really seen the central East part.

Fernsehturm - oh so it says on the map, but basically it is how you find what used to be central East Berlin but is now just the Mitte Centre.

One of the first things that struck me, aside from the evident youthful presence, is all the activity going on in all the squares.  Dancers, singers, artists, bubble blowers, everything with an air of fun, peace, celebration.

A woman creates these amazingly big soap balloons - the peace and serenity on her face was so compelling

I found some really unique creations to purchase and saw this amazing guitar player whose playing and music so moved me I had to buy his CD.  After his picture is a quick video of him playing a part of a song.  I also watched a man play the most beautiful music on wine glasses filled with various levels of water.  This video is just a really short snippet but he too was amazing.  The talent roaming around this city is spell binding.

This amazing musician, Aaron Lordson

Aaron Larson singing You Don’t Love Me – a short snippet

A very short snippet of a man playing harp glasses

Regardless but in addition to all this talent, were the buildings.  Well you should know by now, how much I love buildings.  And in Berlin, none of the significant buildings seem to be done at a small scale.  Of course Berlin suffered a lot of damage due to the war, and that is a whole other post for discussions about the war.  However, it did not get nearly as badly damaged as Cologne.  Certainly there was significant damage but there was also enough to restore and bring things back to their previous splendour.  And it seems nothing in Berlin is done in small scale.  Everything is huge like in Rome.

This is not actually an old building - it was built in early 1900s by the last Kaiser (?) as Marcus told me

The most visited parliament in the world - the Reichstag

Then there are the non-buildings.  Marcus showed me this one field by the river which used to be the site of a castle many centuries ago.  During the cold war, it was where they built the government for East Germany.  Apparently, after the wall came down, the people wanted rid of the memory and site of a situation they don’t want to remember, so the building was deconstructed.  Apparently it had actually been a nice modern building with lots of reflective glass and Marcus said it was sad to see it being taken apart from an appreciation of buildings standpoint.  There has since been a discussion to recreate/rebuild a castle in that location for past times which are remembered with pride.  There has been a lot of debate about this so it still sits as a field, which really is nicer.  Marcus is glad to see nothing happening as he does feel it to be a bit silly to build something in modern day to pretend it is something from long ago.  Move forward not back.

The huge field and area behind where the East Germany parliament buildings stood up until 1989

But buildings that do remain from the past and the ones that have been integrated in with them since the fall of the war are petty beautiful.  This one museum that we were looking at – the Altes Museum – well here is another anecdote.  There is this very large granite bowl out front.  Marcus tells me that the piece of granite was found in the area and the bowl was carved and intended to go inside.  But by the time they finished it, the museum was pretty much finished and they could not get it through the doors so they had to leave it outside.  I thought that was pretty funny.

The Altes Museum

The big bowl out front of the Altes Museum

Berlin, Germany’s biggest city, is also a party city.  I was told that most people in Berlin are not from Berlin.  It seems to be open and going all night.  As I was walking around in the morning, I came across evidence of people who were definitely out tripping the light fantastic until the wee early hours and just decided to sleep where they were at.  It was actually kind of funny.  And it all seems very safe.

Sleeping party goers in the morning

And chalk seems to be a big item.  Chalk is used everywhere it seems to leave messages and be creative.  In the squares and near the pavement I kept coming upon chalked up words and drawings.  Interestingly enough, I also find that the wall, or symbols of the wall, continue to be laced through messages and ideas.  But the wall I will post about separately.  Until then, party on.

Power to the People - so says this message

Images of the wall. This was surrounded by other words and images that appeared more like a birthday party celebration

Even the Berlin Bear is colourful