We continue the Berlin saga with Monday. Halloween, which isn't a big deal in Berlin. I got a slow start Monday morning (because it was cloudy and there was no reason not to) but eventually went out to start my day, following an itinerary I had created the night before to make the most sense of the many things in many different neighborhoods that I wanted to visit.
I went first to the oldest Jewish cemetery in Berlin which was closed in the mid-19th century because it was full and was destroyed in 1943 by the Nazis. Because they destroyed literally everything that they couldn't make money off of or directly benefit from. Outside of the cemetery is a memorial to the murdered Jews of either Germany or just Berlin, I can't remember which exactly. Anyway the only thing remaining in the cemetery is a replica of Moses Mendelssohn's grave, as he is buried there. It is a very pretty place, though, as it's been declared a green space and has many trees and the ground is covered in ivy. Plus, as it was fully autumn in Berlin, the trees were all a beautiful gold and there were leaves all over the ground. That's where I wrote one of my Unnamed Poems for Berlin. (There may be more to come in that series.) Berlin felt like a really good place to connect with my Jewish heritage - I wasn't raised Jewish, though I sometimes observe the holidays, moreso as I've grown older, but I feel a connection to that part of my family's history. One of the things many UUs (at least of my generation) talk about is feeling a lack of religious heritage or historical identity. I think that's also sort of a symptom of being American, part of such a young country. I'm American, but nobody's heritage is really American; mine is German and things that could be German like Russian and Polish, or as I usually describe it, Eastern European things that don't tan. So being in Berlin, and especially in a quiet, empty, beautiful place like that cemetery was really an incredible time for reflection and meditation. Yeah I need to write another poem that captures some of that, because really not everything about Berlin was depressing.
After the cemetery I walked to Kunsthaus Tacheles. I don't know what "tacheles" means but kunsthaus means art house. It was a huge building entirely covered inside and out by graffiti, and the top floor had an art exhibit on canvas too. There was also a sculpture park behind it that I explored that reminded me of Socrates Sculpture Park if it was put into a trash compactor and moved to post-Cold War Berlin. Kusthaus Tacheles reminded me a little bit of PS 1, so it was kind of like being in Queens for an hour.
For lunch I went to a French restaurant, recommended by the guidebook as cheap and delicious (and apparently where Jessica and our friend EV went all the time when EV was studying in Berlin last semester). It was a three course meal for 7.50. I had pate because I didn't know what it was but now I think I might know (please don't actually tell me) and I won't be eating it again. The main course was some kind of meat and potatoes in a really delicious mushroom sauce, and dessert was a tasty chocolate cake. The place is owned by a guy named Jean-Claude who's really friendly and sounds French no matter what language he's speaking (I heard French, English, and German). He says magnifique a lot. He made me smile and sitting in that restaurant I felt so grateful for my luck, to study abroad, to travel, to be learning so much in Berlin, including about myself, and to have found such a great place to eat. This semester is really teaching me to be grateful for food. I told Jean-Claude that his meal was better and cheaper than anything I ate in Paris, and that was true. (I probably couldn't afford really good food in Paris.)
Next I headed to the Deutsche Guggenheim because it's free on Mondays. It was a total disappointment, just a one-room exhibition and a gift shop. Good thing it was free. The exhibition was vaguely interesting, but it was literally smaller than most of the galleries in Chelsea so I moved on pretty quickly.
Having got my art on, I went back to my history lessons and returned to Checkpoint Charlie, which we had kind of breezed past during our walking tour. I really knew nothing about it, since we don't really learn about the Cold War in school. We would generally get through WWII, maybe the Civil Rights Movement, and then spend like one day on anything after 1968, mostly mentioning that Nixon and Reagan existed and the space race happened, and then it was time for finals. So I learned a ton about the Cold War on this trip and I'm kind of obsessed with it now. Probably going to end up watching a bunch of movies from the 60s. I've never seen Dr. Strangelove.
After visiting Checkpoint Charlie I embarked on a visit through an open air exhibit called Topographie des Terrors, which is located on a block that used to be full of Nazi-occupied buildings, most of which got severely destroyed during WWII and all of which got demolished in the 1950s. As early as 1987 this exhibit opened (in West Berlin, right against the wall, before it fell) and it consists of a lot of empty space and informational plaques showing you where you stand and what used to be in that exact spot and what the Nazis did there. It was really intense, as the site included a prison and there is a section of the wall remaining there which includes graffiti that says things like "madness" and "why." There's a documentation center inside that traces the history of WWII from 1933 to 1945, but I couldn't read that story again that day so I just looked at the special exhibition, which was a series of newly-discovered photos of a town of Jews being deported to a ghetto and several property auctions of the deported people's possessions. Cheerful stuff.
When I finally got out of there I went to the Jewish Museum, which Jessica told me was great. And it was probably the most impressive museum I've ever been to. It was also the scariest. Recently a new building was designed and attached to the old building, and this new building was created by a genius architect. The building is designed to be disorienting; none of the rooms are perfectly square, the floor slopes (slightly) through most of the museum, and there are no windows, just glass gashes in the facade of the building. (And I went at night, so it was just dark anyway.) The lowest level of the museum is composed of three "axes" which represent Jewish history - the axis of exile, the axis of the Holocaust, and the axis of continuity, which is the only part that leads to the rest of the museum. The axes of exile and the Holocaust were full of items left behind by people who got deported, letters sent, photos, etc. And at the end of the axis of the Holocaust was the tower of the Holocaust. I didn't know what this was, but I went in it. It was an unlit, unheated space spanning the four floors of the museum. Once the door shut it was completely dark and cold and I could hear sounds from outside. It was quite possibly the scariest place I've ever been in my life, and that's probably the point. Once I figured out where the door was I got away from there as fast as possible and went through the rest of the museum, which was very interesting, thorough, and well done. I probably went through a little quickly and it still took me two and a half hours.
Then I went home and talked to Jessica about the museum and then went to bed and thankfully didn't have nightmares.
Tuesday was a beautiful day and I began with a visit to the East Side Gallery, which way east, and is the longest remaining section of the Wall, over a kilometer (metric systemmm). It was painted by several artists in 1990 and restored in 2009 for the 20th anniversary of the fall. I'm really glad I went, because it was refreshing and joyous to see something so expressive and powerful and artistic coming out of something so oppressive and horrible. I took lots of pictures so I'll say more when I get those uploaded.
Then I went to the Berlin Wall Memorial and the Reichstag. Though I couldn't actually get in to the Reichstag, because you have to make a reservation or something, but the guidebook didn't tell me that. So I took some pictures outside, and then headed back to Jessica's apartment to get some work done before going out for the night. I got (not as good) currywurst by Jessica's place, packed as much as I could, then tried to accomplish some reading of my Spanish play. I did, a little.
And then I went out for one last theatre event in Berlin. The Rocky Horror Show. A confession: I had never seen it live before. Sacrilege, I know. But now I get to say the first time I saw it was in Berlin, so whatever. I paid a little more for a seat than I had planned but figured it evened out with my 2 euro seat at the Berliner Ensemble and ended up with a great seat. I thought the whole thing might be in German, which wouldn't matter since I know the story, but it was almost entirely in English. The narration (performed by a man who looked an awful lot like John O'Hurley) was in German, but all the songs and dialogue were in English so I got to sing along and had a great time. I realized it had been a very long time since I had seen a drag queen, and then realized how it might be weird that I generally see drag queens on a fairly regular basis. A nice joke for me to laugh at while the narrator was sharing snide remarks in German with the audience. All the performers were very talented and had incredible voices, and the sets and costumes were great. The only thing I really didn't like was that the musical direction seemed to lean so pop-influenced and lost some of the harder rock edge I'm used to hearing. Also I counted and I think the lighting designer used a total of twelve stationary lights in the show; 99% of it was lit with moving lights which is just ridiculous and unnecessary even if you have the money. He did a few cool things with filling space (as in literally the air) with color, but most of it seemed show-offy and arbitrary, which occasionally fit the aesthetic of the show but was mostly just annoying. For me. As a lighting nerd.
Came back to Jessica's apartment on a theatre high, packed up all my stuff, planned to leave at 5am for real this time and not wake up obscenely late, chatted with Jessica a little, and went to sleep. Oh it should be noted Tuesday was the first day I managed to get everywhere I wanted to go without ever getting on a train going the wrong direction or to a completely irrelevant place. Finally. On the fifth day. That's how complicated their system is.
And I successfully woke up on time and made it to the airport just fine and got back to Madrid in time for my 12:30 class. Bonus points for me.
Photos and possibly more poems to come about Berlin.
Tomorrow I'm going to Toledo, because it's fiesta - Nuestra Señora de la Almudena, the patron saint of Madrid. Weee!
No comments:
Post a Comment