Ich bin ein Berliner

Yes, Kennedy did say that. No, it doesn't only mean "I am a donut" - it also means "I'm from Berlin" :) This is a bit overdue, but nevertheless...here's the trip to Berlin in a nutshell. Frederika and I left on Friday night, November 24, after her cello class concert and my German class, and we arrived in Berlin around 11:30 PM. We spent most of the time on the train looking through the Lonely Planet, picking out museums and whatnot that sounded interesting. Her friend, Peter (a violinist, grew up in Antwerp with her) met us at the train platform and then it was onto the next task of finding Alex (an American working in a neuroscience lab in Vienna - a friend of Amelia's. I'd never met him before). It's a bit tricky looking for someone whom you don't even know. Thankfully, he found us and we all walked back to Peter's apartment, where we'd be staying for the weekend. He lives on Perleberger Strasse, which is only a 15 minute walk from the central train station, and about 250 meters from where once stood the wall dividing east and west. We shared some Berliner beers and stayed up just getting to know each other a bit, and then completely passed out at around 1:30 AM. Peter slept at his girlfriend Laura's place - also a violinist, originally Dutch but grew up in Germany (Hamburg). It was nice that he let us have his place all weekend On Saturday, we woke up early, made breakfast, and headed out to our first museum near Potsdamer Platz - the Neue National Gallerie. The whole first floor was an architectural exhibit and the basement floor was the actual art gallery. It is known for it late 19th and early 20th century paintings, and while I liked many of the paintings I saw - some Matisses, Kokoschkas (Oskar Kokoschka, that is - he was a great Viennese Expressionist painter who had a love affair with Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler's wife - she had MANY a love affair, read her diary - it's better than any soap opera today), a few Picassos, and some really incredibly sculptures. But overall, the collection was a bit too scattered and would jump from epoch to epoch too quickly. I was glad to see everything though. We then walked around Berlin and saw many of the sights that I'd already seen but were nevertheless still interesting - the Palast der Republik (the former parliamentry building for the DDR, or the East German government), the Reichstag (the famous parliamentry building, still in sessions - it's often associated with Hitler's administration but was in use long before then), Brandenburger Tor (an impressive arch that is one of Berlin's most famous symbol), the Holocaust Memorial (consisting of coffin-like gray blocks that rise and fall at different lengths in a big city-field of granite stone), bits and pieces of the Berlin Wall everywhere still left standing, and much more. We also strolled through Tiergarten Park (Berlin's Central Park ) and had loads of delicious street foods - pretzels, donner sandwiches (mine was vegetarian, of course ), roasted peanuts, and even stopped at a lousy Dunkin Donuts just to make Alex happy (apparently he misses them a lot). Afterwards, Alex and Frederika went to the Judisches Museum, or the Jewish Museum. Of course, it has a large section dedicated to the Holocaust, but there’s also an interesting exhibit on medieval Jewish life in Germany. I visited it the last time I was in Berlin, so I chose to view the outdoor exhibit of Checkpoint Charlie (the crossing point between East and West Berlin - so all foreigners had to go through here. It was and still is one of the most vivid images from the Cold War). There were panels of information in both English and German about Checkpoint Charlie, the Cold War, all around where it used to operate. The whole idea of a massive international city being completely isolated and divided for more than 50 years is fascinating to me...and the fact that it’s only been 15 years is even more fascinating, considering that Germany still manages to have the third largest economy in the world, behind America and Japan. I think that says something about the resilience and strength of this country. I sat in a beautiful art café called Atelier - in German, it means “studio,” and that’s what it was...an art studio in the back, café in the front. It was just my sort of place :) Frederika, Alex, and I took the train back to Peter’s apartment, where Alex took a quick run (he’s quite the disciplined runner) and then we all headed out to Hackescher Tor, or Berlin’s “SoHo” neighborhood. Laura, Peter’s Dutch girlfriend, met up with us and we ate dinner at a chic-chic pan-Asian/fusion restaurant...the sort of place to see and be seen. It was really nice food - the first decent meal I’ve had in Germany in a restaurant. Afterwards, we sat in a fantastic bar until about 3 AM, just drinking and talking. It was literally a hole in the wall, with hardly any lighting, dark wood, and a great stash of liquor. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The next morning, we woke up at 10 AM, after waking up at 7 AM automatically. Gotta love biorhythm. Alex decided to do his own thing so he departed to sit in a Starbucks and read for awhile. Frederika and I embarked on a walking tour from West Berlin (starting on Kuf rstendamm, or Ku’damm as it’s known) to East Berlin. We walked along a stretch near Tiergarten Park where many international embassies were located - we spotted India, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, and the construction site for Saudi Arabia. We walked through East Berlin, including a very interesting old costume shop-turned second hand store, and then ended up at Alexander Platz and Nikolai Viertel (or the former east German government’s attempt to recreate a medieval German village in the middle of Berlin...not an entirely failed experiment, it’s actually really nice). By this time, it was about 4 PM and we decided to go to one more museum for the weekend - the Gemeldegalerie. It was one of the most beautiful European museums I’ve seen, with a specialization in 13th-18th century art. What struck me most was their Flemish art collection, and so being with Frederika was great, as she’s Flemish and knows loads about art history. They had some beautiful Boticelli paintings as well, and Albrecht D rer paintings. D rer was a mathematician, philosopher, and artist - something of a German Da Vinci. He was especially known for his work with prints. We sadly only had 2 hours there, but it was a completely worth-the-7-Euros 2 hours visit. Frederika and I enjoyed espresso in an elegant café and then headed over to Herbert von Karajan Konzerthaus where the Berliner Philharmoniker performs. We geared up for a performance by the Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester of Berlin (the former East Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra) of Aribert Reimann’s “Wolkenloses Christfest” or a requiem for baritone, cello, and orchester, with the text by Otfried B the. It was interesting - I liked the music a lot, and I thought that Reimann really understood orchestration techniques well. But the text was depressing...we were not given a libretto which was a bit annoying (I need one even when I listen to singing in English), but from what I could understand of it (which was a fair amount), it was dark and old-fasioned. The second half of the concert was a performance of Sergei Chatschatrjan, the most recent winner of Belgium’s prestigious Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition, performing Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto. It blew me out of the water. I mean, he’s a young violinist who will continue to develop...but for how old he is (I think maybe 21-22), his interpretation was soulful and real. I think we’ll hear more about him in time to come...or so I hope. Too many times, young people win competitions and then after a few years, they disappear from the music world...sort of “one-hit-wonders” in classical music. Laura had played in the orchestra, so we waited for her and then headed to a pub in the nearby Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz. We ordered drinks and food and were subsequently joined by a horn player (I forget his name) who also played in the orchestra - he was Austrian but spoke great English (like most people out here). I insisted that he speak German, though, as I need to get used to speaking with native speakers and not just the foreigners who are my friends. We headed home at around 1 AM, and were asleep by 2 AM. I had to wake up at 4:30 AM to make sure that Alex caught his cab to the airport for a 6:15 flight...we then slept in until 7 AM, and then rose to catch our train back to Detmold. Overall, a supremely lovely trip. I highly recommend Berlin to anyone who wants to be in a city that’s the perfect mixture of modern and old. Berlin isn’t beautiful like pristine Paris or stately London, but it’s so interesting, and the vibe there just can’t be beat. Maybe I’ll live there some day :-)