Berlin!!

Greetings Wartburg College!

This last weekend we spent in the capital of Germany, Berlin. It was a blast! Thursday was a national holiday in Germany celebrating Christ’s ascension into heaven. We left mid-morning, taking the train to Frankfurt and finally to Berlin. I personally enjoy traveling by rail. It is a nice change from travel in the United States and allows the traveler to see the beautiful German countryside. We arrived mid-afternoon and met up with the group from Eisenach at our hostel. We traveled from place to place by bus, which worked very well. Germany has very good public transportation. Berlin seemed to be a much busier city than Munich. Given that Berlin’s population is nearly twice that of Munich, that makes sense.
We saw so many amazing things in Berlin. We saw a variety show at Freidrichstadt Palast, an old theatre in East Berlin that hosted many shows in order to impress foreign dignitaries visiting East Germany. The show featured everything from figure skating on stage to flying acrobats. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, and found the German cultural on stage to be entertaining and fascinating. The next night we saw Blue Man Group, which was another enjoyable show.
While in Berlin we also visited many museums. We visited the Neues Museum, which featured ancient Egypt artifacts, including the bust of Nefertiti. We also visited the Pergamonmuseum, which featured the Gates of Ischtar in ancient Babylon and the Pergamon Altar. We also walked through the memorial to the Holocaust and the Jewish Museum, which were both solemn experiences. One of the highlights of the trip for me was seeing the German History Museum. It covered all of Germany’s history, including exhibits from medieval time, the Reformation, the World Wars, and the divided Germany. I could have spent days with all the interesting displays and history that was right before me.
We also visited the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag (where the German parliament meets), and the Berliner Dom. The Berliner Dom was my favorite part of the trip to Berlin. The Berliner Dom is an enormous, and probably the most beautiful, Protestant church I have ever seen. We climbed to the top of the Dom and got to look out over the Berlin skyline. In the basement, the sarcophaguses of many of the former Prussian kings were displayed. The Berliner Dom, along with the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag are all well worth a trip to Berlin by themselves.
One of the most interesting themes of Berlin was the history of the wall and divided Berlin. We visited Checkpoint Charlie, an entrance point into East Germany for Americans, the Mauer (Wall) Museum, and the East Side Gallery, which featured a long stretch of the wall still standing. It was hard for me to comprehend a divided Germany or Berlin from the Germany that I see today. I was only six months old when the wall came down, so have no memories of divided Germany. The impact of divided Germany can still be seen in some parts of the country, as some Germans struggle for an identity that has been turned upside down several time in the past century. I cannot imagine being separated from my family by a wall of cement and barbed wire. I could not distinguish the difference today between East and West Berlin without being told. Passing several times between former East and West Berlin, it was almost eerie to think that only twenty years ago that was not possible for some many people.
Berlin was an extraordinary city to visit, one of my favorites in the world. I hope all is going well as May Term begins to swiftly wrap up! Auf wiedersehen!