We woke up in Berlin today. The last time we woke up in Berlin was July 26 of last year. A great thing about visiting a city for the second time is that you do not have to see everything. You focus on revisiting the parts that you liked a lot, and you visit the few spots that you missed. At this point I am not feeling very well at all, and not having to go do a lot is a wonderful thing.
In fact, this morning my parents headed to the Berlin Zoo, as they knew we did not want to join them, so that we could have a nice, relaxing day.
Barbie ordered room service for breakfast.
We saw this sign on yesterday's walk, just a block away from our hotel. What better way to do something without expending a lot of effort?
It turns out that this art gallery is featuring ceramics by Picasso, as well as biographical information from throughout his life. In fact, they had an entire hallway with his lifeline, pointing out where he lived at which points in his life and what he did in those places. That alone was worth the price of admission.
There was also information about a documentary that Picasso had allowed to be filmed of him working in his studio. It premiered at Cannes the same year that Brigitte Bardot's film And God Created Woman premiered. Apparently Brigitte made an effort to spend some time with Pablo after that. Hmm.
The exhibit included many ceramics by Picasso, which I would not call masterpieces but which were certainly fun. This picture, and most of the rest, are trick shot Panoramas. You see the front and back of the same piece with the Pano app melding the two.
Front and back of a pitcher. A good and evil Picasso pitcher, perhaps?
This photograph filled an entire wall, making it look almost life-size. I had to take this picture of it.
I believe this vase looks a lot like Picasso's last wife, Jacqueline.
We spent a nice hour or so at this exhibit, and it was ideal for Barbie because she always finds biographies fascinating. Now she wants to load a Picasso biography onto her Kindle.
Berlin has a beautiful sky today. We go back to the hotel for Barbie to work and for me to rest. My lungs are feeling only mildly terrible.
After some rest, my mother reads off a list of Berlin highlights from my brother. One of these was Potsdamer Platz. We cruised by Potsdamer Platz last year on the on-off bus, but did not stop there. Going there will plug a hole in last year's Berline visit, and we head over.
The Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz. You do not get a more modern, urban center than this. It could be Tokyo or New York or Hong Kong, but it is Berlin.
Potsdamer Platz itself has a history so rich that I can in no way share more than a few fragments with you. But here are my favorite history nuggets about this place. First of all, in October 1685 the Tolerance Edict of Potsdam was signed. With his population ravaged by the Thirty Years War, Frederick William, Duke of Prussia, wisely passed this edict which brought in large numbers of religious refugees, including Huguenots from France and Jews from Austria and the elsewhere Europe. As I have shared repeatedly on the Waste, whenever a monarch opened his doors to all religions, the area would thrive, and Prussia thrived indeed. Prussia's capital of Berlin soon needed several towns built outside its gates, and outside the gate to Potsdam the area that eventually became Potsdamer Platz thrived.
By the late 1800's, Berlin had become the capital of the German Empire and the third most populous city in the world, behind only London and New York. By the 1920's, Potsdamer Platz had become the heart of Berlin's nightlife; an iconic part of the city on par with Times Square and Piccadilly Circus. When you think of the roaring 20's Berlin of Cabaret, you are thinking of Potsdamer Platz.
Then came the War. Not only was Potsdamer Platz leveled, but after the war, when Berlin was divided into Soviet, American, British, and French sectors, all four sectors met in Potsdamer Platz. No single administrator was to rebuild. And in 1961 the Berlin Wall literally divided Potsdamer Platz in half, leaving it a desolate no-man's-land.
As always amazes me about Berlin, after reunification the city began to heal its wounds. Potsdamer Platz found itself the most open piece of land in any European capital, and became the hottest development site in Europe. Names like Daimler-Benz and Sony took portions of the site to develop marvelous new buildings there.
And tonight we dine at a restaurant in Sony Center named for a landmark cafe from Potsdamer Platz from 1790 to 1930, Cafe Josty.
In Potsdamer Platz, I lift my apfelsaftschorle (ordered in honor of my niece, Amanda) and my mother lifts her beer.
Barbie got the beef goulash which was Great. In fact, it was infinitely better than the Prague Ghoulash, which was quite good.
I play it safe with wiener schnitzel.
At night this roof becomes a multi-colored light display, but we are here hours before the late-summer sundown.
In front, relics of the Berlin Wall sit in the exact spot the Wall once occupied.
Tourists cannot get enough of the Wall. Us included.
For the record, this is the site where Pink Floyd's Roger Waters performed The Wall Live in 1990 to celebrate reunification. And get this. It was preparations for that concert that lead to the discovery of unknown sections of Hitler's Fuhrerbunker that East German authorities had missed.
My father takes a closer look at a piece of the Wall.
I recommend you read up on this place. The idea that it went from country road to urban center to desolate wasteland and then back is simply amazing.
Barbie steps in for some impulse Haagen Dazs, and gets some for my parents, too. See where my parents are standing to the left of this picture? That was literally the exact position of the Berlin Wall.
Bricks mark where the Berlin Wall stood, and a Starbucks and Haagen Dazs proudly sit on its path.
One thing about Berlin is that it has had the luxury to both restore some sections to pre-World War I condition while building other parts to be completely modern. The white building on the left, the Otto Bock HealthCare building, is a work of art.
From the architects' website: The building was designed for the Otto Bock HealthCare company, a world leader in prosthetics and orthotics. The organic-dynamic design of the six-storey building is based on the principles of nature – as a model of harmony between technology and people. The facade bands have modeled the structure of muscle fibers that encircle the building structure in soft form. The “soft” appearance, combined with a unique facade media production, is an open, friendly and accessible institution, and thus contributes to the image building of the company.
Their press release about principles of nature may have been a bit much, but the lights on this building are incredibly fun.
And now we go from fun architecture to not-so-fun architecture.
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This memorial blew me away last year. Its design is simply the most powerful, effective expression of pain and murder that you can imagine.
You walk between the concrete, casket-shaped slabs of concrete, and whatever direction you enter from the caskets around you get taller and taller, as you find yourself disappearing between them.
Until your find yourself completely surrounded, unable to see little more than the sky above.
This memorial is the space of an entire city block. I hope that everyone I know will have a chance to experience it at least once.
From the Memorial we walk over to the Brandenburg Gate, where we can see the dome on the Reichstag. One of my goals is to walk into that dome this visit. We shall see.
The Brandenburg Gate from the West. The Wall once stood right in front of it.
I could not back up far enough to get the entire gate, but I lucked out and got this panorama to place the Gate directly in the center.
We walked through the gate with my parents. This is one of our favorite spots in Berlin, the Pariser Platz. They named this square Pariser Platz after the Allied occupation of Paris in 1814, when Napoleon was overthrown. How poetic is it that Berlin named this square after the triumph over a military expansionist dictator who tried to conquer all of Europe?
Forward-facing camera in action.
Guest Waste-shot taken by my mother! She took this picture of me taking the above picture. Now you can truly see how the forward facing camera on the iPhone 4 works.
It appears that bubble hippies are not limited to Copenhagen.
One last shot of the Gate before we head back to the hotel.
Until tomorrow...
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