Becca's Summer 2016 Adventures! : Last of Berlin -June 28/29

In retrospect, Tuesday I overdid it. But oh well. I started out with a wonderful walking tour of the city. It was rich in information and our guide Beth was great! Literally in this tour, it covered most of the city and all the major “Berlin sights” you would think to add to our list. I went on the Original Berlin Walks "Discover Tour". Like I said, it was extremely comprehensive (4 hours, but ours went an extra 30 or so minutes because our guide shared so many cool details with us).

Spree River on a beautiful day

Berlin Art, what can I say...

So some wisdom to share about Berlin-

The name Berlin comes from the plastic bear "bear Lin" comes from the German word "bear lion" but in actuality this is a myth and Berlin actually comes from the Slavic word meaning "swamp"!
Berlin ironically was once the home to "rejects" the people that were not really wanted like Jews, homosexuals, and more.
Hyperinflation in Nov. 1923 the American dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 ~4.3 trillion German Marks.
Berlin was a very progressive city. From 1920-1929 there were 84 lesbian clubs- aka a true gay scene. There was a plethora of research and support for homosexuality being accepted.
Be careful with translating German and English- the gardens in the grounds of Museum Island are the Pleasure Gardens, not the "lust" gardens.
Kennedy's speech said "Ich bin ein Berliner" which means "I am a Berliner (a sugary pastry stuffed with jam)" if he didn't have "ein" then he would have said "I am from Berlin" as intended. So close JFK!
Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings. -1823 scary premonition showing how wherever you allow prejudice and increasing hostility to fester worse and worse will continue to happen until it spirals out of control. Which indeed happened, there were book burnings in 1933 of over 200.000 books of science and knowledge by the Germans prior to the deportation and murders of the Holocaust.
Brandonburg gate = royal gate built in 1791 originally the Goddess of Peace was atop the gate then Napoleon stole the goddess with the horses and brought it back to Paris. Eventually it was taken back and renamed the Goddess of Victory. You'll notice the head tilted to the left staring at the French Embassy, thus aways has an eye out.
Hitler's bunker - in '45 it was attempted to be blown up, but it didn't work. Oh ya, that's what it was built for! lol, so instead they drilled into it in the 80s and it collapsed to destroy it.

Brandonburg gate

Claim to fame for this hotel-- Michael Jackson hanging his kid, "Blanket", out of the window.

Holocaust Memorial- a very disorienting "maze," quite architecturally symbolic.

"Madness" is probably too simplistic of an explanation.

Immediately following the walking tour, I had to make my way to the Jewish Museum Berlin to meet one of the friends I made the day before as we planned on visiting the museum together. There was 1,000 years of Jewish History covered here and most of the exhibit was devoted to artistic interpretations of jewish living and cultural teaching about religious lives of jews. Honestly, there was quite a lot in the museum and we were there for ~3 hours, but having a firm understanding of most Jewish practices made many of the exhibits not extremely important since I knew most of the information. I did get an audioguide though this time, so that was nice to be able to have that explain things because at the beginning there was a lot of explanations of why the building and garden was constructed as it was and the symbolism that would have been even more confusing without the guide. I think my favorite line from the Jewish Museum Berlin guide was --> "Jews have a thousand rules, but a hundred thousand exceptions” its just too true.

Fallen Leaves Installation= "While these serve as an architectural expression of the irretrievable loss of the Jews murdered in Europe, Menashe Kadishman's sculptures filling them evoke painful recollections of the innocent victims of yesterday, today, and tomorrow." I'm sure you can imagine the unnerving feelings as one walks on these faces.

After all that history, I was a little sight-seeing out. So Wednesday, I took it very light. I started out at Topografia Terroru and looked around briefly and learned more about Hitler's acquisition and brain-washing regime. Went to Potsdamer Platz, back to the Brandenburg Gate, walked around Friedrichstrasse again, and then went up to the 360 Berlin or the TV Tower for a view of the city before moving hostels for my last night.