The Hizzle of T-Fizzle

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03/30/2007:
After a busy day 1 and a fairly late night, we had no trouble sleeping and were able to get up fairly early in order to make breakfast and meet Maria and Colin to see a flohmarkt and taste some German street food. Buoyed by a tasty breakfast and some of strong coffee, we took the U-Bahn down to Maria and Colin’s apartment.

After relaxing for a few minutes, off we went to Rathaus Schöneberg for the flohmarkt. Flohmarkt is literally a flea market, and these are a big part of life in Berlin. All the refrigerators I saw in Berlin (of course I only saw 2 or 3) were quite small. I imagine most Berliners don’t keep much food in stock; they just get things fresh at the flohmarkt 2 or 3 days each week. The square was full of tables and stalls selling flowers, meats, strong cheeses, clothes, jewelry and pretty much anything else you could imagine. We wandered around awhile picking up some gifts for the homefront. X got a necklace in keeping with her tradition of buying unique jewelry whenever she travels. I would later learn that Rathaus Schöneberg was also the site of John F. Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.

As the day wore on and we got hungry, we decided to get some food. I love sausage so I got some sausage mit brotchen. Brotchen being a little roll (literal translation: small bread) that basically serves as a handle to hold the sausage that is probably a foot long. Most of us got the same thing, but Kate (being of Alsatian heritage) could not resist tasting the Flammkuchen, a very tasty treat that is akin to pizza. We also had some orange juice. On the plane I observed that SGG and his entourage were dropping OJ faster than an LA cop. At the flohmarkt we noticed a huge preponderance of folks squeezing fresh OJ. OJ is apparently VERY popular here. It smells heavenly being squeezed. Colin warned us that it was different from the OJ back home and it certainly is. It’s not nearly as sweet, but it is quite tasty.

After lunch we parted ways. Maria and Colin, who were not actually on vacation, had to actually go be real people for awhile. Colin showed us the way to the station and we then embarked on a long day of hardcore tourism in the heart of Berlin’s Unter Den Linden section.

First stop: The Reichstag. The Reichstag is the home of the German parliament and a turbulent history. You can read the history over at the Wikipedia so there’s no need to recount them here. As a tourist stop, the Reichstag sits on the end of a huge open space. After East and West Germany reunited, the building was renovated and capped with a huge modern glass dome. Tourists may go to the roof of the building and walk a ramp to the top of the dome. At certain times it is also possible to observe parliamentary proceedings. There was a line waiting to get in…it didn’t take long, although X lobbied to skip entering the building and just “check it off.” There were some buskers to entertain us while we waited.

X bought a bottle of water and was dismayed to find it was carbonated. In many parts of Europe, bottled water is carbonated by default. I guess after a long history of water that was not safe to drink, it still isn’t very popular. If you are a water drinker and are ever travelling in Germany, here is your mantra: Stilleswasser. This will score you normal water (or at least prevent you from getting fizzy water). In a restaurant you can also order Leitungswasser which is tap water (literally pipe-water). You may get funny looks. We stuck with Stilleswasser mainly because it’s a pretty much a cognate and so it’s easier to remember than Leitungswasser.

In any case, the line did not take long and it was well worth the wait.

The Reichstag Building

The dome

The dome presents both some beautiful views (and it was a nice day!) and the opportunity for some interesting abstract shots.

Here is a picture of the spectacular central rail station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof

And an abstraction from part of the dome.

This pic will take you to the Reichstag album.

At the base of the dome there is also a history of the Reichstag building and the German parliament (Bundestag).

Upon leaving the Reichstag, we scratched our heads at some nearby memorials before making off for one of Berlin’s most well-known icons, the Brandenburg Gate. It is a very cool and imposing structure, although it was thronged with tourists.

There is the gate. Note the crowd.

You also get a nice view of the Funkturm from here. The former East Berlin side is under massive construction and revitalization.

This pic will take you to the Brandenberg Gate album.

Our next stop was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

As you approach the memorial, the stone stelae do not appear to go more than about 6 feet high or stretch very far. What you do not realize is that pathways actually descend and the farthest stone you can see here is pretty much the midway point - the Memorial basically occupies a city block. If you view the satellite map of the area, you can get a feel for the magnitude of its size.

As you approach the center, the stelae quickly grow over your head. 303 of the stelae are over 4m high with the tallest being 4.7m. There are 2711 stelae. Despite what I’m sure you are wondering (and what I also wondered) there is no significance to the number. It was simply the number of .95m x 2.38m stelae they could fit in the space! In an interesting twist there was a controversy because the anti-graffiti paint used to treat the stelae was developed by a company that had participated in the holocaust. One of the company’s subsidiaries even produced Zyklon B.

After wandering the labyrinth of stelae to get yourself in the appropriately somber and contemplative mood, you will eventually find your way into the underground museum where there are artifacts, exhibits, and a reading of the names of all known victims. It is harrowing and fascinating.

This pic will take you to the rest of the album.

After finishing at the museum we stopped for a snack at the nearby Terrace Cafe. We next ventured to Bebelplatz, the site of a Nazi bookburning. There exists now a window in the ground that looks into a basement library, painted stark white, devoid of any books. It serves as a memorial to the unfortunate event. It was now beginning to get dark…we were getting tired but we still had one more stop in our itinerary, Checkpoint Charlie.

My honest opinion of the Checkpoint and the accompanying museum: Do a walkby. It’s a bit out of the way, the museum is a bit expensive, and the “checkpoint” building that stands there today is not even original (nor are the faux Soviet artifacts being peddled nearby, I’m sure). The museum does have some fascinating stories about the evolving technology of the wall and the ever more ingenious methods devised to get to the other side. The museum and the man behind it have a fascinating story, but the unfortunate part is that he was by no means a professional curator, and it shows - the museum is packed with artifacts and exhibits that seem to have no logical flow and are even duplicated in multiple places. It’s long and hard to follow. Perhaps it was hunger and fatigue that tainted my judgment a bit, but I don’t think so.

You’ve all seen the booth and the big sign; no point taking a pic of that, and no photography allowed inside the museum itself.

Upon leaving Checkpoint Charlie, we sought a place to eat somewhere not too far from there. We decided to check out the spectacular Sony Centre. We actually had a hard time finding our way into it (suprising because it’s huge). Once we did, we looked around at our choices and settled on the Hofbrauhaus which is sort of chain of breweries. The food is standard German food…schnitzels and the like. We were able to get beer in litre quantities which was fun. I had a dish with some very doughy dumplings and pork. It was good, although it was probably one of the least memorable meals of the trip. We also got cool pins for drinking mass quantities of beer.

At this point we were dead tired. We slogged to the U-Bahn station and finally made our way back to the apartment for a well-deserved rest. But not without incident - when we got into the station, we realized there was a train right at the platform! What good luck! We ran in and sat down on the train. The doors closed. The train did not move. After a few seconds someone noticed that we were the only people actually ON the train - everyone else was on the platform. But we were trapped on the train - pushing the “exit” button on the doors did nothing! The girls were beginning to panic, but Mike and I felt that we were perfectly safe - we were on a train in a well-lit station that was full of people. Sure, we could not leave the train, but aside from looking like complete idiots and providing the a good laugh for the folks on the platform, there did not seem to be any immediate danger. Eventually a conductor came by and let us out. Turns out the train was being taken out of service, so he locked all the cars down so that he could go through and empty them one-by-one to make sure no one stowed away to wherever the U-Bahn trains go when they are taken out of service.

THEN we finally made our way back to the apartment for that well-deserved rest.

To see all of the pics from the trip, head on over to the Gallery!