Bitte

Despite it being very overcast and slightly rainy today, I still had quite a busy day walking around what seemed to be the whole of Berlin and seeing some museums. It started with walking down to the place where the tour started yesterday to go inside what has to be the largest Protestant church I have ever seen. It was built for the Prussian emporers and is really interesting, in that it is a huge open square space with a massive dome, shown here:

I eventually gathered up the energy to climb to the top of the dome and peer down to the massive city below. It was still relatively early, so the streets werent too crowded and it was quite serene. After that I walked around and explored the church more, but a wedding party arrived and I did not want to be intruding on their special day, so I headed out and walked down the Unter Den Linden- the main drag here in Berlin. Along it I reviewed what we had seen briefly on the tour as well as explored some new things, like the gigantic Russian embassy that takes up an entire block. Legend has it that there is even a huge swimming pool inside with a mosaic of Lenin on the bottom. Haha

At the end of the road I found myself in the Paris Plaza, where the tour ended yesterday, so I took some pictures of the new US Embassy and walked through the big gate, eventually running into this:
That is the Reichstag, or national parliament. It has been in use for a very long time, and it took a beating during WWII, which is why it has an epic glass dome instead of a more boring wooden one- it got destroyed by Allied bombing. If you recall your history well, you would know that Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag to gain emergency powers, which eventually he got permanently. You can climb to the top of the dome for free, but there is always a huge line. They suggest to come at night or the early morning, so perhaps I will go then...

I enjoyed the nearby park for a little and then set off once again through the city streets, this time to Potsdam square, where a ton of modern office buildings have been built and where you can see the future of German commercialism. Here's a pic of it:Suprisingly, there were a bunch of police guarding the area- something I have not seen in Germany at all. I guess some people's hatred for modern architecture can make them crazy...

My end goal was to get to the Jewish Museum of Berlin, and after picking up a panini and walking even farther, I got there. The museum is a mix of an old classic European building and a very modern concrete zigzag building which houses most of the exhibits. Some of the really interesting features of the museum was the Garden of the Exiles, which was essentially the same thing as the Holocaust monument I saw yesterday. Also, they have the Tower of the Holocaust, which is a tall, dark, concrete room with barely any light.

The actual museum, although well developed and thought provoking, was very similar to the other Holocaust museums I have visited on this trip. It did differ, though, in its covering of the history of the Jews well before the Holocaust and their current position. That made the whole society of Jewish people seem less like simply victims of one tragedy and more like a beleagured culture fighting their way through history.

Too tired to walk to the opposite side of the city, I caught the underground train back to where my hostel is. Before I went there, though, I went to the KW, a modern art museum. As with most modern art, the stuff in the museum made very little sense, but it was mildy enjoyable. The first exhibit was one of photography centered around still life scenerios and wrecked cars. The second involved rotating materials in sculptures, and the last was a series of silent black and white videos from the 70's of hands doing strange things. Definitely contemporary.

So that was my day! Tomorrow is my last day in Berlin, and I will be taking an overnight train to Amsterdam at half past midnight. All I can say is that tomorrow will be filled with Museumgoing, since all the state museums are free on the first Sunday of the month. Sweet!