Berin Walking Tour. (Oct. 26, 2009)
I woke up earlier than I wanted and took advantage of this unfortunate accident by going on what was billed as a free walking tour. I walked to the meeting place in the crisp morning air, stopping into Dunkin Donuts for a quick cup of caffeine. Talk about sticker shock: the prices were literally four times as much as they were in Bangkok for some items . . . like the coffee I bought. The tour was excellent! Our guide was an American guy from Maine and about the same age as myself. His American accent reminded me that I would soon be back in the USA with family, friends, and familiar things. The tour guide is living in Berlin on something called an artist visa which I immediately started quizzing him about. (I'm always shopping for a new home!). Berlin still hasn't recovered from the effects of war; one of which is the mass exodus that went down after the wall fell. Something like 10% of the buildings currently sit abandoned and the population is nowhere near the city's potential capacity. Therefore, the government passes out these artist visas like candy in order to both increase population and to draw in people who will enhance Berlin's reputation as one of the world's most artistic and progressive cities. The mayor even said once, “Berlin is poor, but sexy.” However, the resident’s must not be that poor, if they can afford to keep Dunkin Donuts in business.
I had a few minutes before the tour began and wandered down the street finding the Kaiser
Wilhelm Memorial Church. It was bombed, but left as a reminder of the destructiveness of war.
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Back to the tour; it included a visit to the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, a portion of the Berlin Wall, and a number of other interesting places. At one point the guide took us to a dirt parking lot and explained that Hitler died in a bunker below the ground we were standing on. He went on to say that the bunker had been destroyed and the government now used the area as a parking lot in an effort not to bring any attention to Hitler. The only time this location is remembered for its Nazi history is on New Years when people make an effort to go there to vomit after their celebrations. Nearby residents, he said, would also take their pets there to clean out their digestive systems.
The Brandenburg Gate, once a diving line between East and West Berlin.
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The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin is a concrete field with gigantic concrete blocks
protruding from the ground. The artist has never explained his vision to anyone.
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The Berlin Wall
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Living Statues at the Brandenburg Gate
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The Reichstag is where the German Parliament meets. The glass dome is a recent addition and popular
tourist attraction. It was built above the room where government sessions are held so the politicians can look
up through the glass ceiling and see the people above them.
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Havel River in Berlin.
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DZ Bank Interior. Designed by Frank Gehry to look like a whale... hopefully an abstract one.
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This is where Michael Jackson dangled his baby... sometimes we forget how crazy he was.
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The tour ended up being around 3 hours long and the guide gave a little sympathy speech in order to get some tips. Seeing as the pamphlet advertised this as a free tour, the cry for financial assistance would have normally ticked me off, but the guy was entertaining, cool, and thorough, not to mention he answered all of my annoying visa questions and gave me directions to a concert venue. I tipped him a few Euro and went to explore the museum we had ended the tour at. All of the exhibits were in German, so I was pretty bored. Redemption came in the basement where I discovered a mausoleum with ornate caskets adorned with skulls and creepy children. Just outside the mausoleum's exit was an “Einstein Coffee Shop.” I took an hour to savor a rather expensive late` before calling it a day.
The walking tour ended here. This is one of 6 or 7 museums in the nearby area, appropriately titled: Museum Island.
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The basement was a creepy mausoleum that I was sure only existed within soundstages in Hollywood.
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The skull adorning the casket on the left seems a bit morbid... there were plaques explaining everything, but it was all in German.
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