Ich bin Berliner

And I don't mean the donut. Anyway, Berlin. It's a pretty cool place. When we first drove within the city limits, you couldn't really tell it was a global focal point. The drive to the city center consisted of autobahn with forests among either side. Then, driving into the city itself, it was bland building after bland building. About here is where it starts to hit you. This is where all of the stuff you read about in books happened. These aren't just buildings, these are silent spectators to world shifting events. Some of the bleary concrete goliaths I saw while sitting on that bus survived and withstood the regime changes of Germany and more importantly the death blows of a country at war.

But on with the blog post!

So our first evening in Berlin was an interesting one. The most striking difference to humble ol' Osnabrueck was the variety. I must've seen just about every major culture represented on that initial drive to the hostel. Gyros and pita? Check. Pizza and pasta? Yep. Vietnamese Bill's Wild West Barbecue? Wouldn't doubt it. So by now you'll notice food is a common theme among my posts. Well Berlin was a haven for people like me. Remember the box analogy from the previous post? If not, take the time to scroll right on down there and reread it. I can wait. ... So! Imagine if all the world came to Berlin and brought with them their box-technology secrets. Instead of Kingbox we now have Hivemindbox. A gloriously delicious box-cluster capable of far more than Kingbox could ever hope to achieve. This is food culture in Berlin.

The program itself was also well done (food pun! hah!). The museums we visited were spectacular. The first day included a trip to the Dom. A museum was located inside which housed the history and events leading up to the wars. The information presented in this tour was actually rather insightful. You'd think that the American educational system would have rammed every possible fact of the World Wars into my feeble little mind by the time I got to college. Nope. I had never even heard of some of the events and people described in this tour. Bismarck and his actions were entirely foreign to me.
The professor of art and history that travelled the city with us was also a huge piece of our Berlin experience. She expertly guided and explained every site that we passed by while the city moved around us. It is crazy when you think about how everyday thousands of people walk by these icons of the past without a passing thought. I feel extremely lucky to have highlighted these places so that I may never forget them.
The museum depicting the rebellions against the Nazi party was probably my favorite by far. The guide was extremely well versed and presented the subject with refreshingly strong passion. There's no way I could even begin to recount all the information gleaned from the visit, in fact I couldn't even retain all of it myself. I had to ask the guide for the museum webpage for further reading. This visit was a must.
Then of course, the two massively world famous museums in which we were going to spend a day each in. The mask of Nefertiti and the relics of the ancient Parthenon each housed in a separate museum, each museum with enough exhibits to entertain a monthlong visit. Oh wait? What? We have less than an hour in each? Oh. Well. That's cool I guess. I mean it's better than nothing right? Yeah. That was a definite disappointment but the rushed visits were indeed better than no visits at all. The exhibits themselves were excellent. Excellent is an understatement. Imagine a box. Nah, I kid. No box analogy for you. But the world class reputation of these museums was much deserved.
And last but not least is the Jewish History Museum in Berlin. Our visit was a bit unorthodox as the guide himself mentioned, but it was easily one of the most poignant tours. We focused more on the architectural interpretations of the war and I'm definitely glad we did. The three major exhibits, the garden, the tower, and the walk, were each designed flawlessly to inject the visitor with a unique memory of those who inspired the artworks. It was a tremendous display of architectural brilliance seldom seen in the states.

That was about it for the Berlin trip. I say that as if it was a passing visit. It wasn't. It'll stick with me forever. Well done.