Berlin Post 4

I'm home sick today, (yay for head colds, right?) so I thought I'd tell some more stories about our Berlin trip.

We were lucky to have really wonderful weather in Germany - we actually had to use sunscreen for the first time since Malta! It was great for wandering around and checking out the beautiful (and varied) German architecture.

 

Hostel on a boat!

 

Looking up the inside of the above church's tower

This was in a big, central downtown park. Luckily the rain held off!

Especially for this guy's sake!

Speaking of looking at buildings and architecture, Justin already alluded to the fact that although there are still the types of people who paint swastikas on things around, the vast majority of the German population doesn't approve and has done its best to remove the symbol (and ideology) from the country.

This eagle is a Reichsadler, one of the symbols of Nazi Germany. They used to hold a wreath with a swastika in the centre. As the eagle has been a symbol of Germany since medieval times, it was allowed to stay, but you can see underneath where the wreath and swastika were chiselled off of the sculpture

Others remain (although Justin thinks I am just seeing things here)

Gotta love a country who graffitis against racists!

Another reminder of the Third Reich in a public place - this sculpture is called "Trains Into Life/Trains into Death" and is placed beside a major railway station. It remembers the Jewish children who were lucky enough to be sent out of the country (usually to Britain), and those who were not so fortunate and were sent by train to concentration camps. I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but people have placed flowers in the hands of the children who look like they are in the latter group.

Another historical landmark, the Television Tower is the tallest structure in Germany, and one of the tallest in the EU. You've seen it in several of our pictures of the downtown core already. It is an iconic landmark of the city, but has a controversial history. It was built in (Soviet-controlled) East Germany in the 1960s as both a transmission tower and local landmark, and was purposely built on the site of many medieval buildings, which were torn down to make room for it.

The designer made the observation deck spherical to pay homage to Sputnik, the first satellite sent into orbit by the Russians. A funny and unintended side-effect of this circular shape is that sunlight is reflected off of it in the shape of the cross - Berliners call this 'The Pope's Revenge'. The TV tower has a restaurant and observation deck and we had planned to go up, but the wait was 3 hours long and we chose to go do other things.

Standing at the base of the tower

Looking towards downtown from the east end

The reason we were in the east end was to visit a local flea market in a run-down part of town. Surprising absolutely no one, graffiti was the name of the game here as well!

We were here right as the market opened so got plenty of photos without people in them. This was pretty cool - an old stone tower repurposed into a rock climbing wall! This was set beside a beer garden, so you could relax in the sun (or shade) while you waited for your turn.

One of the most picturesque places that we had a drink was the Brauhaus Georgbraeu. They had a lovely beer garden with very long tables, so you were sitting side-by-side with strangers. If this was any of the other countries we had visited, this is where we probably would have gotten into a long conversation with locals once they heard us speaking English. However, in Germany we found that many locals either  didn't speak English, or weren't interested in interacting with tourists. It was a bit of a shame, since having conversations with strangers has been one of our favourite things to do on this trip. The drinks at this place were very good and brewed on site (Justin got to choose between their light and their dark beer - there were not a ton of options!). The patio was down by the river and in a small square, with a statue of Saint George, the pub's namesake. 

At this point in our trip I was a little gun-shy about taking any pictures with locals in them, so I didn't take any of the patio, but here's a nice one that shows the area:

Photo credit: https://kirstydavefood.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/brauhaus-georgbraeu/

Saint George is a figure in many religious faiths, and one of his greatest acts was slaying a dragon to save a princess and free a town from having to offer its daughters as sacrifices. This is why most of the paintings and statues of him show him locked in combat with a dragon. Here is a short version of the story, straight from Wikipedia:

"The town had a small lake with a plague-bearing dragon living in it and poisoning the countryside. To appease the dragon, the people of Silene fed it two sheep every day. When they ran out of sheep they started feeding it their children, chosen by lottery. One time the lot fell on the king's daughter. The king, in his grief, told the people they could have all his gold and silver and half of his kingdom if his daughter were spared; the people refused. The daughter was sent out to the lake, dressed as a bride, to be fed to the dragon.

Saint George by chance rode past the lake. The princess tried to send him away, but he vowed to remain. The dragon emerged from the lake while they were conversing. Saint George made the Sign of the Cross and charged it on horseback, seriously wounding it with his lance. He then called to the princess to throw him her girdle, and he put it around the dragon's neck. When she did so, the dragon followed the girl like a meek beast on a leash. The princess and Saint George led the dragon back to the city of Silene, where it terrified the populace. Saint George offered to kill the dragon if they consented to become Christians and be baptised. Fifteen thousand men including the king of Silene converted to Christianity. George then killed the dragon, and the body was carted out of the city on four ox-carts. The king built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint George on the site where the dragon died and a spring flowed from its altar with water that cured all disease."

Is it just me, or does that story make you feel a little bad for the dragon?

Another two things I just learned getting information for this post: St. George is the patron saint of England, and Winston Churchill's private plane in World War II was named after George's sword, Ascalon. An interesting link to Germany!

This water pump was just down the road from the brewhouse, and had another dragon on it! Justin's been studying water pumps all year at school, and there are many hand pumps outside the main building at WEDC on campus, but I don't think this style is one of them.

We saw this heron alongside the river - the ones I've seen at home have always been very shy, so it was pretty neat to get this close to one!

We were trying to beat the heat, so we headed for one of the most popular things to do on a hot summer - the Badeschiff! The river that runs through downtown (the Spree River) is too polluted to swim in, so the entrepreunerial masterminds behind this complex sunk a refrigerated shipping container partway into the river and built up docks, a beach, and a bar around it in a cool industrial neighbourhood. For obvious reasons, I didn't have my camera on me inside after we got changed, but here are some pictures from the outside, then some from the official website.

Photo credit: http://www.arena.berlin/veranstaltungsort/badeschiff/

Photo credit: http://www.arena.berlin/veranstaltungsort/badeschiff/

The last picture is from Movies on the Beach night - that would have been really cool! On the way out we were very tempted by this burger joint, but we had somewhere else that we knew we had to visit....

When you think about fantastic food, 'served in a restroom!' isn't always at the top of everyone's list. But that's exactly the draw behind Burgermeister. It is found under a transit overpass in a converted public washroom, and the lines can get really long! There were only a few tables there, that allow you to kind of stand with your butt supported (is there a name for this?) and we shared with two young women from Germany - again, unfortunately not interested in conversation! The food was fantastic though, and the line moved briskly - well worth making your way there on a visit to the city.

Looking away from the restaurant. Now that's a good use of space!

Yum! It's not poutine, but then nothing in Europe is

As a wrap up on Berlin from my perspective - a beautiful city with an absolute ton of history, and plenty of interesting things to see and do. However, the people there were my least favourite of anywhere that we've been - the only good interaction we had with locals was with the girls in the zombie hospital, as Justin already shared. If it wasn't for all of the interesting things to photograph (especially on the day of tresspassing) I think this trip would have been a bust for me. However, Berlin is a clean city, well laid out, and the transit is excellent - the day pass that we bought every day for about 7 euros each was well worth it! Perhaps if you knew someone living in the area, or spoke German, you would have a different experience in the city. I think it's still worth visiting.

I think that's it for me! A little light on the stories and information in this installment, but Justin has some really good ones in the last Berlin post. And then a brief break to catch our breaths before back-to-back weekends in Paris and Rome! So off I got to bed to make sure I'm well recovered for all the fun to come!