Archive for October, 2008
Berlin
Friday, October 31st, 2008
On what turned out to be a very rainy monday afternoon our train pulled into the main station in Berlin. The building was a glass structure almost as big as an airport terminal where five or six different levels of train tracks soared right through the open foyer. It was 3:30 and already appeared to be getting dark. Undeterred by the gloom and rain splattering against the glass, we set out to explore the surrounding area, crossing a bridge to the Swiss embassy and an architecturally interesting building that turned out to be the German equivalent of the White House. The glass dome of the Reichstag was visible just across the street.
Another short hop on a local train where we thoroughly irritated everyone by filling the car with our luggage right at rush hour, we got to Alexanderplatz, home of the famous Berlin TV tower, and took a taxi which deposited us in front of a formidable gothic building in Prenzlauer Berg. We were actually there to meet one of T’s old friends who was letting us stay for a while, but I feel the need to mention the building just because it’s just like something from a children’s story book, especially because: a) there was a lone light up in the eaves glowing in the darkness that suggested spooky Halloween-ish things and b) we later learned that it is in fact an elementary school, which is why it has creepy gargoyle-children adorning the facade. The building we were actually going into was the plain, peach-colored one across the street from the ominous school of narrow windows and gobiln-decorations. Perhaps not as exciting, but at least it has ancient creaky doors that are painted a strange shade of green, and the sort of unique details in the woodwork and moulding that only old buildings seem to posess. And that is where I am at the moment, looking out at a courtyard filled with bicycles and damp leaves.
Prenzlauerberg, as it turns out, is not really a berg at all (‘berg’ meaning ‘mountain’) but a leafy neighborhood of old buildings in what was until recently East Berlin. I have no idea what it was like before, but now the place is supposedly one of the most interesting neighborhoods of the city and is overrun with small cafes, bakeries, restaurants of (almost) every description, independent clothing shops, art galleries, salons, occasional offices and kindergartens. Everything is accessible on foot, and if you have anywhere else to go you can take a streetcar, subway, train, or bus. I swear it is impossible to walk a single city block without passing at least one cafe and one bakery.
Der Wald
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
Timur’s little sisters and I went on a trip to explore the woods nearby and find the “friendship tree,” a lone pine at the top of the hill that was mysteriously much taller than any other tree around it. It turns out that the section at the top of the hill was logged, and only that tree was left. It made for a nice viewing spot for the surrounding countryside. We made maps of the paths through the woods, this one is mine!
Tomorrow we go to Berlin! More to follow.
Köln
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
On Tuesday we made a trip to Köln, a.k.a. “Cologne,” to hunt down a store that sells Macintosh products. My computer power cord, which had so far been fraying toward one end to the point where small wires were sticking out at unhealthy angles, decided to go all the way and snap into two pieces. Mysteriously, Tim’s cable also blew up upon arrival causing the power to go out in the entire apartment. Hence the visit to the Mac reseller. Since we had a good reason to go there, we decided to spend the whole day and check out the sights of downtown Köln.
The train ride was just under two hours, and the track seemed to follow the Siege river through rainy pastoral landscapes. We stopped at small towns every so often and even saw the occasional castle. Castles! As though the ancient homes of feudal lords were ordinary things to see everywhere. Finally the land flattened out some and the towns grew larger until we could sense from the graffiti that we must be on the edge of a bigger city. We eased into the main station, getting our first glimpse on the side of Köln’s famous cathedral.
The Cathedral is right next to the train station, looming over it with dark, gothic spires. It’s incredibly impressive, but unfortunately is so big that I was never able to actually get the entire thing in a photo. When we arrived it was raining, enhancing the drama of the building. It’s amazing that people used to build things with such an enormous level of detail. Saints and mysterious figures look out from the walls and buttresses, and gargoyles lurk in the eaves above. The enormous scale of the building is stunning. It’s one of the biggest churches in the world, and it took over six hundred years to complete. (They started in 1248, and they didn’t finish the facade until the 19th century.) It’s still used as a Catholic church, and you can go inside and look around when they aren’t having mass. The inside feels much like being in a dark forest of tall trees.
We went to a restaurant by the dome famed for the “best sauerbraten” and for local beer, which is served in small, vertical glasses because Kölners prefer their beer in small quantities and thus extra fresh. I think it was the first beer I’ve ever had that I truly liked. The food wasn’t bad either, meat-and-potatoes stuff, but warm and hearty for a cold rainy day. I’m sure the climate has more than a little to do with the cuisine.
In our search for the Mac store we wandered around the pedestrian streets and in and out of little shops. I’m still amazed at the number of A) bakeries and B) cafes that seem to survive here. There’s a different attitude when you walk in. At home the assumption seems to be: “You are a customer. You must want a giant styrofoam cup and you will pay for your coffee and rush off to do something else”. Here the assumption is: “You want a mug, and you will sit by the window for hours watching people walk by and talking with your friends.” This photo says it all…
We spent the rest of the day wandering around the art museum beside the Cathedral, which has a massive collection of modern art. I think there were at least five rooms of Picasso alone. I marvel at these sometimes. I know that there are some things I’ve made that I thought were pretty good and others that I wouldn’t want to show off. But once an artist has made it to a certain level of celebrity, it doesn’t seem to matter what the picture is, be it the finest work or a scribble: it’s worthy of a museum display. I’m not sure that they were all masterpieces. There were a lot of pieces in the rest of the museum, though, that I recognized from art history classes.
Siegerland
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
We first arrived in Siegen, a semi-industrial city of about 100,000, at mid-morning. Nestled in the hilly terrain, Siegen is a mixture of old and new architecture, with some buildings dating back before 1700 and others looking like bland and utilitarian products of the 1960’s. The mixture is undoubtedly the result of damage the place sustained in World War Two. The traditional buildings of the region seem to be half-timber, sometimes with extremely complex and decorative patterns of black and white, but the wood seems to be usually exposed only on one side, the other sides protected with a siding made of slate. The slate tiles are arranged in ornate patters and reminiscent of fish scales. Slate is traditionally mined in the region and the scales are used to protect against the damp. Generally the homes have pitched roofs with occasional gables and they look quite cosy with their chimneys.
We went to town to get some power adapters at “Media Markt” and I had my first experience attempting to buy something, which ended with being yelled at in German by a woman with a nasty expression on her face. It turns out that they don’t take visa cards. It’s not very surprising, but I’m still baffled as to why it was worth making me feel awful about. Is it really such a cardinal sin to not understand what is going on? There might be a lot of ignorance in America, but there is a lot more friendliness than I have found so far here.
Despite grumpy sales persons, there are plenty of things to like here, especially the bakeries with their spectacular displays of fresh bread, rolls, pastries and cakes so beautiful you almost feel it would be a shame to eat them. Chocolate shops also abound, tempting even the most conservative pedestrian to have a look inside. A trip through the shopping centers makes me suspect that if you skimmed off the very best quality stuff you could find in America and got rid of the rest, you would have the average range of things available here, although I have to admit that things have the price tag to match their quality. The only thing I haven’t been able to find so far are pecans. People here have never even heard of them.
We took a ride across the countryside to visit some of the surrounding villages, thorough hills that reminded me somehow of Pennsylvania:
The towns themselves, however, were much more European. We stopped here to try to go to a cafe, but nothing was open yet.
Finally, back in Siegen we walked around the old city and stopped to look at the castle, which I think dates back to the 1300s.
