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| 130 mph across the countryside from Hamburg |
I'm doing this thing where I won't spend nearly enough time in any of the places I'm going. I've got several internal conflicting timetables, and this is how it's come out, que será. I'm heading out tomorrow morning to Prague, with a stopover in Dresden (really they don't have a direct train from Berlin to Prague??), which means today was my only full day in Berlin, a city of 3.6 million (metropolitan area 6 million) with more than its share of history.
It is beyond my means to form any overall impression of they city, but I have a few strands that I could almost weave together.
I took a walking tour today around the oldest, grandest part of the city this afternoon - I saw the Cathedral, the University, the Brandenburg Gate, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, the Unden de Linden, the Fernsehturm (sort of a soviet Space Needle), and other spots both grand and old. These were all in the former soviet section of the city, and are mixed in with a lot of bland Soviet architecture. We also visited the former HQ of the Nazi Luftwaffe - according to our guide the only Nazi building in use in the city. The rest were damaged in the war, and occupying governments were happy to demolish them. The monuments listed above however were mostly heavily restored following the war.
In these places we've got the pompous, powerful, romano-phile Prussian kingdom, the destruction of WWII, and the occupying soviet government all layered on. We also visited "Checkpoint Charlie" and one of the extant portions of the Berlin Wall. The way the city was divided for nearly 30 years, with west Berlin a fortified island of western freedoms and capitalism amidst the soviet union is hard for a millennial like me to wrap my mind around.
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| It's just a tourist gimmick now. You pay money to get your picture taken with the "soldiers". |
It also brings up the importance of the United States in the life of this city. Checkpoint Charlie was one of the access points into the American controlled section of West Berlin, which was also divided into British and French sections. It was upheld by the American military and the US presidents, especially JFK, had a major role in the protection of the enclave.
A part of this four-month sojourn to northern Europe has been about getting down to the old Germanic roots of my Anglo culture and language. The cultural, social, legal, economic structures that American inherited from Europe are a mix of a lot of sources, but a big one is the Germanic kingdoms of central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire. My current trip south from Denmark through old Brandenburg, Bohemia, Bavaria, and Austria is partly about getting a mental grasp on what this complex region of overlapping ethnicities and sovereignties is like.
Implicit in this dive into deep roots and old history is a distancing from modern America. It is striking then, to arrive here and realize how much a part of this city was an American colony so recently. This place feels so different from the states - the layers of history, the density of people, and of course my general incomprehension of what anyone is saying. It is hard to imagine thousands of American soldiers, from farms and cities and black and white and brown families, rolling into town and dominating the place.
The first night I was here I went out to meet a UW MUP classmate who is participating in a UW Architecture program here this fall. We met in the Kreuzberg neighborhood, one of the hip neighborhoods not too far from my hostel, which was part of the American zone of control. I walked there and could tell it was a lively part of town - many bars, restaurants, cultural venues, and various overlapping systems of rail transit. We got vietnamese soup, which is usually the best thing on a rainy November day, and good wine very cheap, and talked about thesis and what we are gonna do about it.
I hopped on the U-Bahn to go back to the hostel around midnight. That's their subway/elevated rail line - a great classic rail system that's probably been running for a hundred years. It was packed with young people in the middle of their night out, most had beer or wine with them on the train. We got to the end of the line and everyone walked off to head across the bridge over the canal. There's a connecting bridge that leads down to an S-Bahn platform, which is the light rail system that covers most of the urban area. Hundreds of people were walking to the platform - seemed like older folks were coming down from the Frederichshain neighborhood and younger folks coming off the U-bahn from Kreuzberg merging on the bridge. There were food stands selling beautifully arranged sandwiches, croissants, pretzels, and sweets and gyros and there was a man singing and playing guitar with a small amp. He was playing "ticket to ride".
The other element, apart from the overwhelming layers of history is this incredibly vibrant nightlife and cultural scene, which has been famous for a good century now. I can't imagine the creative forces that were pushing in on folks during the Berlin Wall era - but there certainly seems to have been a lot to react to. More broadly, there is a love for going out here that is not rivaled by many cities in the world I think. It helps that it is so much cheaper to do so than in other capitals in Europe. Tragically, I've nearly gotten used to $8 beers in Copenhagen, but $3 seems entirely achievable.
I love to see how much a part of the urban life and fabric going out and socializing (and drinking!) is. The ride on the U-bahn was not a break from the party, it certainly wasn't the end of the night, it was just another stage of the party. I compare than to our vast, echoing, empty, transit tunnel stations in Seattle where you can't get a ride much after midnight, and despair. We build these cities, for what? Why not build them to have fun in?
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