Berlin

Before I actually get to Berlin...here are some recent pics of the baby. Collective "awww," please.

Now that you have been lured in by cuteness...to Berlin!

I headed back to Germany about a week after spending time in Munich. I got some unexpected days off (kids went to their grandparents' house) and hopped on a train to Berlin. It was about four hours from Prague.

An awesome girl from Winston and Duke is studying abroad in Berlin with the Duke program, and she was fabulous to me when I was in the city! As soon as I arrived...well, not as soon as...I was so overwhelmed by the gorgeous, super-clean, busy, and very German Hauptbanhof (main train station) that I had to get a soft pretzel and sit on a bench for several minutes to calm myself before I could even attempt to find a map and figure out how to get to my hotel.

Eventually I found the hotel. (Fairly easy, I am getting good at metros!...even though Germany is a little more confusing because they have the S-bahn (above ground trains) and the U-bahn so there are lots of lines and some come every few minutes and some every twenty and it can get crazy.) Prague only has three lines, the yellow, red, and green:

but there are at least twenty in Berlin. It can be tricky just to read the map and follow the correct U-bahn line with your eyes since all the different colors and stops blend together in overlapping insanity.

Even so, I am rather fond of metros/undergrounds/subways/tubes. Since I tend to get very lost very quickly and lack even the most basic sense of direction, the simplicity of metros appeals to me. Once you find your line, you can go in only two directions. If you choose the wrong one, then you just get off at the next stop and try again. Usually metro stations are well marked and pretty easy to figure out with end stations and stops and transfer points. You can't start in one direction, take a wrong turn, and then wind up in some weird alley without having any idea of how to get out, as I seem to so often do when driving/walking. Of course, you can get out at the wrong stop or something, but that is very easily rectified. Just get on another train.

But back to my original point from a while ago.

I met Hannah (my Winston-Salem/Duke friend) and she took me to a fun restaurant with a bunch of the other people in her program. The restaurant is unique because it has one hundred beers or something, and most other places only have three or four on tap. Needless to say, though I will still say it, we had fun sampling the various beers. I was very impressed with Hannah's buddies, just as people, and also in their brave enthusiasm for exploring the city and getting as much out of their study abroad experience as they can. They also seemed to speak German very well. Or at least it sounded good to my untrained ears. (I know usually one only says "untrained ear" but most of us have two ears, right?)

After dinner I got to do something I never even dreamed of doing...swing dancing in Berlin. One of Hannah's friends is really into swing dancing and has gotten involved with various clubs and groups in the city. She took everyone with her to a swing dancing club where we clumsily tried to follow the experts. It was fun! Crazy and surreal, but fun.

The next morning I enjoyed a delightful breakfast (I love included breakfasts!) before heading for a New Europe tour. I believe I have gone on and on about these tours so I shan't bore you with more info on them. Instead, I shall try and share some of the cool stuff I got to see and learn.

The tour met in front of the Brandenburger Tor, or the Brandenburg Gate, which I am sure you have seen on the news recently...

Usually the meeting point is a Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts (of which there were many in Berlin!). Here are all of the people waiting for the free tours offered in English, Spanish, and German.

One of the people on my tour looked as though he was wearing a Union soldier's cap from the Civil War. I had to get a picture so I pretended to take one of the side of the gate, but there is the Yankee at the bottom. I am really not sure what to make of it.Here is the top of the gate. The statues were stolen by Napoleon and then returned. That greedy little man.Directly to the left of the gate is the American Embassy. According to my tour guide, the embassy wanted to put the usual heavy duty barriers in front of the building, which would have meant walls and gates and guards in front of the Brandenburger Tor. (Ironically, sort of, the Berlin Wall passed right by the gate, too.) But Berlin said no, so instead the embassy built a false front onto the building. What you see in the picture below (the cream building on the left with the flag above the tour) is a fake facade. The real embassy doesn't start for another twenty feet behind the walls. Cool. Sad we have to have so much security. But still cool.Also cool is that there is a Kennedy Museum next to the Starbucks so right on the plaza by the Brandenburger Tor. Berliners seem to like Americans, which made me happy, and they seem to especially like the Kennedys.

An exhibit about President Obama is opening soon, hence his picture in the window.

One of the first stops on the tour was the Holocaust Memorial, or officially the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe." It opened in 2005. The memorial covers a huge expanse of ground a block over from the American Embassy and the Brandenburger Tor. It is 4.7 acres, to be more specific, and there are 2,711 of the grey concrete slabs.

There is nothing around or on the memorial to say what it is supposed to mean or, indeed, to even say what it is memorializing. It is interesting that the title specifically references "murdered Jews" but not the other people that were killed in the Holocaust. The slabs can represent gravestones, or trains leading to concentration camps, or an ordered, right angle world lacking humanity, or a prison...etc.

You can walk amidst the blocks, which grow taller as the ground slopes down. It was eerie to walk deeper into the memorial until I couldn't see anything but the blocks. Then the ground rises again and you come out on the other side.

I mentioned in one of my posts on Munich about the different styles of remembering WWII and the Holocaust and the Nazis. In Munich they don't have a big monument like this, just small ones throughout the city. My tour guide defended this decision by comparing it to the Berlin Holocaust Memorial--she said she has seen people eating on the blocks and taking silly pictures on them and stuff, which is incredibly inappropriate. A huge, noticeable memorial can become such a part of normal life that it ceases to hold any meaning. I kept this in mind as I walked around the memorial in Berlin. I did see kids jumping from slab to slab, and people leaning on them and sitting on them. (There are signs posted about not sitting on the blocks, but they did not seem to be very effective.) It made me mad to see people acting so carelessly and disrespectfully at this very somber memorial. So I am not sure how best to remember. Although I am probably leaning towards a big memorial like Berlin's. It is out there, you can't avoid it. Even if some people are not affected by it, other people are. And in Munich it is possible to miss the memorials since they are so small, out of the way, and usually just in German.

And for happier thoughts...Sort of.

Very close to the memorial is a parking lot. And underneath that parking lot is Hitler's Bunker, or the ruins of it, anyway. When the Russians took Berlin they destroyed the bunker. So it is still under the ground, but it is exploded and crushed and impossible to visit. Aboveground is where Hitler and Eva Braun's bodies were cremated. There are no markers since they didn't want this spot to become a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site or anything like that. Crazy. So it is just a dirt parking lot in the middle of Berlin.

Next was the Nazi Luftwaffe headquarters. The architecture is very Nazi, isn't it?

Oddly enough, this massive building was not bombed. Some think the Luftwaffe had an agreement with the RAF--sort of an you-don't-bomb-our-office-and-we-won't-bomb-yours type of thing. Another theory is that the building is so huge that it served as a very useful landmark for Allied bombers flying over the city and trying to bomb specific targets.

After the war it became the East German government headquarters, and now it is a tax bureau. So it has never been a popular building for Germans. I know it is awful, but I kept thinking about Colonel Klink from Luft-Stalag 13...Oh, "Hogan's Heroes!"

The fact that the building wasn't bombed is so extraordinary because, according to my guide, 90% of Berlin was destroyed in WWII. 90%.

The incredible destruction sustained by Berlin means that, except for 10% or so, it is a very modern, new city. There is no real "historic city center" (also a result of there being an East Berlin and a West Berlin--two cities, two centers.) So most of the city looks modern, and even some of the old looking parts are reconstructions.

Sometimes Berlin seemed sad and grey, especially when compared with bustling, adorable Munich. Scenes like this were a little depressing.

As Hannah so eloquently put it, "Berlin has two histories." World War II is one and Communism + the Wall is the other. The poor city was pummeled in the war and parts of it are still struggling to recover, a process severely hampered by Communism and the Cold War. In some ways Berlin felt like Prague, and I wonder if Communism is more damaging than war...I am basing this thought on Munich compared to Prague and Berlin. Munich seems to have sprung back but the other two cities are making a much slower recovery (and Prague wasn't even bombed! Well, one bomb fell by accident. But that was it.) Some parts of Berlin and Prague have a dreary feeling. Grey.

That ends the "first history" bit of the tour. Now for the second history of Berlin--the wall.

Not much actually remains of the wall. Most of it was destroyed. (Though you can buy pieces of the wall at almost every souvenir shop in the city. Pieces of the True Cross are on sale, too. Just kidding.) We passed by the second longest chunk on our way to Checkpoint Charlie. They have ironically put up a wall in front of the wall to keep people from stealing pieces.

I am still confused about the wall. I need to look at a map and figure out exactly where it ran. The whole thing is just so weird. It goes up literally overnight, and divides the city in two. So many people tried to escape and were killed. Hard for me to fathom. It is the type of thing that if you read it in a novel you would never believe it.

Here is Checkpoint Charlie.
The picture in the middle is of an American soldier facing the East. Across from him is an East German soldier staring back. The glass building on the left is the Checkpoint Charlie museum. Beyond the soldier's picture, underneath the barely visible flag, you can get pictures taken with men dressed as West/East Berlin guards in front of a fake guardhouse, for one euro. This is indicative of the whole area. Disney World does border crossing.

A sign is still there declaring "You are entering the American sector" and on the other side "You are leaving the American sector." Although I was disappointed in the carnival atmosphere at Checkpoint Charlie, (so named because it was the third and final checkpoint before crossing into East Berlin, and they named them by the Army phonetic alphabet thing--the others were Checkpoint Alpha and Bravo,) it was very cool to be there. My mom went through Checkpoint Charlie to get to East Berlin before the wall fell. It was neat to think that when she was there the city was still divided, but when her daughter visited the checkpoint was a photo-op instead of an active and deadly serious stand-off point between two armies.

We did see some lovely things instead of grim reminders of an ugly past. I believe this church is a reconstruction since it was bombed.

Next door was this building, an opera house, I think. Forgive me, but the terrible and interesting history of Berlin pushed the "This building is ____ and was built in____ and bombed in____" facts out of my brain.
I do remember this, though. The building straight ahead is a university. In the courtyard, about where I was standing when I took this picture, is where one of the huge bonfires of all the non-Nazi approved books took place. The universities and students actually led the movement to cleanse the nation of "un-German books." How awful. This university in Berlin was no exception, and burned thousands and thousands of books.

Underneath the courtyard is a memorial to the book burnings. It is an underground room of empty bookshelves to symbolize all the books that were destroyed.By the front gate of the university there was a table of books for sale. The table is always there, loaded with cheaply priced books, even when it rains or snows. The university is trying to atone for its part in the book burnings.

Grim, yet a lovely gesture.

Seeing all these places made me want to learn more about the city and World War II and Berlin after the war. The Berlin Air Lift is especially fascinating, and another thing that you would never believe if you read it in a thriller.

It seems that this post is a bit drearier than I intended. The next Berlin post will be more cheerful. I got most of the Nazi/Wall stuff out in this one.

I'm Back

Hello!

It has been a wild few weeks...that is my excuse for being extremely remiss in my blog posts.

I was in Berlin for a few days and then I met my mom (!) in London for a weekend and then a day later I was in the United Arab Emirates with the family. We returned from the UAE at midnight last night and I am trying to get organized and recover from a week of almost non-stop child care.

Check back soon for posts on Berlin,

London,

and Dubai!

Movie of the Week XV

To Catch a Thief (1955)

This is one of those movies that I think I must have dreamed. Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, jewel heists, gorgeous clothes, the French Riviera, all directed by Alfred Hitchcock...I mean, come on!

But the movie does exist. And it is beautiful and fun--Ocean's 11-esque in its shimmering lighthearted thriller/heist/romance package.

The movie is about a former cat burglar, John Robie, (Cary Grant) in the south of France. Everyone thinks he is reformed, living quietly in his villa. But suddenly several wealthy women on the Riviera are robbed of their extravagant jewels...and the crimes are just like the ones Robie used to pull off! The police arrive to question their prime suspect, but he eludes capture and starts trying to find the real burglar in order to clear his name and keep out of prison.

With the help of an insurance agent who somewhat inexplicably agrees to help the former thief, Robie (as an American timber baron) meets stunning Frances Stevens, (Grace Kelly), a crazy-rich American heiress, and her mother, Jessie (Jessie Royce Landis.) (Landis would play Grant's own mother in North by Northwest (1959)). The Stevenses are on Robie's radar because of Jessie's well known jewel collection and her equally well-known decision to wear her diamonds and rubies instead of keeping them in a safe. Robie thinks that the thief will probably target Frances and Jessie, so he decides to stay close to them and hopefully discover his copy-cat.

Of course, it is not really a chore to "stay close to" Frances Stevens. She encourages Robie, who she knows is not an American millionaire. She believes/hopes that he is the cat burglar because it would be exciting! He tries to convince her of his innocence, but she prefers to taunt him about her diamonds.

Grant and Kelly make a fun couple and they have excellent, quick dialogue, like the famous exchange supposedly about a chicken lunch: "Would you like a leg or a breast?" Kelly knowingly asks. "You make the choice," answers Grant, suavely. (This was apparently an improvisation, by the way.) There was some consternation over the romance between Grant and Kelly. In the script, John Robie is 35. Grant was 50 when he played the part, Kelly was 25. But Grant is ageless and it isn't as creepy as it might be. What is creepy is how tan Grant is. His face looks like a mahogany mask. Still handsome, though.

As one might expect from Hitchcock, there are twists and turns and suspenseful (but never scary) moments, and I don't want to ruin that for you by going into the plot much more. Just know that Grant is trying to stay one step ahead of the police, Frances (who is not an innocent little heiress and drives way too fast*) and his former gang, who, besides being jewel thieves, were also active and successful in the French Resistance in World War II. So that is sort of neat.

And oh! The film is stunning. Absolutely beautiful. The scenery: Monaco and the Riviera. Wow.

The people. It doesn't get much better than Grace Kelly and Cary Grant.

One way it can, and does, get better is having Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in Monaco wearing fabulous clothes and driving cool cars.

Edith Head designed Kelly's costumes, and, again, wow. Above, Kelly in her "going to the beach" outfit. Exactly what I wear, too.

Instead of playing the costumes "straight," the movie pokes fun at the extravagance. When Kelly walks in the hotel lobby in this amazing black and white number, people stop and stare, and Grant even looks awed. Kelly's incredible gowns and her jewels and her car become little jokes. The movie doesn't try to claim that they are normal or realistic. Even the super-rich on the Riviera can't compete with Frances Stevens. Everyone, movie people and audience, wait to see what she will wear next.

Although her white strapless chiffon dress is perhaps more famous (she wears it, and a huge diamond necklace, in the remarkable seduction scene played against a background of laughably obvious fireworks), I prefer a pale blue gown she wears earlier in the film.

And then for the finale--why not put Kelly in a giant gold lame ball gown with gold birds perched on the skirt, full length gold gloves, and a gilded wig? And let's put her mom in a blue velvet thing dripping with diamonds, and perhaps a blue wig to match. Crazy and awesome.

In this one you can see one of the birds on the skirt, and the bird on her hair.

Here she is with Hitchcock. It gives you an idea of the size of the skirt.

Fantastic excess. If you are in the mood for a caper movie with iconic actors, wow-visuals, a good plot, and skillful direction by a master, try To Catch a Thief. I am very glad I didn't dream this movie!

*One scene in the film has Frances driving rather recklessly along curving cliff-side roads while Robie looks terrified in the passenger seat. The scene was filmed near where Kelly eventually died in a car accident in 1982. Tragic trivia.

Munich 2

I really liked Munich. It was a vibrant city that was very walkable and easy to traverse. It is beautiful and modern (though there is enough of the historic city to keep me happy) with some lovely quaint corners and delicious soft pretzels. I have never seen such glisteningly clean and perfectly maintained metro stations. Incredible. Not only that, but people were friendly. I wasn't expecting meanness, I was just pleasantly surprised by how kind everyone was. For instance, on three separate occasions, strangers stopped and asked me if they could help! (I had my map out and looked confused. Typical for me.) No one has ever asked me that in Prague.

The best was when I was offered a ride to the city (by the people in the company, not randos), and instead of taking me into Munich they drove to the convention center on the outskirts of the city and parked and said "here we are." There was a U-bahn station there, but I was a little frantic because I was meeting my friends for breakfast in the city center and I was now farther from my destination than I had been in the little town of Poing. I essentially ran to the station and took the U-bahn a few stops and then planned to take an S-bahn which would deposit me directly underneath the cafe. But the S-bahn only goes every twenty minutes, and I had just missed the one I needed. I suppose I looked rather crestfallen since I was going to be thirty minutes late and I hate that. A nice man asked me something in German and I said "I don't speak German" and he said, "Oh, I'm Scottish anyway. Can I help you?" And he helped me figure out a different route using the U-bahn so I got to breakfast just a little late instead of very. How nice.

So after my visit to Dachau I got back to Munich in the late afternoon. I went walking to the English Garden since my friends had recommended it and I thought some beautiful nature would be a good pick-me-up after the concentration camp.

I walked from Marienplatz by the Residenz Palace and the Hofgarten through this gate and then onwards. I like the wide streets and I have never seen so many shining cars.

The garden is huge and gorgeous. It is right by one of the two universities in Munich, so when the weather is warm the students go to the garden and picnic and sunbathe and drink beer. It was awfully cold when I was there but there were still people jogging and strolling with strollers and walking with dogs. It was nice to see people jogging. I get really funny looks when I run in the Czech Republic.

There were lots of geese, too.

There is a Chinese pagoda in the middle of the garden which apparently is a rollicking good beer garden.

It was cold, but there were still people sitting there with their huge beer steins. Made me sad I wasn't in Munich for the summer or something. Must be a fun place with all of the outdoor beer gardens and parks.

Of course I got lost trying to leave the garden, but a nice woman on a bicycle stopped and helped me. I walked back to Marienplatz past this beautiful museum.

Just past the museum was a bridge over the river. There were some people gathered with cameras so I peeked over the edge and saw people surfing. In the cold water. As cars whizzed by above them. What?

My German friends told me that it is a very popular spot in the summer and that people have been surfing there for years. I took a video to share the weirdness.

Here are some of my Munich friends at the Tambosi Cafe, a beautiful old place by the Hofgarten.

Lesson of the day: Traveling should be fun.

I had a really lovely time in Munich. I tried to be relaxed about it and emulate the travel behavior of the people in the picture above. I lived with them in Venice for a semester and we travelled together. I remember our weekend in Stockholm particularly. Someone found a ridiculously cheap flight so we all bought tickets. The first day we were there I was surprised at the laid back attitudes of the Germans. They weren't rushing from spot to spot, palace to palace, monument to monument. They didn't have a bunch of maps and lists of places they MUST see. They spent a lot of time in a cozy cafe. And they were enjoying themselves so much! No stress about missing things or scheduling tours or planning the day. After I noticed this I tried to be more like them. And I had a wonderful time in Stockholm. I got to see plenty of the city but I also had such a great time in that tiny cafe.

I understand why we (Americans) can be in such a rush to see everything. After you have bought an expensive ticket and spent days on an airplane and you only have a little time in Europe, of course we are a bit uptight! It is not a quick trip compared to flying from Italy to Stockholm, or taking a train to Germany or whatever. And it may be our only chance to see Sweden or France or Belgium!

But--there is a balance here. I don't think that you should spend all your visit in a cafe or in a hotel room. Take advantage of your time. But don't waste your trip worrying about taking advantage of your time!

So in Munich I saw quite a lot and I didn't beat myself up for getting some coffee and sitting in a cafe for an hour. I got up at a decent hour instead of taking the first train into the city, and if I didn't want to see something that is a "must-see" then I didn't. And it was great.

I would like to go back to Munich. And not just for the live production of "Ben-Hur" in the Olympic Stadium. Yes. There were posters and brochures all over the city. I didn't think that a live Ben Hur was possible...it is a traveling show hitting cities with big outdoor stadiums.

I liked Munich so much that when this weekend was unexpectedly free I headed to Berlin to experience another German city. More on that later.