Week 5: Berlin

We arrived late in the evening on Sunday, September 2. It’s was a wonderful week.

On Monday, Audrey, Maurene and I took a boat tour on the River Spree to get a feel for Berlin. We enjoyed the views of the Berliner Dom, Museum Island, the Reichstag and some of the Berlin Wall.  We also had the chance to go under Berlin’s lowest bridge. Before going under the bridge, the captain came over the intercom and warned everyone to duck to prevent injury. Even though I’m only 5’2, I really thought I was going to hit the bridge! Maurene thought it was hysterical. We had some pretzels and soaked up some sun while we toured. It was very warm out, but the breeze off of the river ensured the ride was very refreshing.

On Tuesday, we took walking tour of the center of Berlin. We walked past the Brandenburg gate, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the square where the book burnings took place during WWII.  We learned that 90% of Berlin was destroyed during WWII, explaining why so few buildings are historic. We also learned that the reason they added the glass dome to the top of the Reichstag when they rebuilt it was so that the common people were physically above the government to serve as a reminder that the government should serve the people. Many of the holocaust memorials throughout town can also be viewed from the Reichstag as a reminder for workers in the government to not allow history to repeat itself. We also had the chance to stand in the parking lot above the bunker where Hitler stayed during the war and committed suicide. We really enjoyed the tour and loved how well it served as a platform to explore the history of Germany while in Berlin.

We went to the Pergamon art museum on Wednesday. The Pergamon was a very different museum than other art museums we have attended so far because it was focused on ancient art.  A portion of the museum was closed for renovation, including the Pergamon altar, but we enjoyed the sections that were open and those open sections were just the right size so that we did not even have any symptoms of museum fatigue. Our favorite pieces were the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, the Aleppo room, and the carved wooden ceiling. The Aleppo room was particularly moving for me. Listening to the audiotour, we were told that the house where the Aleppo room was originally located was still open for visitation in Aleppo. However, there were signs near the exhibit that explained that the building had recently been destroyed in the Syrian civil war.

Thursday, we visited the German Technology Museum. The girls loved this museum. We looked at old paper making machines, airplanes, windmills, model trains, and real trains from different points in history. The girls loved getting to play engineer in one of the trains. We also found a very cool windmill park to play in for part of the afternoon. An unexpected hit from the day was getting to see one of the last remaining horse staircases that can be seen by the public in Berlin. I’m still not quite sure why they needed to be able to bring horses up the stairs when the building was built, but we had fun making up stories about why it was needed.

To end our week, we went to the Natural History museum on Friday. We saw many dinosaur skeletons including Brachiosaurus and a T-rex. The museum was set up with really cool virtual reality scopes that the girls could point at the different dinosaurs. After being pointed at a dinosaur, the scope showed what the dinosaur could have looked like and what scientists think it might have acted like. The girls loved getting to see the dinosaur bones brought to life. We also got to see different taxidermied animals, and for about five minutes Audrey decided polar bears were her favorite animal. Then after seeing a panda, we were back to normal with thinking pandas are the best. On our way back to our airbnb, we got our Friday afternoon ice-cream!

This weekend I went to Munich! Blog post coming soon!