Lange Nacht (und Tag) der Museen

Museums Museums Museums! Berlin has tons of them and they're pretty great. Especially when its cold and you don't want to be outside. Berlin likes its museums so much they have this amazing thing every year called "Lange Nacht der Museen" (Long Night of the Museums) where tons of cool things all around the city happen the whole night, not only museums are open with special things, but also the planetariums, zoo, concerts, film screenings, workshops, and etc. We were overwhelmed by the options, but picked a few of the coolest sounding ones of course. We first tried to go to a planetarium to see a laser light show, but it was so packed we didn't make it in. So then we went to the Aquarium, which was pretty cool. Especially the real creeper prehistoric looking mammoth of a fish:


And the jellyfish:Our next stop was an exhibit of Pop-Art at the Automobil Forum Unter den Linden, which showcases cars, and also art (?) I was especially excited about the oddly numerous Minnesota connections. There was a Guthrie Theater poster and a 50th Anniversary poster for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on display.Our next stop was to trek back to the planetarium. The show was supposed to be about man's connection/fascination with the sky, which sounded pretty cool--- well it was still pretty cool, but not quite what we expected... especially when the periodic table was projected on the ceiling.

The other great thing Berlin does is make all their state-run museums free on Thursdays, so needless to say pretty much every Thursday we went to one of them. Hamburger Bahnhof is one of them, a super cool modern art museum in an old train station. The main exhibit going on showed really cool modern art and juxtaposed them with more classical inspirations. Like Lichtenstein and Picasso.

Erin looking at some Warhols:That same day we went to the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) which is a gorgeous building on Museum Island, although pretty much the whole island is under construction, so they should call it ginormous crane island. Its called the "Old" National Gallery because during the time Berlin was separated the Museum Island was on the East German side, so the Westerners built a new one to house all their cool stuff. The museum, like everything else in Berlin, was heavily damaged during World War II, and they purposefully left one room unrenovated to show the damaged. But other than that the whole building is very lovely and luxurious.

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Ghosts of the Past

I started this description as part of the last post- but I decided it should have its own. It has a much more somber tone then fashion shows and art museums.

A few weeks ago on a Sunday Hannah Rebecca and I went on tour of Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp northwest of the city. It was cold and wet and miserable, probably a fitting atmosphere for such a visit. My rain boots and 1 euro umbrella were pretty much the only reason I was able to stay there as long we we did- like 4-5 hours. Our guide was this sweet old man, but unfortunately he was pretty slow. The most interesting part was hearing little snippets of his personal story that would come up. He survived the Holocaust as a kid in a mobile children's forced work group. I would've liked to have someone else lead the tour, and just have him give a talk about his own experiences... but either way I'm glad I went. I've had an interest in stories of the Holocaust for a long time, read many books about it, took a class about it in high school, and of course learned about it as German major-- but for a long time really had no desire to visit a concentration camp. For some reason that changed, and I am glad I went. It was a very different feeling then I've had visiting other types of memorials. Last summer visiting Anne Frank's house was a very surreal emotional experience. To actually see the hidden bookcase door, see her room, her writing on the wall, and the diary was a very impacting experience- a strange intersection of the ideas and images you've built up in your head and coming face to face with the real place. I could feel the history of the place, imagine what had occurred there.

A different experience was visiting the Jewish Museum , as I wrote about earlier. While that museum wasn't exclusively about the Holocaust, rather Jewish people through out the ages- the most impressive parts of the museum had to do with that. The large empty space called the "Holocaust Turm" (or Holocaust Tower) is a corner of the building that's relatively small but reaches up all 4 or so stories, that is completely bare and unfinished, with the only lighting coming from a small slit high up in the corner. The feeling standing there in that silent, cold, and dark room is hard to describe- but somehow gave the impression of the vast magnitude of loss and absence, a very quiet sorrow and reflection. I was surprised to find that actually visiting the concentration camp gave my less of a direct feeling. While it was completely horrifying to see everything, at times I felt distanced, always held back a bit and numbed to what I was seeing. But similar to visiting Anne Frank's house, you could feel the ghosts of the past- just under the surface. It was a very haunting place. Tired, wet, hungry, cold, and sore matched the mood.

The gate. "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes You Free)

Lions and the Catwalk

So.... I got really really behind in the past few weeks, but I have to catch up before I get more behind. My attempt to do a post last weekend was hindered by getting sick, lame. I'm definitely on the mend now; I only missed one day of class, the only one so far (which is a stunning record compared to most others.) So I'll try and cover the highlights since my last post, and hopefully keep more on top of it in the future (because goodness knows my memory doesn't last much past a week.) :-)

Really quick, mostly pictorial, update:

We (me and Hannah) went to the Pergamon Museum with the Kulturbüro (Culture Office), through which the Goethe Institut has activities such as museum visits, lectures, walking tours, and other fun things for us to do. The two highlights of the museum are the Ishtar Gate and the Pargamon Altar, both fully reconstructed from their original excavated locations- so basically they're huge and old and impressive looking. You can tell which parts are reconstructions, and what is original based on if it looks real old or not.


Next adventure was a walking tour of the former Berlin Wall and its history. All though out the city are markers and brick lines that show its former location. This one is right next to Potsdamer Platz where the no-man's land between the two sections was especially wide.

Then we (Hannah and Erin and Carlye and Tara and I) went to the Gemäldegalerie (Painting Gallery) which had amazing, gorgeous, famous paintings... Like this Botticelli painting, which was a study for the "Birth of Venus."

Then Adam and I decided to go on a random adventure to a advertisement set as an extra. The Goethe Inistitut apparently is frequently hit up for extras. This time it was for a commercial advertising an upcoming fashion designer competition. You can see the finished commercial by clicking on this link http://www.goethe.de/uun/prj/cre/vid/enindex.htm. If you pause at the 15 second mark you can see me in the middle of the frame clapping. Here's a picture I took on set.




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