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.

To see more pictures check out my facebook album:
http://macalester.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019664&l=496b6&id=19401857