Ute left for Saskia early this afternoon. I carried her luggage to Hauptbanhof (Berlin's central train station) and then headed out on my own. Hauptbanhof is extremely impressive, with high-speed, inter-city, and subway trains on several floors. The whole is enclosed in a massive geometric glass structure which makes you feel like you are a pencil sketch on graph paper. Way cool.
Ute gave me two letters to mail, but didn't say how to recognize a German mailbox. After almost depositing them in a trashcan, I had to ask a local what a mailbox was. I then discovered that German mailboxes are rather complex (at least in Berlin) and can actually print stamps. Chances are, I actually stuck the letters in some kind of souvenir printing machine. Sorry Ute...
My first stop was Checkpoint Charlie, where in 1961 the Soviets and the United States had a tense little tank stand-off for 16 hours before JFK reached a diplomatic solution. It was strange to stand there and think that only 46 years ago the world as we know it almost ended. I never before appreciated just how cool JFK was. There are bits of the Berlin wall on display. An old Soviet propaganda pamphlet proudly proclaims the wall as the "8th wonder of the world." I think Komrad Kurt is perhaps trinking not da same vodka as I be trinking.
From Checkpoint Charlie, I wandered down Under den Linden to Brandenburger Tor. Brandenburger Tor is the gateway between East and West Berlin and has just been restored. The East and West are no longer easily distinguishable, since most of the Eastern architecture has been completely rebuilt in the Western style. (No loss by all accounts.) But East Berlin still has streetlights fitted for gas (though they use electric) and the crosswalks are signaled by little green and red silhouette boys in official hats, which is kinda cute.
From Brandenburger Tor I walked to Reichtstag, the home of the German parliament. Reichstag is an enormous, beautiful building covered in sculpture and intricate stone work. On top is a massive transparent dome which tourists would excitedly ascend to gaze down on the city, were it not for the hundreds of excited tourists queued up to ascend the dome. Better luck next time! Reichstag was somehow important when it caught fire and gave excuse for the Nazi revocation of basic human rights (my German was not good enough to completely understand the connection there).
I took a bus from Reichstag toward the massive Berlin Tierpark (zoo) and stopped at Hotel Berlin. From there I walked to Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaechtnis-Kirche, a famous new church built next to the impressive ruins of an old cathedral which was bombed out of existence by the Allies during WWII. The church had closed when I got there, but the sunset turned the ruins a beautiful rose color.
I needed money for a train ticket back to Ute's apartment, so I walked over to the Reisebank (currency exchange) a few blocks away. I found it next to Berlin's 5th most visited museum: the Beate Uhse Erotik-Museum devoted entirely to sex of every kind. The museum is three floors of pornographic sex education, but alas, this institution's gainful and valuable collection was outside my academic relm, making a complete inventory an unjustified waste of university resources. However the anatomically correct homosexual mannequins in the window displays were quite informative. I have all sorts of new associations with Speedos.
The German mentality is hilarious when it comes to traffic regulations. There are an astounding number of cyclists in Berlin, and they happily weave in and out of full speed traffic. American cyclists supposedly have the same rights as motor vehicles (a little known fact), but for fearing for their lives, stay carefully out of the way. In Berlin, everyone acts as if they could actually see a car there. Ironically, many Germans don't wear helmets.
The other thing is crosswalks. Many streets don't have them, so pedestrians cross wherever they like regardless of personal safety. However on streets with crosswalks, pedestrians will patiently wait until they are given permission to go, even if the street is completely empty. I saw one old Nordic Walker, complete with shoes, scarf and hat in 80-degree weather, who got half way across the walk, realized the light was red, and turned around and went back.
Tomorrow I'll try to get into the Reichstag dome and the Berlin aquarium. You can see all my photos here: http://vt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2132166&l=0616d&id=6226307
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