Ich bin ein Berliner 6

After the amazing walk through the Olympic stadium, Emma and I headed towards Potsdamer Platz for some lunch and to be in the correct location of our next stop, the Salvador Dali Museum. Potsdamer Platz was very different from the other parts of Berlin we had already visited. It was more modern, and had a big city feel like New York City. There is a shopping plaza in Potsdamer that is in the middle of 4 giant hotels. The shopping plaza is covered and protected from rain by a metal sculpture that hangs from all 4 hotel roofs. It is a giant piece of art. Walking through Potsdamer Platz, probably my favorite thing was the pink pipes that ran through all of the intersections. It gave the area of town a unique little characteristic. Here were also sections of the Berlin wall that had informational tabs on the side that showed "now and then" photos of Potsdamer platz.

Thought this was very funny. Its a piece of the Berlin Wall

< This is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, or also called the Holocaust Mahnmal. It is 4.7 acres of 2,711 concrete slabs that are placed on a sloping ground. In the beginning, they are very small, about 8 inches tall, which is how I could so easily sit on this one. As you walked through, the slabs got taller as the ground sloped downward, the tallest reaching 15 ft 9 inches tall. As you walk through, the memorial is designed to produce an uneasy and confusing feeling, and the grid pattern is to represent the ordered system that lost touch with humanity. From the inside you can lo longer see the city, or tell where you are as you walk through. The view of the memorial from an outside view resembles a cemetery. The entire memorial took 2 years to build and cost approximately 25 million euros.

The Next part of our journey brings us to the Salvador Dali museum. The main entrance was located down a strange alley way that was very dark and uninviting, but we could see the door so we walked fast. The museum was very small in comparison to the Dali museum in St. Petersburg. No photos were allowed, so I can only say what I saw. But the museum had many full collections of art from certain years when Dali did themes to his art work. Many pieces of art in pen and most look like scribbles that maybe he did when he first awoke from a bad dream. One thing I did enjoy is there was a small movie theater that was showing some of the movies Salvador Dali created, including the short film of the barber cutting the woman's eye, which I had never seen the full film of. There was also a longer black and white love story film, and an animated Disney short that I never knew Dali did. My next favorite part was the entire collection of Salvador Dali's Alice in Wonderland. It is probably one of my favorite themed collections Dali ever did.

I could not leave the museum without just one sneaky photo of my favorite page of Alice in Wonderland. This is "Advice from a Caterpillar" Something that I loved as I looked at all the pages hanging on the wall is that you can see Alice in every scene.
< Here she is <














The last two parts of our day included a short visit to the world famous Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum. I have never been to one before, but thought this one was slightly important. For many years there has been a conflict with the City of Berlin and Madam Tussaud's museum. Inside the first theme of wax figures are important historical figures in Berlin history. This includes Adolf Hitler. The city of Berlin did not want a life like replica of the man, but the museum argued that it was necessary to include because of the historical impact he had on the City of Berlin. Nevertheless, the City agreed on one condition. Unlike the rest of the wax figures that freely stand so guests can pose with their favorite figures, Adolf Hitler is sitting at a desk, behind a wall with two windows, and is constantly monitored by cameras. This is to prevent people from posing with him, and photos are prohibited. If you are in one of the windows taking a photo, you will immediately be removed from the museum. It was very strange to look at a life like replica of this man. Doing some research, I found that the museum had also chosen to create the replica of Hitler during his last days of dictatorship. He is concerned looking, sitting in his bunker as the sound effects of bombs raining on Berlin play. They did not want to create a replica of Hitler during the beginning of his wrath.

After Madam Tussaud's, Emma and I got on another S train to our last visit of the day, the East Side Gallery. This is the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall that was sectioned off for freelance artists to speak their minds on.  It is 1.2Km long and runs along side the Spree River. Many people walk along this section of the wall and take photos of the sections of art. It was painted in 1990, but i feel it may be time for new artists to leave their work due to the amount of amateur graffiti that has ruined some the sections.

Translation: He who wants the world to remain as it is does not want it to remain at all.

Ich bin ein Berliner 5

The following day we took a train to the far west side of Berlin to visit the Olympic stadium. The olympic stadium was built in 1936. It has a roman Colosseum motif, and is dawned with stone gods and goddesses of strength, victory and war. The stadium can seat 100,000 people. It is still used today for different sporting events in Berlin including its football team.

Ich bin ein Berliner 4

 The only logical explanation of where our adventure took us next, was down the famous road Unter Den Linden where you pass some of the most historical and magnificent buildings on Earth. All travel sights and books recommend a stroll down this road starting at Alexanderplatz and ending at the Brandenburger Tor. These are the sights as you walk down. Sadly there was a lot of construction through the city so there are many photos that are not as beautiful as it could be.

Ich bin ein Berliner 3

After the zoo, it was time for lunch. We were no longer in schwabien country, so finding some of our local favorites was not an option. We walked and passed many good looking asian restaurants, but it was not quite what we were in the mood for. We continued walking until we found the large market place in the tiergarten. Illuminated as if it was meant to be, was Hard Rock Cafe Berlin. Yes there are Hard Rock Cafes everywhere in the world, but we were so hungry, and the nachos appetizer with a 10 oz mushroom and swiss burger was calling our names. All we needed was something not so Germanish. Plus it was a good time to maybe pick up a souvenir for a certain someone who likes guitars.

After lunch, we headed back onto the U-Bahn which is the very convenient subway train system that runs through all major cities in Germany. Especially since we bought an all day pass, we could take it as many times as we want to all the different edges of the city. But we were just going to Alexanderplatz.

Alexanderplatz is where the TV tower is, the best view of Berlin some 203 meters above the city. It has a lift that only takes 40 seconds to get from the bottom to the top. At the observation deck, there is a 360 degree view of Berlin. As well as a bar. The next floor up is the TV tower restaurant with a rotating floor that makes one full rotation in 30 minutes. But reservations were full.
Here are some photos.

                                                                  Berliner Dom

 < This is the Reichstag
(The bright flash of light)
Directly to the left you can see Brandenburg Gate in the middle of the road.

 Above is the Berliner Dom

Probably what was the funniest part of the whole visit, was the amount of English speakers were all at one place at the same time. In fact, our entire elevator was filled with 3 different families that all only spoke English. I nearly forget where we were. Just kidding! I could never do that.