Ich bin ein Berliner

I spent a very cold weekend in the capital city of Germany.  I was with a group of diverse people coming from 5 different countries (Greek from Amerstam, Greek from Athens, Greek from London, Uruguayan from Germany, and American from Belgrade!), and it was a lot of fun.  I didn't know much about Berlin, only about the wall and the cold war.  I didn't realize that it is an art enclave, and that it is renowned for its nightclub scene.  We experienced both!

Here are some pictures from around town:

This is the Sony dome at Potsdamer Platz.  It is a very commercial/touristy district of town.

This is Europe's first traffic light in Potsdamer Platz.

Brandenburg’s Gate

Catholic Church

Synagogue - interesting to think about in Berlin

Graffiti on the banks of the frozen Spree River

A boat going through the ice on the Spree River outside the Bode Museum

Memorial

Jewish Holocaust Memorial

After walking around cold and snowy Berlin for a few hours, we went to the arts district and saw some outside sculptures.  It reminded me a little of a very cool version of Canton Days:).

Woman made out of many tiny metal pieces

Snow Turtle

Evil Rooftop Gremlin

We then went into a dark and dingy building that had no door, smelled like a urinal and was covered in graffiti.  Here is the outside:

Outside of art galleries (small struggling artists)

This building was filled with art galleries.

Cool graffiti in the stairwell

Stairwell

On Saturday night, we went to a place called White Trash Fast Food that had cheeseburgers.  It wasn't as white trash as some places I have been in the States (afterall, I am from Indiana!), but it was good nonetheless.  I'm not a huge cheeseburger fan, but the atmosphere was good.  There was a live band that was truly terrible.  The lead singer was a guy in drag and a woman wearing tape over her breasts and nothing else.  My friend notably said "you don't have to show your breasts if you can sing."  That pretty much summarized the quality of the performance!  After that, we went to a bar that was decorated like someone's home.  Apparently, these types of places were popular during the cold war in East Germany because people were not supposed to congregate in private.

And of course, you can't go to Berlin without seeing the wall. It is amazing to think about this period for me, since I was not an adult during the cold war.  But the wall went up overnight and was 160km long.  People were trapped on one side of the wall, and access wasn't permitted for the East Germans.  Additionally, West Berlin, though a capitalist democracy, was in the middle of the Eastern Bloc, so there was some fear of the people that the Communists would take over.  Over the history of the wall thousands of people tried to cross, and 100 people were killed doing so.  When getting out from a totalitarian government is worth death, you know that the living conditions were bad.

There is something called the Eastside Gallery in which portions of the wall (about 1.5km) were painted by local artists in 1990.  Parts of it have been retouched by the original artists.

These are all images of the wall.

We finished the weekend off by going to the Bauhaus museum, which was pretty interesting because I like their designs, but also because they came to prominence between the world wars, which was a very critical time in Germany's history. Eventually, they were shut down by the Nazi's in the early 1930's.  It was just the start of the totalitarian government for Germany (even though the Nazis are "right" and the Communists are "left", the result was the same for the German people - bad).

The weekend was great.  I got to see another city, including art, history, and architecture.  I got to meet some new people, and I had a great time.  I highly recommend this former Eastern Bloc city and I got to see another capital within Eastern Europe.  That makes 5 now (Belgrade, Budapest, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Berlin).

Wild Belgrade

Some of you may have preconceived notions of Serbia based on things that have happened here in the recent past.  I'm here to let you all know that Belgrade and Serbia are great places, but they can be a little bit wild.

Here was some wild-life that I observed:

There is a tiger in the trash!  Rarh!

What will you be doing on Wednesday?  Here is one option (3/2/10 is Feb 3, 2010 outside of the US)

Also, the weather has been cold.  Not Indiana or Chicago cold, but cold for me after spending the last 10 winters south of the Mason/Dixon line.  We had a nice little snow storm on Wednesday.  It was very pretty.  Unfortunately, this was the day I had to drive to Maglić where the factory is located to give a tour to a Greek marketing guy who was in Serbia to see our capability and new innovation.  The plow drivers were on strike, so it was definitely challenging and stressful to drive.  It's time like this that I'm thankful that 1) I grew up driving in snow 2) I grew up driving on less-than-great country roads and 3) I know how to drive a manual.

But you can see for yourself how the snow allowed Belgrade to live up to it's name (white city):

Happy Winter!