Thursday, July 31, 2008


Final Day in Berlin
We spent a long day walking in Berlin on our last day. I kept being surprised how long it took us to walk around, but I love walking in strange cities because you wind up finding things you would not discover otherwise.
We left from our hotel determined to make it across Kreuzberg to Little Istanbul and then on to the little airport where the Berlin airlift happened. It took us a while to get to Little Istanbul but we found a wonderful Turkish bakery (lovely rugelach, and good sesame rolls stuffed with spicy onions and potatoes). I tried to buy some cherries and nectarines from a street grocer, but I couldn't understand what the nice Turkish woman was telling me and I think she was gesturing that I needed to weigh it first or something but I couldn't figure it out. So I left the store without paying - shoplifting cherries in Belin. Embarrassing but true.
We walked on and came to a beautiful little cemetery, toured a church, and had a good picnic lunch we bought from a market hall. We did a little shopping in the neighborhood and Annabella and I tried on shoes from a store she had heard about in Seattle. Unfortunately I couldn't quite get shoes that fit... but we did talk to the woman helping us, and she is DJ in Berlin, who's boyfriend called her during our set at the Wassermusik festival and told her about us. So we gave her a CD and marveled at how small the world is...
We did find the airport with a big monument to the people who lost their lives during the airlift and went into the airport. It was a time capsule from the 40's basically... really nice to see old lettering on the restaurant that has not been changed and the ceilings not dropped like they would have been in the US. Apparently, the airport is one of the oldest in Europe having been used as an airfield since 1908, rebuilt by the Nazi's to be the largest in the world, and then used as the airfield for the Berlin airlift in '48.
We took a taxi to across town to the Tiergarten neighborhood and toured the Kathe Kollwitz museum... three floors of her beautiful, sobering lithographs and woodblock prints. In the same neighborhood was a beautiful former cathedral that was bombed out during WWII - they left it as is, and built a new sanctuary next to it in 1960 - really interesting place - picture above -

We took the subway after this up to Checkpoint Charlie and toured the little historical museum there. The history of the wall and the repressive East German regime was very interesting. Reading about the GDR you can't help but think about the tactics the US is using under Bush in Iraq and in the US - horrible torture, wire tapping, listening to phone conversations, etc. We aren't as free as we think..

We kept walking after this and had dinner at a little restaurant named Henne - they have been open since 1908 or something like and serve chicken. A 1/2 Roast chicken is the only thing on the menu - but it was very good, particularly after walking forever during the day. That was about it -- the next day we left for the airport at 5 AM for the long flight home to Seattle.
It was a really fun trip - and thanks to Andy, Annabella, Matt and Felix for a wonderful time. We all got along great, played a great show at the festival, and had lots of laughs.
Auf Wiedersehen!

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