Berlin, Two Cities: The Art

Berlin is said to be two cities.

We took a week out to Berlin. Pretty much awesome. I've decided to split the week into two blogs. One considering the beautiful artistry, architecture and even beautiful engineering we saw. The other to see that of the history of the Cold War, Nazi influence and the foundation that make Berlin so monumental.

One of the Berlin Bears scattered around town

There was an interesting plaza present in old East Berlin, with two churches and a theater. There was a church with a red dome from the French and a German Church with a black dome. Appropriately named the Red and Black Churches. Also, the theater was repaired by the soviets from the war damage. And by repaired I meant covering the columns and damaged stone and marble with plaster, so one could knock on the columns and see just how superficial the Eastern life was in Berlin.

The Red Church and the Theatre

If you look closely you can see
 somebody  who wants to be Bono

Brandenburg Gate was amazing, a triumphal arch built by the Prussians to signify peace, and topped by the Roman goddess of Victory, Victoria! Also, we were serenaded by a lovely karaoke of Wonderwall by Oasis... And by lovely I mean surprising. And by surprising, I meant surprisingly awful. But the fact that all of us college Americans sang along probably didn't help the situation.

A horse, of course

Next there was the... horse. Outside the Berlin main train station. With a big blue eye. Nobody knows why it's there. The train station was also damaged and rebuilt by 2006, with a huge glass facade, and a glass tunnel covering the ICE trains that whiz around Europe. Ironically though, they built the tunnel too short, and many first class passengers began to notice as it started to rain on them as they left their train and ran back into the train station for cover!

There's a large memorial, covering a full city block dedicated to the Jewish populace lost during WWII. Probably my favorite memorial, in the sense of the emotion behind it. As you walk towards the center, the ground slopes until these surprisingly short 2 foot blocks are towering above you, and your stuck into a grid maze, where the snow doesn't melt and your sense of direction is consumed by strangers' footsteps echoing around every corner.

My attempt to panorama just a part of the East Side Gallery

 Just a few of my more favorite photos of the East Side Gallery.

 

My favorite photo was a two part-er. One part, a man seems to be consumed in fire and brimstone. The other, small animals such as mice in a deluge of water or cold. Luckily, Paco took a photo for me!

Saw this and couldn't resist:
Gig 'Em

 Lastly for this blog, there was a large amount of photos take at the Pergamon Altar. Depicting the fight between the Olympians and the Giants or Titans of Chaos, the Pergamon Museum contains more reliefs, levels and friezes and other photo opportunities than you can shake a flash drive at.

Oh, and the Gate of Ishtar was there. Or part of it. It's a really big gate, a humongous gate.

The upper half of the middle of
the Gate of Ishtar