Our time here is almost done. We leave Berlin a week from today, with a three day layover in London before the flight back to Chicago. How do I feel about this? That's a question I've received from several friends, but it's one I'll save for a wrap-up after we get home. For now, a quick overview of how we've occupied our time for the last few weeks.
We continue to enjoy a long run of remarkably nice spring weather. As Jen put it, Berlin only seems to have two modes this year, perfect blue sky or completely gray. We had gray our first two+ months, and we're closing in on two months of perfect blue. I've gotten in a lot of running - I'm up to half-marathon distance by now, which I have to consider my favorite accomplishment for this trip. But don't worry, I'm also working to undo those health benefits by enjoying indulgences, such as a wide variety of tasty ice cream
When last I posted an update, Jen's mom was visiting. Aidan enjoyed his Easter visit with Grandma.
Dying Easter eggs
Mr. Cool plays a game out on the balcony
Driving a train at the U-Bahn museum
We attended an Easter service over at the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, a church in the western part of Berlin that is a well-known landmark, having been preserved after sustaining damage during bombings during World War II.
If I tried to take a picture it would be crowded with tourists, so I snagged this one from Google Images instead.
I enjoyed the service a lot. Many of you likely know that I am not the most spiritual of people, but this took me back to my childhood of attending Sunday School. Moreover, it felt genuine. No politics, no social preening, just a simple service focused on the message.
Aidan has very much enjoyed the spring. His class at school has taken many trips to parks and other destinations. Most amusing to me was a birthday party. One of his friends had a birthday party at Berlin's Legoland Centre, for which they rented a bus to take the kids over there:
Aidan and his friends line up, before the parents send them away on...
The devil's bus!
Somehow, I just can't imagine any American parents renting out a bus from a company named "Luzifer Reisen" - "Lucifer Travel".
We are at the park now almost daily, as Aidan has much energy to expend. He seems to be in some kind of a growth spurt, consuming volumes of food and converting it into more Aidan. He spends lots of his time running, and then crashes hard at bedtime.
Run, Aidan, Run!
Jen's mom wasn't our only visitor; our friend Nik, who was in grad school with Jen at Ohio State, visited Berlin this past weekend with his study abroad students. He asked if I'd guide them on a tour around central Berlin, and it was a lot of fun.
Something tells me Marx and Engels would not be amused. But eh, who cares what they think...
We ended up walking for most of 5+ hours around the Mitte area. Prepping for it motivated me to check out a few things I hadn't yet gotten around to, a few historical locations and exhibits. Jen and I went to the DDR (East Germany) Museum, an interesting place that focuses more on the everyday life and culture of East Germany than on its politics and oppression (though those are not ignored). I was most amused by this:
It's an ad for the Trabant, a notoriously bad East German car. For the life of me, I can't figure out why they'd be advertising it - there was a waiting list of years to buy one, so it's not like they had to drum up demand. Still, everything about that ad is awesome. Look at how conspicuously uncomfortable those guys must be in the back seat. Pack up your three balls in black, yellow, and red DDR colors! "Schnell!" they say, of a car that topped out at about 60mph! Note how the guy who goes offroading just plows back onto the highway, doesn't even pretend someone else might be coming. This is a classic car ad.
On a more somber note, I joined Nik's class for a tour of an old Stasi prison in Hohenschönhausen, a suburb of East Berlin. Jen and I had previously visited the Stasi headquarters building; that was interesting in its way, but not what I'd hoped for, as it focused more on the DDR in general than on the Stasi in particular. This prison, though, was hauntingly chilling. The people who were imprisoned and interrogated here were political prisoners, often guilty of nothing more than telling the wrong joke and having it overheard by the wrong person. My words can't do justice to this place, but hopefully a few pictures can give you a feel for how this regime operated.
This marks the former boundary of the prison complex, a sprawling area that did not exist on East Berlin maps. If you were crossing this line and didn't work there, life was about to get very miserable.
There were 60 cells for political prisoners. Some included water-based torture facilities.
Imagine this space, no more than 4.5 feet tall, with a solid door on either side. This was a confinement space, used as one method for breaking down people's will and resistance.
A corridor of interrogration rooms. When people are forced to talk long enough, they'll say something that will in turn implicate others. And that was the whole point of this place, dealing in volumes of prisoners.
I'm still trying to digest it all, but I came away from it deeply affected. Torture, confessions of dubious value, a merely superficial illusion of due process, all justified by a storyline of protecting the nation. We must learn from this.
Unified Germany, however, is a society more forgiving of political protest. As I was preparing for the tour, I came upon a protest in progress outside the Bundesrat, this one in opposition to the Sri Lankan government. A few months ago there was a protest outside the Pakistani consulate, which is next door to our apartment building. Coming up this Friday is May Day, historically a day for widespread protests, especially by Germany's anarchists. I may go out to check out what's going on that day, but I have no idea what to expect.
As always, it is not my intent to leave you on a bummer note. So to wrap up, a few pictures from a chocolatier that Nik pointed out on the tour:
Oh yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about!
Until next time...