A city of two halves

Yay, another European city to add to our list of "we have been there" :-) Jeroen and I spent last weekend in the fascinating but kinda weird city of Berlin. I say weird because even 20 years after the wall came down there are still two distinct halves of this sprawling metropolis, and the former eastern half (where our hotel was!) is like stepping back in time. There are loads of those lovely square concrete apartment blocks (very fashionable in old eastern bloc countries!), graffiti and rubbish EVERYWHERE, strange looking people still dressed in fashions from the '70s (the young, groovy people dress like '80s punks LOL), and just a general feeling of run-down-ness. But don't get me wrong, it is still a very cool city and we had a great time :-) Maybe the whole grungy thing is part of its appeal.

The "centre" of the city, and areas surrounding most of the iconic tourist attractions such as Alexander Platz (Alex to the local east Berliners), the Brandenburg Gate, and the huge, shiny Hauptbahnhof (main rail station) is one BIG building site. As a result of the massive destruction left behind after almost 400 bombing raids during WW II, and the huge "no mans land" created as part of the wall's construction Berlin has LOTS of open spaces! And since the official reunification back in 1990 a massive reconstruction plan has been undertaken to transform Berlin into a world city. Apparently they are aiming to build the Manhattan of Europe. If they keep building at the rate they are going, I reckon they can do it within 5 years!

Of course we visited all of the obligatory tourist attractions - the Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer & Alexander Platz (not sure what the plural of Platz is!), Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin Cathedral, Gendarme Market, the Reichstag (now known as the Bundestag), and the Eastside Gallery (a 1.3 km part of the wall painted by various artists back in 1989 when it came down, and now left as a memorial - although most of the original paintings are flaking off and the wall itself is crumbling). But I think the 4 things that had the most impact on me were (in no particular order): the Stasi Museum, the metro/underground system, the DDR Museum, and the remnants & "shadows" everywhere throughout the city of THAT wall !

Just finding the Stasi (Ministry for State Security) Museum was an adventure in itself ! Obviously it is in the old eastern part of the city, but unfortunately is not very clearly marked on any map. Maybe they still don't really want you to know they are there LOL. Anyway, after a couple of misturns we managed to find the grim looking multi storey concrete ediface. The minute you walk in there is an immediate atmosphere (a bit like walking into a library where you feel you have to whisper), and everything is pretty much left exactly as it was when the Stasi lost all influence and were forced to disband in 1990.
















The building now houses exhibits of various surveillance technologies employed by the Stasi officers to spy on their own citizens - techniques that almost belong in a B-grade James Bond movie, and if they were not so scary would almost be funny! such as a button-camera, a cigarette box-camera, an AK-47 hidden in a suitcase, and glass jars containing strange pieces of yellow cloth. I only realised later that these pieces of cloth were "scent samples" used to assist trained dogs to track down "suspects" !! The most common methods to collect a scent was either seating the person on a cloth covered chair during an interview and "asking" him/her to sit on his/her hands, or simply breaking into an apartment and stealing underpants! All the offices and meeting rooms (including that of the head honcho Erich Mielke) are exactly as they were, with a funky '60s retro feel that some people pay a fortune for now. If any of you have seen the 2007 Oscar-winning movie "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Life of Others) you will know exactly what I am talking about - some scenes were filmed at the museum for that authentic feel. So Jeroen and I can genuinely say that we have been on the film set of an Academy Award winning movie :-))

And now a word on THAT wall. I guess I wasn't expecting to still see so much evidence of the wall's existence, so was really moved and fascinated to see so many places still "commemorating" the history of the wall and remembering those who died trying to escape to the west (with some unconfirmed estimates at over 200!). The wall itself divided the city for more than a quarter of a century and little did I realise (dumb hey!!??) that it meant west Berlin was an enclave in east Germany. Silly me assumed the wall in Berlin was the border between east and west Germany!!! I also had an image in my head of a wall heading of into the distance in a perfectly straight line, but oh no, it zig zags throughout the city and just when you think you have worked out which was east and which was west, you are back on the "other side" !

It is extremely easy to still be able to follow the exact route of the wall because there is now a clearly defined line of cobblestones set in the ground where the wall used to be. Everything I saw and heard about the wall, the experiences of those who were literally divided from friends and family for so long, the ingenuity of those who made the estimated 5,000 successful escapes to the west, and how Berliners today are trying to recreate a united city was all at once fascinating, horrifying, depressing and inspiring. I highly, highly recommend a visit !!!





























And just for something completely different - the ampelmann, the east German pedestrian traffic light symbol that has attained his own cult status in recent years!! Ampel men came into being back in 1961, introduced by a traffic psychologist (!!) in response to the growing incidence of road traffic accidents. The cute design was specifically created because, psychologically, people respond quicker to appealing symbols. Following reunification the ampel men were supposed to disappear along with everything else "eastern", and so began a process to phase him out :-( But in 1996 an industrial designer used the symbol in a lamp and suddenly there was a massive public movement, driven by nostalgia, to re introduce the little fella. These days he has his own merchandise (from mouse mats to t-shirts, to gummy bears (or are they gummy ampel men!!??)) and the traffic lights themselves have even been re introduced onto some streets :-)

And just one last word - the metro! I have been in a few cities around the world now and I have NEVER experienced such an efficient metro system :-) We never had to wait more than 4 minutes at any one time, and more often than not there was a train ready and waiting for us on the platform!

AND, at our very first metro station, right outside the door when we got off the train, was THIS sign - a gift to Berlin from the London metro system :-)) Kind of cool that we managed to find this one-of-a-kind sign without even trying !


Next city-trip: Wroclaw, Poland in June!

Alli xxx