Berlin: Day 2

We stayed all weekend in a hostel called the Odyssey. It was a cool little place. We were in a room with 4 bunk beds, although all 8 beds were never full. The bathrooms were decent, the beds weren't so uncomfortable that I couldn't sleep soundly. The breakfast was pretty nice for 3 euros. Overall, about what I expected from a hostel, minus all the horror stories.

The day started depressingly. We visited the Jewish Museum, which was really interesting. The architecture is as amazing as the contents of the museum; it was done by the same architect that's doing the World Trade Center Memorial. They had a ton of exhibits, and many of them were interactive. I listended to a recording of Albert Einstein reciting his creed - it was so cool! I heard Einstein's voice! All over the museum are 5 black glass walls. There's nothing on them, and you can't look into them. They correspond to negative spaces in the architecture. It's called Gallery of the Missing; it represents those things that were lost. You wear headphones and hear soundbites as you walk through them. After we made it through all the sections on the history of the Jews, including one on a sex scientist including a dildo set, we moved onto the Holocaust Tower. A museum employee opens the door for you, and closes you in a dark, cold room. It's an elongated triangle, with a ceiling probably 40 feet high. The only light comes from a small window, set very high up in the narrowest corner of the room. It's quiet, every sound echoes, but the feeling of nothingness dominates. A ladder, attached to the wall higher than one can reach, goes nowhere. It's a pretty intense room. We left silently and went to another exhibit. It's Called the Garden of Exile and Emigration. There are 49 pillars, each 20 feet tall, arranged in a square of 7 pillars by 7 pillars. It's almost like a maze. The last thing we saw was an exhibit called "shalechet" (Fallen Leaves). It's in memory of victims of wars and violence. There is a large area around a corner that narrows into a small space with a low ceiling. Covering the floor are flat iron faces, very plain, just two empty circles for eyes and an oval mouth. The artist requests that visitors walk on the faces. They're piled on top of one another, and make a lot of noise. It's very understated, and the simplicity makes it even more moving. And on that note, we left the museum.


Next we saw the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, known as the Lipstick Church to Berliners because of its post-War appearance. Most of it is gone, bombed out in World War II. What's left does resemble an open tube of lipstick. It was beautiful, still, with intricate mosaics and detailed reliefs. On the outside, at the back, were some odd-looking primitive statues cut out of the wall. And in a small tower behind the church we found an international market. It had a lot of cool stuff - I bought a wooden statue from Indonesia and a wallet from India. As we were leaving the market, I spotted a group of policemen. I desperately wanted a picture with German policemen, so I had Nick ask them for a quick picture. We were sharply rebuffed - it made the guy a little angry. We hurried off.

After that, we visited a huge store called KaDeWe (cah-day-vay). As we walked in, there were exhibits from the film museum of clothing worn by a famous German actress in the 1930s. In the interest of time, we confined ourselves to the food floor. It was amazing. Every type of tea, pasta, chocolate, seafood, cheese, and meat you could ever imagine were on this floor. The entire place was overwhelming.

To finish our day, we went to a pub to meet two acquaintances of Nick's. One was the brother of a professor from Nick's university in the States, the other a friend of the first. They were nice old men, but already very drunk by the time we arrived. We walked to a nice Chinese restaurant for dinner, and by this time, one of the men was already drunk beyond coherence. It was sad - while we could still understand him, he seemed very intelligent. The other spent his time insulting the more drunken one, and their conversation made for an interesting evening. The food was amazing, though, and after that we retired to the hostel, full and exhausted.