Berlin

I went to Berlin this past weekend with Sonja and her husband Peter. We started by taking a tour, but the rain and speed of the tour made it impossible to take pictures or enjoy it. But that night, we saw the Blue Man Group at Potsdamer Platz! The show was incredible! I had no idea that they acted in skits as well as played music. They played drums on big metal barrells and paint splattered everywhere. They used gumballs, catching them in their mouths and then spitting the colorful juice all over a blank white canvas. One man used marshmallows, spitting them out to form a little sculpture. The crowd also got involved, crowd surfing toilet paper from the back of the theatre to the front stage as it sparkled in the black light. One young woman took part in a hilarious skit, while another young man was fitted with a full body jumpsuit and motorcycle helmet, painted blue, and thrown against a blank white canvas. We also were asked to stand up and perform specific movements in order to create a rock concert environment. The Blue Man Group entertained us for two hours, amazing us with musical talent and making us laugh at their comedy. Afterwards, I took a picture with one, who just happened to be my favorite, but could not reach the other two before they left. But it was so much fun and only the first of two wonderful surprises. I started Saturday with a repeat English breakfast minus beans, mushrooms and tomatoes. On the walk back to our apartment, we heard music. A new insurance company had opened that morning and had live advertisement. A man in a big green animal costume holding a sign marched around the sidewalks, leading five men who were playing instruments like electric guitar and a trumpet. They played some great oldies and songs that sounded like New Orleans originals. It was so funny, and if I lived in Berlin, then I would totally buy insurance from them. Next, we visited a Holocaust memorial. Above ground were huge grey cement blocks to symbolize the deaths of six millions Jews, a number much too large to truly comprehend. Under ground was a sort of museum with timelines, pictures, family accounts and personal letters written to loved ones about the horrors seen and experienced before death. I saw pictures of naked bodies being bulldozed, a rabbi surrounded by Nazis who were smiling while cutting off his traditional sidelocks of hair before they hanged him, a firing squad of twenty soldiers shooting a group of women, and a group of women's naked dead bodies piled up in a ditch with one still alive but about to be shot. My body cringed, but I could never possibly fully understand a tragedy of such epic proportion. Tears came to my eyes, but I never had to mourn the loss of a parent, sibling or friend just because he or she was a Jew. I find it difficult to imagine the amount of pride it requires to consider onself so superior to another race that one would assume the right to utterly destroy and wipe out the other. If I have ever doubted the presence of evil in the world, evidence of the Holocaust has removed every remnant of such doubt. Saturday night held the second great surprise. Peter took us to a private club called Bungalow. We had a dinner reservation for 8pm, and the guard at the entrance cleared us and let us pass. We walked into the bar area where you wait until your reserved time. Everything was white, and huge silver disco balls rotated slowly above us. Soon, a woman dressed in white led us upstairs to the dining room. We took off our shoes and came to our table, which not a table at all but rather a big, square, white couch topped with big, square, white pillows. So we lounged as we waited for our food to arrive. Then we were served a ten course meal! Yes, that's right, ten courses! The food was delicious, and the meal ended with tiramisu, New York cheesecake, and a chocolate icecream cone. Finally, our adorable waiter, dressed in white, brought the bill which was lying in a high-heeled, white shoe. But that is not all. During dinner, we got massages at our couch, and a woman peformed two songs beneath a spotlight. The entire evening lasted four hours, and was nothing short of amazing. On Sunday, we walked to see the last remains of the Berlin Wall. On our way, we saw police everywhere, on the street, in cars, and even on rooftops. Helicopters surveyed the area, and many bullet proof vehicles drove by with police escorts. Apparently, many important political figures were staying in the famous Hotel Adlon that weekend, and security was tight. Even the subways were closed in fear of an attack, and the British and American embassies have permanently blockaded their entrances so that only pedestrians may pass. I was reminded of how much 9/11 has changed the world. So we arrived at the wall, and that experience was very strange for me. The symbol itself is a distant and impersonal one to some extent, not being significant to my generation. To me, the wall is a tourist attraction or interesting monument, but to people in that time, it was a divider of families and friends, something people died trying to get over. Just like with the Holocaust and the number of six million being too large to truly comprehend, I could not really wrap my mind around such a boundary. At Checkpoint Charlie, I had entered a museum and read stories of people who tried to cross the border between East and West Germany. People made harnesses to slide down a rope to the other side of the wall, and some built homemade scuba diving gear, since the gear itself had been declared illegal, in fear of people using it to cross the border. And since people tried to swim to freedom, the Nazis built large metal bars with pointed spikes sticking out of them and placed them just below the surface of the water so as not to be seen. If anyone jumped into the water, then he or she would be either severely injured or killed. Although I have not been directly affected by the Berlin Wall, standing by it made me feel that a part of history had become a part of me. I now possess knowledge of the Holocaust and Berlin Wall that I would not have gained otherwise. Germans believe that tragedy must be remembered in order to prevent recurrence. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to spend a weekend in Berlin and to learn about the history that has made the capital city what it is today.