13 Mai 2010

Well! Today I had something of an adventure.

This morning, I was supposed to meet up with Michelle and some other kids to go to the zoo and the aquarium. I headed out a little before 9:30 since I was supposed to meet them at 10. I got to Zooligischer Garten at about a quarter till and I was supposed to meet them at the Bushaltstelle, line 100. I found the bus station just fine, but I was having trouble finding the exact place. Since it was rather early I didn't think anyone would be there yet. Michelle told me the best way to get there would be to go to Alexanderplatz and take the 100 Bus from there and it would be the end of the line. Well, I couldn't find any place for it to arrive. I still don't know why I did this, but I decided to get on the bus to Alexanderplatz.

I was thinking about it, and thought I could go there and take the 100 bus to the right place, but then it occurred to me that I had BEEN in the right place and the bus I was on (the 100 going the opposite direction) was not really where I wanted to be haha.

It's all very complicated. She's not very good at giving directions. The last time I tried to meet up with her somewhere, she said to meet at the fountain at Alexanderplatz. I went there and went to the fountain in the square - the one of Poseidon. However, she had meant the smaller fountain by the U-BAHN STOP "Alexanderplatz." She tends to explain things in terms of what she associates with something rather than where things really are haha.

Our phones (or at least mine) started working this morning, but I have no one's numbers. Nathan sent out an email to everyone with the phone numbers on it, but since I can't get the internet here it was of no help this morning.

Instead of getting off the bus, I decided to stay on it. I didn't really care about going to the zoo. I mean, I need to go eventually for the culture class and it would have been fun to hang out with people today, especially since most places are closed (it's a national holiday today), but I didn't mind not seeing them to be completely honest.

So anyway, I stayed on the bus until I heard an interesting stop name - Brandenburger Tor. I had been there already with Nathan and the others, but I hadn't had my camera with me so I decided to go there and take a few. Always need to have pictures, right? :D

I got there and started taking pictures, though there were a lot of people around. Most of my photos have random people in them, which is cool haha.

Usually, they have a guy in an American military uniform and a guy in Soviet Russian uniform with the flags standing side by side and you can take a picture with them for a couple Euros. They were there today as well as two girl "soldiers," some men dressed as STATUES of soldiers, guys dressed as bears (for Berlin) and, believe it or not, a Storm Trooper. It was so awesome. (I have a picture of the Storm Trooper, but it's not a very good one, so I'm uploading one of his "friend" instead! =D haha)

After that, I didn't really know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I knew Tiergarten (animal garden) was pretty close, so I decided to walk around and see if I could find it. It's pretty massive (several kilometers long) so I figured it wouldn't be hard.

On the way, I got side tracked and found the Reichstag. Written on it is: "Dem Deutschen Volke," which translates roughly to "To the German People."

It was originally built in 1871 and was meant to house the German Parliament. It wasn't restored after the war until 1957 and wasn't finished until much later. It was used as a symbol of the German people, both in positive and negative ways. I'd go on about that, but I don't want to turn this into a history lesson haha. Here's one interesting thing though:

In 1933, a fire destroyed the main hall inside the building. Communists were blamed and the Nazi's used this to further their witch hunt and then subsequently came to power. Later in the war, a Soviet flag was hung from this building to symbolize the defeat of the German people as a whole.

I didn't stay there very long but it was pretty cool. It's surprising sometimes, how much historical significance one building can have. And I haven't even STARTED to cover it all.

Once I left there, I kept wandering and ended up at a memorial of some sort. I could tell it was a memorial from the war because there were cannons or weapons of some kind (or something, I really don't know what to call them) on either side of the way in and a soldier on top of a very large pillar. I figured it was a tribute to the fallen German soldiers or something, but it wasn't.

When I got closer, I found out the place is called "Sowjetisches Ehrenmal." It's a memorial for the fallen Soviet soldiers.

Here's what the plaque outside of it said:

"Traces of War in Berlin

Burial and Memorial Site in Tiergarten

Gravesite for more than 2,000 Soviet soldiers who were killed in April and May of 1945 in the Battle of Berlin, and a memorial of the Soviet army for the victory over National Socialism. Erected on November 11, 1945. Handed over to Germany by the Soviet army in December 1990. The memorial is cared for and maintained by the federal state of Berlin."

At the base of the pillar were HUNDREDS of flowers from people from different countries all around the world. A lot of Russians had come and laid flowers there with ribbons with Russian writing on them. I saw some from Canada, the US, France, and many other places, all honoring the fallen soldiers.

Back behind the grand statues and plaques and things, there were hung photos and a history written on the walls. I didn't read it all, since it was quite a lot, but one thing I read really struck me. The grave site, I read, is constructed at the intersection of the east/west axis and the north/south axis. When it was opened, soldiers from the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and the US all stood together to honor the fallen soldiers.

It really is a beautiful memorial.

After that, I finally found my way into the center of Tiergarten.

It's gorgeous there! It seriously rivaled the gardens I went to in Kyoto, Japan, and I thought nothing would ever come close to those. I really think Tiergarten might be the most beautiful place I've ever been. It's hard to say since all the places I've been (and I've been a lot of places) are all so very different from one another. But I don't know… something about that place was almost magical.

Here are just a couple of the pictures I took there:

I know there are a lot, but believe me, I was holding back! I want to show ALL of them to you, but it's just not practical to do here. I'll upload them all somewhere else if I have the time. If/when that happens, I'll post a link so you can see all my pictures if you like. :D I'm pretty photo-happy though haha. So there are a LOT of them.

I really wish I could emulate the feeling I had there. It was so peaceful but at the same time so… ALIVE. There were birds singing everywhere and people scattered all over the place. But it was so quiet at the same time… peaceful, really. And I guess peace is something of a quietness from within, so noise on the outside but calm on the inside… If you have ever felt that, then you know how hard it is to describe and how completely impossible it is to duplicate outside of places like that. But I wish I could duplicate it. If I could, I'd share that feeling with the whole world! It was absolutely beautiful.

An older woman stopped to talk to me and was telling me how beautiful she thought the gardens were. I completely agree with here. And she went on to say (this was all in German by the way) that she loved how the flowers were all around the paths and you could walk right between them. She said it was her favorite place to go after a long, hard day of work. Then she said I, being young, probably didn't know what that was really like or that I couldn't fully appreciate it or something like that, but she didn't mean it in an unkind way. She was just saying (I think) that my generation (2 or so after hers) don't have to work nearly as hard now as her generation did - and she's completely right on that. She was a very sweet old lady. :) She made me smile.

It took me a long time to get out of Tiergarten. I really didn't want to leave, to be honest, but it was REALLY cold. I tried to write something down so I could look it up later (there isn't room for a camera AND a dictionary in my bag haha) and I had a hard time holding the pen. It surprised me how cold it really was.

I walked around, trying to find my way. I went by the "Großer Stern," walked the wrong way down "Straße des 17. Juli," (back toward Brand. Tor) and then followed a sign pointing toward an S-Bahn stop. About 15-20 minutes later, I ended up at the Sony Center! I didn't do much there. I snapped a couple of photos (it's HUGE…. and really cool looking haha) but I didn't stay. By this time I was REALLY cold and just wanted to go inside.

I found the station, bought some Chinese noodles and came home. After writing all this up, it's only 15:15! And I have almost nothing left to do in the day. Boo! But that's ok. I'll figure it out. I just don't want to go out again… it's too cold haha.

We're finally getting laundry done today… or we WILL once Marion gets home, but who knows when that will be? Haha. Oh well.

All in all, a very successful day has been had so far. I think so anyway. I even made a short video! Well, a blog-video of sorts. One for my family and one for this blog, which I'll put up later if I don't think it's completely awful. The main purpose of it was to get me to speak German since I've been alone most of the day and I really need to practice. So we'll see.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this. Thanks for reading!

Tschüss!!