BERLIN

After a flight over the pond, we arrived in Germany! We have been to Switzerland and Austria already, so we had already picked up a little bit of German. We arrived at our Airbnb and almost immediately went shopping for some bratwurst and apple strudel.

Our first day out started with visiting what’s left of the Berlin Wall. We visited the East Side Gallery, which has hundreds of murals on the 13-foot-tall wall that was painted in 1990. Berlin is covered in street art, practically every building is covered in a scene of animals, political cartoons, or landscapes. The art at the East Side Gallery, however, is special because it was a commentary on the divide between the two sides of Berlin, and Germany as a whole. There are murals representative of liberty, freedom of speech, and the separation of families. We took an hour or so to take in the art and the meaning of that wall.

After seeing the wall, we went over to the center of town. We started with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It was a fascinating memorial, there are thousands of concrete slabs of different heights in a grid. The site was hauntingly beautiful, and we felt like we were in a dystopian novel. Each slab resembled a coffin, and the different heights seemed to portray the different ages of the victims. Germany has such a troubled history, and seeing the way they now represent it really allowed us to reflect.

After the memorial, we went over to Pariser Platz and walked through the Brandenburg Gate. The square was so pleasant and as we were there around sunset we ended up walking in a golden haze down one of the prettiest streets in Berlin. We went into a souvenir shop and had a lot of fun testing out the Google Translate camera option. Satisfied with our day in Berlin, we headed home.

After a few days working from our Airbnb, we headed out to Museum Island. As Berlin is such a large hub of the Western World, it is home to thousands of pieces of art and history. Museum Island is a small “island” in Berlin with five museums, and since we still had our Student ID cards on us, we got to visit all five for only 9 euros each!

It was a very rainy day, so we broke out our sweaters, raincoats, and umbrellas. We started at the Pergamon Museum, home to Middle Eastern pieces, Islamic art, and ancient architecture. We walked through the ancient processional to Babylon culminating in the Ishtar gate, and then moved into a reconstructed Roman marketplace.

After the first museum, we grabbed some currywurst, a Berlin specialty, and moved on to the Bode. We got there at an odd time, and virtually had the entire museum to ourselves. The museum is in a beautiful domed building that opens with a grand staircase. Inside there are incredible marble statues and room after room of Western European artwork. We found an incredibly realistic bust, and a statue of St. George, a character from one of Marcus’ favorite childhood books.

On to the third museum! The Alte Nationalgalerie is strictly an art museum, with stunning Neoclassical, Romantic, and Impressionist work. The building itself is stunning; it was completed in 1867 with beautiful pillars surrounding the building made of sandstone. This was the museum I was most excited to see because I love Impressionism. We saw some incredible work from Adolph von Menzel, Theodor Hildebrandt, and even Claude Monet!!

Time for Museum number four. We visited the Altes Museum, which translates to the Old Museum. Opening in 1830, it was built to home the Prussian National Gallery. At this point we were feeling a little but of museum fatigue, but we went through nearly the whole thing and viewed the Roman and Greek exhibitions. Right next to the Old Museum is the Berlin Cathedral, a gorgeous domed building. The rain had let up by now so we were able to take a few photos with the cathedral and the gorgeous fall foliage.

With less than a half hour before all the museums closed, we hurried over to the fifth and final museum. The Neues Museum, or New Museum, was originally opened in 1855 but closed during World War II, where it suffered a great deal of damage from the Berlin bombings. It wasn’t reopened until 2009. The New Museum is home to many Egyptian artifacts, most notably the bust of Queen Nefertiti. The architecture in this museum has a mid-century vibe with exposed brick and tiled flooring, and strikes a notable contrast with the Egyptian collections. Once we saw the bust, we meandered for as long as we could, only leaving when the speakers started chiming asking us to leave.

After seeing all five museums in one day, we were pooped. We returned home and got ready for the journey to our final German destination: Oktoberfest in Munich!!