Christmas in Berlin, Dec. 2007

So my last night in Berlin I was rushing to get things done and like 'a moth to the flame' I just saw all of these 'lights' and followed...

As I followed a Christmas market, I saw a mall and thought these lights were loverly...
















'Oooch Tannenbaum, Oooch Tannenbaum..."
















This is Potsdamer Platz (Potsdam Square). It was 'No Man's Land', i.e. one of the places the Berlin Wall ran through Berlin. Now it's 'capitalism galore' ;)











Remnants of the Berlin Wall that ran through the Platz...












And there is a Christmas market through 'No Man's Land'...I just find that so crazy and how worthless conflict is...40 years people would have loved to have walk across this area and now there are parties, food and fun times....I'm glad, but sad....






The world-famous arteest, Christo, struck again! This time he's covered the new American embassy...I hope I don't get in trouble for this one (Brad?) :(










There is the Brandenburg Gate with a Tannenbaum....


















Here is Unter den Linden - one of Berlin's historical main streets....all lit up, WUNDERBAR!














Here is a Christmas market along Unter den Linden. The whole place was full of booths, lights and best of all - FOOD! ;)












There are some of the booths with East Berlin's TV Tower and Berlin Cathedral in the background... I like this picture....










These guys are the Berlin Fire Department Band...I was their lone fan...I think they were a bit startled when I started clapping for them ;)











This is Schloss (Castle) Bellevue - the residence of the German president (head of state), NOT the German prime minister (head of government)...

Germans luv their Tannenbaums....






Here is yet ANOTHER Christmas market in Berlin more near where I live....












Kind of foreboding pic, but that's the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church that they left like it looked after WWII with another Tannenbaum...this one from Bavaria....

Berlin's 'Festival of Lights'

Last year I enjoyed Berlin's 'Festival of Lights' and so we all got together and attended this year's.

Here is the TV Tower in former 'East' Berlin. This is what it normally looks like, but then suddenly....

it changed colors! Green, orange, etc...

We then walked down the street called Unter den Linden (Under the Lime Trees). They lit it differently from last year and I think they did a good job...

The Brandenburg Gate was a variety of changing colors, but I got it when it was purple. I thought the Quadriga (the statue on top) being blue was pretty cool!

We made our way back to Alexanderplatz where they were going to have a fireworks show....the show started late- not the best idea in the land of 'punctuality'. Everyone was whistling - European for 'boo!'.

The fireworks and lazer show began and it was pretty good. Here is an 'indexed' photo of a video I shot of the fireworks...

Here is my trusty, ol' Funkturm. It's all crazy lit up...kind of makes me think of an old Frankenstein movie with the electrical equipment, etc.

The Festival of Lights goes on for a few days. On Saturday we decided to meet up and ended up going to the Olympic Stadium. They had red and blue lights working the outside....

And then inside they 'moved' and turned on and off the stadium lights to music. They called it 'the Ring of Fire'....it all seems more UFOish to me in a way....

Goodbye Olympic Stadium and Berlin Festival of Lights!!

Reichstag Visit

So, a friend of mine from Church organized a visit to the see the inside of the Reichstag and I thought 'why not invite the people who live in my dorm?' So I did and many came.

This is the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) that was built with French money after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. The Kaiser (emperor) didn't want it, but relented and let the people build a parliament building, except they had to build it outside the city borders of Berlin ;)

The building is now where the Bundestag (Federal/National Diet) holds their meetings...

Here is the group of us...we are more or less a tiny United Nations - people from all over the place!!

The inside where the Bundestag sits and does their bidnezz....

The 'taller' chair off to the left of the middle 'taller' chairs is where Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister, sits...

Our group getting the tour - our tour guide was heelarious!

In the 1960's the West German governemnt, wanting to make the Reichstag building look better (in my opinion, hide all of the imperialistic past) covered all of these old murals and ornaments from the Imperial days....

The British architect who designed the dome, uncovered a lot of these 'covered-up' murals/decorations...

They also found a lot of Soviet graffiti all over the walls. Some I could see was from 1945...

Another 'aerial' view....

Our tour guide got us to the roof just in time to watch the sun set....

The hill where the sun is setting is exactly where the old American spy listening post was (that is right outside my dorm window) and you can see my Funkturm/radio tower off to the right of the setting sun....

The new Potsdamer Platz - all of that, 20 years ago wasn't there! It was part of the 'Death Strip' between East and West....

There is Berlin Cathedral and the TV Tower in old East Berlin....

When we were waiting for our tour, a lot of Russian Orthodox priests came walking out, then on the roof we ran into several Russian generals - very interesting...

Museum of London and Borough Market...

Another thing that was on my 'To Do' list was the Museum of London. This is a pic of the old medieval wall of London, which apparently was built on the old Roman wall of London. In other words, London is OLD!

I feel silly now, I didn't take any photos inside the museum...maybe they said I couldn't. But it covered the Celts/Britons, Vikings, Saxons, Normans and everybody else who invaded/settled in Britain. The Plague part was a bit unsettling....I would have thought the world was ending as well....it was interesting though, they said that the people after the Plague didn't seem to become pious, but turned to even more wicked ways in the end (according to a display in the museum)....that is opposite of what I would have thought...


Just outside the museum is this big plaque that talks about how near this spot (maybe on that very spot; after WII damage, who knows...) where John Wesley experienced 'the warmth in his heart' and his 'conversion'....it was nice to hear him express his conversion through those feelings...





Lisa, Sage and I then realized we had a few hours before I had to get to the airport, so we decided to dine in the Borough Market.

It's a huge market near London Bridge/Southwark Cathedral that has ton o' stuff from all over. I ate a venison burger, an Ostrich burger, apple streudel, tasted lots of freebies (cheeses, etc.), and then ended the excursion with the purchase of a chocolate bar made by Italian monks, that I ate on the train to the airport. Wunderbar! Mmm...

iPod Dance at the Tate Modern...

This is the Tate Modern. The building was originally a power station along the Thames, but now it's a modern art museum. I had no interest to go there, but some of the exhibits were cool to see. There were some works by Picasso, Warhol, Monet and others, and I can actually say that some of the 'others' I actually like. It's worth a look...

However, the true purpose in going to the Tate Modern wasn't to see art, it was to participate in a spontaneous iPod dance that happens in London. Everyone somehow/some way gets the information that there will be one of these dances, they've had them in Victoria train station and elsewhere, and then everyone shows up.



The beginning....the masses gather....the dance will begin at 7:01pm.












The idea is is that everyone brings their iPod and listens to their own music, while dancing in the crowd. I just think it's nice, clean fun and a cool idea! Can we start it in Berlin somehow? ;)











A view from up above....

Imperial War Museum...

When you see those guns, it can mean only one thing...

You've arrived at the Imperial War Museum!

I thought it was funny that outside they had a piece of the Berlin Wall...here I am contemplating the 'strangeness' of it all that I live in Berlin, yet touched a piece of Berlin's history in London...hmm....

Inside the museum, with all of its collection of 'death machines'...hmm...sad, but true, how much we spend as far as time, energy, money, research, etc. to figure ways to kill each other. Sad, sad, sad....

They had a WWI Trench exhibit where it's supposed to give you a feeling of what that was like. UGH! What a miserable exisitence!!

Good advice!

This is the 'Arab headband' that 'Lawrence of Arabia' wore during his campaign against the Turks....

I thought this was really interesting. I didn't know that during the 1930's, Ireland AND the UK had its own little fascist organisations. This is the uniform of that the British fascists wore...

One of the world-famous Enigma cryptography machines that the Nazis used...

I thought this poster was interesting - be careful, you never know who's listening, i.e. Hitler and I think Goering...

If you can, hit this photo so you can read what it says. They are guidelines for British soldiers as occupiers of Germany. These are heelarious!!

This is a huge eagle that used to be on the main Nazi chancellery. A Soviet soldier gave it to the Brits in 1947....

(Again, it's odd to see so much of German history in London....a lot of things like this are gone in Berlin - erased as it were...)

Here is the V-1 or 'Doodlebug' rocket that the Nazis used during attacks on London. It's the ancestor to the Cruise missile....

This is the Nazi V-2 Rocket that slammed into London during WWII. It's the ancestor of the NASA space program and intercontinental ballistic missiles....nothing like offering Nazis freedom in the States in exchange for what they know, eh? Hmm....