Blitzbesuch to Berlin

We spent a blitz-visit in Berlin of one and a half days last week.  The Humboldt foundation had invited us (and a few hundred other prize winners) to their annual meeting there from June 5 - 6, and again treated us very well. 

The new Berlin train station is very cool, with many
levels -- two of which are for trains traveling
 in perpendicular directions.

We had hoped to take a night train from Munich to Berlin on the Tuesday night before the meeting, but as all sleeping cars were booked, we got up early Wednesday so that the 6-hour high-speed train ride would get us there by early afternoon.

When we arrived, the weather was (finally) spectacular, and we enjoyed an hour or so walking from our hotel on Alexanderplatz (center of former East Berlin) down the famous Unter den Linden avenue.

The Berlin Fernsehtrum (TV tower),  near
 the Alexanderplatz, is the tallest structure
in Germany, at 368 m.   [Photo by Julia]

The Berliner Dom (cathedral) on the Museumsinsel in the
Spree river, is impressively huge.

We didn't get as far as the Brandenburg gate before we had to turn back, but we saw the famous Museumsinsel area (the museum island, in the Spree river) with a refreshing mixture of beautiful old architecture and lots of new construction.

Many holy buildings have been built on this site:  originally Catholic in the mid-15th century, since 1539
it has been Lutheran, Calvinist, and now Evangelisch  (protestant).   The current cathedral was built in 1905.

The Museumsinsel has lots of history.  This construction
zone is the Schlossplatz, where the former seat of
East German government (the Palast der Republik)
was torn down in 2008.

The Humboldt buses picked us up at 3 pm for a reception and meeting.  (The talks frankly lasted too long... they fed the kids while we were inside, but we didn't get any food 'til after 8, which made it even more difficult to stay awake-- especially after getting up at 5:30 a.m.  Ah well.)

Julia made a new friend, Kayla.

Benjamin did well at amusing himself.

It stays light very late in Berlin, in June, so we saw some of the city even during the bus ride back to the hotel at 9pm.

Potsdamer Platz: The wall went right through this area during the Cold War
segregation, so it's only recently been developed from a wasteland to an
impressive modern square.  (There are many colorful above-ground pipes in
Berlin, like the pink one here.  I think they are for pumping water out of
construction areas, since Berlin is essentially built on a swamp.

This Coca-Cola sign just reminded me of my favorite
German movie: " Good Bye Lenin" (See it, if you haven't!)

View from our hotel window
(on the14th floor of the 40-story Park Inn)

The Park Inn is the tallest hotel in Germany

I'm sorry this is going to be a long post, for a short trip, but the next day was pretty exciting:  we got to meet Bundespräsident Gauck! (Not quite so famous as Chancellor Angela Merkel, but almost.)

Gardens of the Schloss Bellvue

Our buses left the hotel early, for the morning reception at Schloss Bellvue, the official residence of the president.  With only a quick pass through security, they let 500+ Humboldt prize winners and families into the beautiful grounds.

Thomas the Humboldtian

President Gauck gave a relatively short and eloquent speech about the benefits of international research cooperation to all the assembled "Humboldtians" and then was very patient about dealing with the crowds as everyone tried to meet him afterwards.  (I had assumed that the the bodyguards might organize a queue but apparently not -- and it was interesting to see the cultural differences between those of us used to lining up patiently versus people from Asia and the rest of Europe who just elbow their way to the front...  we nearly gave up, but managed to briefly meet him after all.)

He didn't seem to mind all the crowd pressing
in on him.  (I'm surprised his bodyguards didn't...)

I had a view of President Gauck
throughthe crowd after his finished
his speech.  He seems to be a very
thoughtful and compassionate person.

Julia, and her friend Kayla managed to get a photo with Gauck early on.
(That's Kayla's dad on the left, and the man with all the white hair is
Prof. Schwarz, the president of the Humboldt foundation.) 

Our 15 seconds of fame.  Prof. Schwarz, President Gauck, me, Thomas...
My choir friends in Munich were highly impressed with this picture!

The Humboldt people had organized at least a dozen tour boats to take us all on a river cruise after the presidential reception.  We had really been looking forward to seeing the main parts of downtown this way, but the water was so high on the Spree river (you must have heard about the terrible flooding in eastern parts of Germany) that the boats couldn't go under the bridges downtown, so we were taken out of town, south east. 

"Molecule Man" is a sculpture of three bodies
with holes, 100 ft high, seeming to walk
on the river.

I had the top deck to myself, as people ate lunch below.

Although somewhat disappointing not to see downtown from the boat, we did get to see one of the last remaining sections of the Berlin wall, along a section where the river was the boundary.

This is the west side of the Wall.  On the east side is now the 1300 m
East Side Gallery with many famous "graffiti" paintings from 1990
(on what was until then the blank east side of the barrier).

After the boat ride, we had less than two hours before the next Humboldt session, so Thomas and I (leaving tired kids in the hotel watching Sponge Bob in German) hopped on an S-Bahn into downtown.  We mostly wanted to see the Reichstag building and the architecture of new government buildings nearby.

The glass dome of the Reichstag building is visible along the river

Some of the new government buildings to the north side of the Reichstag
building are very modern, but fit in very well I think.

The Reichstag building, opened in 1894, is probably most know for the 1933 arson attack that provided the
Nazis with the excuse to invoke strict martial law, essentially leading to a one-party state.
Since 1999, the building houses the German parliament (it was not used between WWII and reunification). 

We had enough time for a quick walk to the Brandenburg Gate, which is massive and impressive.


















Then, another ride on the Humboldt buses (they must have spent thousands on busses alone, for all of us) to dinner and an award ceremony at the Charlottenburg Palace.  Luckily, a double-decker bus is good for sightseeing along the way!

The Siegessäule (Victory Column) from 1873 is over
66 m high, including the 8.3 m bronze statue of "Victoria"

Schloss Charlottenburg, from 1699

Going in to dinner.

With the full Humboldt itinerary, we hadn't seen nearly as much of Berlin as we'd hoped, so we got up early the next morning to specially see the Holocaust Memorial.

Thememorial looks like a sea of uneven concrete  slabs.  The ground dips and swells, and the center is remarkably deep -- from the edges you'd never guess there were so many people in the grid.  The whole place is designed to make you uneasy, since it seems like it should be an ordered and regular atmosphere, yet the ground and blocks are all slightly askew, making it feel confusing.  Very effective and imposing.  Below ground is an information center, which we didn't have time to see.  (For the kids sake, at this age, maybe that was for the best... they know about the Holocaust, but haven't been confronted with details yet.)

We saw a lot of flooding between Berlin and Munich.

We were lucky that our train back to Munich left on time, since some were cancelled due to all the flooding.  We had to be rerouted, and it was almost amusing (although frustratingly slow) to have our high speed ICE chugging slowly along the winding single-tracks out in the middle of nowhere.

It was really too bad we couldn't spend longer in Berlin, but the kids were already missing 3 days of school (which the German system is pretty strict about) and then Thomas was flying to India the next day.  It's really an impressive, cosmopolitan city -- with a very different feel from Munich!