Sunday 09/25 – Berlin
Today we decided to do a little more
exploring. We discovered by looking at the larger transportation map
that there is an S-Bahn line that makes a loop or ring around the
entire city of Berlin. This line was outside the main part of
downtown, going through the bergs that used to surround Berlin, but
have now grown into it. Since we were taking the S-Bahn, it was
almost always above ground, so we could see where we were going.
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| Alexanderplatz |
We started our journey by going across
town, over toward Alexander Platz in former East Berlin. It was a
good way to see Berlin in the early morning, and Linda wanted to get
some pastry that looks like doughnut hole – we call them
AlexanderPlatz Balls, but I think the locals have another name for
them. The shop selling Alexander Balls wasn't open, but we did find
something almost as good. There was an organized event with
thousands of runners. We saw fans waving flags from several
different countries. We talked a couple of ladies with violent red
hair in the midst of a bunch of Swiss flags into letting us get close
to take a couple of pictures. It was an impressive sight, but we
couldn't help but think that my little sister could show these folks
a thing or two about running!
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| Swiss race fans |
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| Marathon Runners |
After bidding the Swiss good bye, we
hiked back to the S-Bhan and continued our journey. We made our way
around the ring and got off at Templehof. We walked a couple of
blocks to the old airfield that has now been made into a park. The
Templehof air terminal is the largest building in all Europe. It was
built to demonstrate the superiority of the Third Riech. After the
war Templehof was the landing sight for the Candy Bombers, the
American and British airplanes that flew the "Aire Bridge"
to bring supplies into West Berlin after the routes through East
Germany were closed in 1948. According to the signs at the memorial,
the Candy Bombers landed every 90 seconds with supplies, and
continued to bring in supplies until the routes through East Germany
were opened. One of the signs at the park explained how the name
Candy Bombers came about. Apparently one of the American crews came
up with an idea to tie candy to little parachutes and toss it out the
window of the plane as they were coming in for a landing. The idea
was a hit and it became a tradition.
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| Candy Bomber |
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| Templehof Airport |
After we finished at Templehof we were
into the afternoon. We made our way over to U-Bahn over by where the
Turkish Market had been held in Kreuzberg, and rode it up the the
main train station, the Hauptbahnhof. From there it was a short
journey to our destination, the old Hamburg Bahnhof (train station)
which had been turned into a Modern Art Museum – the Museum Fur
Gegenwart. It turned out this museum was a bit more new and
sophisticated than we were used to. Several of the displays were
more than we could process. (Stephen is being diplomatic. Let's just
say they stunk. - Linda)
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| Found the Alexander Platz Balls |
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| Hamburg Bahnhof |
There were few displays that we could
relate to. There was a large collection of Andy Warhol's work, but I
think they put that in mostly to placate the old farts that wander
in. There were some others that we could instantly relate to, one
looked like an abstract representation of two dogs sniffing each
other. The special exhibit was also very good, it was a huge area
with a lot of cables and clear plastic balls, some you could even go
inside. It was a very interesting display.
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| Warhol - Paint by Numbers |
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| View of the Bahnhof Display |
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| Horst's Project |
There were a few displays that went
completely over our heads. One called "A Secret Universe"
was a collection of thousands of polaroid photos by Horst Ademelt.
Horst took thousands of photos and wrote all sorts of notes in the
margins of the polaroids that you would need a magnifying glass to
read (A magnifying glass? You would need the Hubble - Linda.) When
we looked at the photos, we began to question whether Horst was
firing on all eight cylinders. (We suspect that Horst could be a
candidate for the tin foil hat society – Linda) Some of his
"photos" were from bad packs of film that produced no
image, others were of things like spiders on the wall, and aspects of
daily life that few of us would choose to document on film. Horst
was not a good candidate for nude self portraits (Words fail me -
Linda). Let's face it. Nudes? Horst? It just doesn't work. The
biography mentions a "stay in the hospital", it does not
mention what kind of hospital or if Horst went in of his own
volition. We have our own theory on this. We believe that the
family must be in complete amazement that Uncle Horst's "project"
wound up in the national museum. We certainly were. In the end
though, Horst did make me feel a whole lot better about every bad
picture I have ever taken. I am wondering if I had saved them and
done a few nude self portraits, if I might have an exhibition in a
national gallery.
We hope you are doing well.
Stephen and Linda
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