DAY 62
Friday July 1, 2005
Berlin.
Another day in the life.
A misguided attempt at a memorial. Not everyone that died crossing the Berlin wall was a Christian. What an assumption. Apparently the city thinks so too. It will be taken down by July 4th 2005. In just a few more days.
Check point Charlie. The picture of the Russian soldier and a live American soldier holding the flag down below.
New Berlin!
The Sony Center, do you see the big screen TV display?
The Sony Center.
These pictures do not do it proper justice. Some things you just have to see in person.
A lovers park.
The easy to use subway system.
Berlin, a strange mixture of the old and new. Of the horrors and beauty that the human race is capable of.
Berlin is racing to forget it's past by putting up ultra modern architecture and my god, it works, in a way.
The above pictures is of the Sony Center. In my opinion, an architectural wonder. I walked into this complex with amazement.
Let me relate a story to you from my college days...
Years ago during my first year at Lee College my teacher said we could get extra credit if we took this seminar. Lee College is in an old town that did not get destroyed during the civil war. Grant left it untouched. This was a very historic town with grand old houses straight out of "Gone with the Wind". This was my first time out of Alaska and my first time away from home.
So my friend and I went to buy these tickets. I was very excited because the ticket booth was in this old building that I had been wanting to go into all semester. It was so beautiful on the outside, full of old fashioned brick, that I had been dying to see the inside for a long time.
I mentioned this to my friend as we walk into the building. My mouth just dropped open and I couldn't look at everything quick enough. It was just as beautiful inside as outside and therefore totally captivating for me.
The ticket lady asked me what my name was and I told her I forgot. The building was that beautiful! My friend answered the question for me while trying to hide a quick small smile. She then asked me how to spell my name and I couldn't remember as I was to busy taking it all in. My friend had to complete the transaction for both of us. The cashier looked so concerned. My friend was trying not to smile.
You have to remember I was raised in North Pole Alaska till I was 16. The only "monument" we have there is a fake Santa Claus House. So it very understandable that I was so awed by this building that I forgot my name. I explained as much to my friend, who was completely understanding.
It was only days later that I realized while he was trying to hide his kind but humorous smile; the tickets were for a memory seminar.
While I am no architectural buff, I can as a novice, with absolute pleasure experience the beauty that man is capable of creating. So I walk into the Sony Center. Two little innocuous words for such a grand architectural master piece.
I walked into the Sony Center with head spinning, eye stopping, mouth dropping amazement! Looking everywhere at once, especially up, up, and up trying to take it all in. Unrealized by me my feet kept walking on auto. If it hadn't been for the barrier I do believe I would have walked straight into the water fountain! But I still remembered my name! :-)
Go see the Sony Center if you are ever in Berlin, take in an Imax 3D movie, eat at one of the numerous restaurants, take lots of pictures, and best of all use their free wireless internet!
While I was there I couldn't help but being drawn into the Sony Store. Five floors high. I walked into the first floor and looked at all the nifty gadgets they had. I marveled at $6000.00 HD video camera that was smaller, slimmer, and more streamlined than Jeff's old video camera. I held it my hand and thought this thing is damn sexy and I am not even a techie. That's when I made a U turn and left that store as quickly as possible with, I am happy to say, my wallet intact. I don't know what was on the other floors, but I feel real sorry for any techies that walk in there. :-)
I did five days of journal writing at the Sony Center and posted easily. Afterward I went home to pack as I leave for Amsterdam first thing in the morning. Then I left to go to the Blue man Group which was showing at a concert hall across town.
They are a great artistic group, which was totally worth seeing, but I must say that "The Black Box" at the Image theater in Prague beat them hands down. They just haven't been discovered yet.
At any rate, I had a lot of fun and was totally surprised when the Blue Man Group had the audacity to toilet paper the audience. I left that show with smiles and laughter.
My mood was spoiled when I exited the concert hall and got a cab. I showed the cabbie on the map exactly my pension address and then told him it in German. He just looked at the map real quick and saw Zoo Station and off he went. I was trying to explain to him that it is five Berlin blocks from Zoo Station when he started driving like a speed demon from Hell itself. I said to him "My God, I am not in a hurry! He then cut around someone in the middle of the intersection. I said to him "Look I am not in any hurry" He said " It was a green light, I could go!" I said "Slow down I would like to get there in one piece!" He grunted and that was the end of our exchange.
He dropped me off at the train station. The idiot! I didn't say anything. I wanted out of that cab! So I paid him, the bastard rounded up and wouldn't give me my ninety cents he owed me so he got a tip after all! I looked at his face and saw his crazy, disjointed smile and new he was on some type of drug. Cocaine? I don't know, but I do know that people in the Western world do not drive like that unless they are out of their minds!
I exited from that cab and immediately got in a new one. I showed him the address, the map, and the typed out address. He said Ok. Immediately the new cabbie takes a right turn. I said" What are you doing? You should have gone straight!" He doesn't say anything.
We continue to go in the wrong direction and I say to him in a very tight voice filled with all the frustration I have felt since leaving the concert hall "What are you doing? I must understand! Where are you going!?" He says to me in righteous indication "I am doing exactly what you said, I am taking to Carrestrasste." Just as I get ready to say not this way you aren't we pull up to the street and low and behold we can't access it! See!
We both look down the one way street and know that the cab can't get down there from this direction. He looks at me and I look at him and I say "You should have gone straight at the light." He very contritely says "I didn't know it was one way." I say "Let me out I will walk." He tries to make it up to me by being very nice. I don't leave him a tip, either.
So as I am walking to my pension I am thinking that this was the very thing I wanted to avoid doing walking down this dark street late at night. I spent 16 Euros to prevent that very thing. I wanted to be dropped off at the door! The god damn mother fucking moronic bastards! Berlin is not a comfortable walking city at night for me. As I walk, I realize that my internal monolog was not silent.
I was ranting out loud and people were giving me a wide berth. <giggle> Could this be a new safety technique? I immediately quiet down and smile to myself. By the time I reach the door of my pension I am laughing silently to myself at the absurdity of it all and just like that my anger evaporates.
As I get ready for bed I think about the wonderful day I had and the great show I saw and fall asleep quietly smiling to myself.