To follow on from my first post about our trip to Berlin, here are some more highlights! We went to the DDR Museum, which is truly one of the best-curated and most interesting museums I’ve ever been to. It was like a combination of the Stasi museum—full of information on the dark history of East Germany—and the Spy Museum—full of interesting gadgetry and anecdotes from that era—and the hybrid created a great and truly empathetic learning experience for me. They actually made rooms in a home typical of an East German family and crammed every nook full of information panels. At one point, we were standing in the bathroom and Mark was wondering about some fact, and I said, “Look in the tub,” and pointed where the data was printed along the inside of the ceramic. It was a wonderful place, despite being packed with noisy Easter Break children who definitely were being strong-armed into learning history on their holidays.

At that point, we had been in Europe half a week and looked at no churches, which makes sense in a half-communist-heritage country, but still weird in that part of the world. So we went to Berlin Cathedral and it was glorious. Normally I would not get an audio tour, so devoted as I am to reading wall texts, but they threw it in free with admission and STRONGLY urged you to get one, so I did, and it was really good—and a nice break from all the reading. I do think the museum curators know their stuff in Germany, we had almost uniformly excellent experiences. Anyway, Berlin Cathedral is a Protestant Cathedral, with a storied history, an active congregation, and a crypt underneath. And a lot of beautiful art and decorative stuff.

Then we went on a boat ride on the Spree river. It was supposed to be a boat tour but we got on one that was in German, so for us it was just sitting on a boat enjoying the view and vibes. The boat guy warned us fair and square but we were tired and wanted to enjoy the sunshine on the water and said it would be fine—he was pretty surprised. But it WAS fine—it was a gorgeous day, they served drinks on the boat, the Spree is so pretty and we could figure out what some of the stuff along the banks was by googling. I would still say get a tour in a language you understand if you CAN…but either way it’s nice. We’d already had a walking tour on the first day with Sandemans on the recommendation of friends who lived in Berlin for a while, and that was excellent, so we had a city tour sort of mentally ticked off, I suppose. Do recommend the Sandemans!

The other museum we went to was the Jewish museum, which I had somewhat mixed feelings about. When we went to Poland in 2018, I was in absolute wonder at the Jewish Museum in Warsaw, where I learned a tremendous amount and felt really connected to my family members who came from that part of the world. I thought this would be similar but it wasn’t. Whereas the Warsaw museum is really about learning the history of the Jewish people in Poland—including the terrible history of WWII, but very much in flow of the whole continuity, including various other terrible things—the Berlin museum is mainly about WWII, with some small interesting exhibits on upper floors providing a little bit of context. I also felt like perhaps the Berlin museum was…not for me? Germany does an excellent job with public monuments and reminders of the horrors of the Holocaust and the museum felt much more like a monument than anything else. I felt like the Germans are keeping it as a reminder, but there wasn’t much for me, not a German, to learn there. I couldnt tell if this was an intellectual or an emotional reaction but anyway, I didn’t get much out of the museum.

So we followed that up with a visit to the Orianburger Temple, which was partly destroyed in the war and turned into a small museum to the community it once served. Once call the New Synagogue, because the vibrant community in Berlin supported a number, and very beautiful, the building has been reconstructed in places and left obliterated in others—it will never be further rebuilt. The museum exhibits there made more sense to me, as they spoke to a community full of families and neighbourhoods, infighting and snark and celebrations and friendships—something to relate to. I thought it was a lovely place and it was the only time I cried on a trip full of sad museums.

Back to the food: I was a little too harsh in the previous post, we did have some good things. Nearly every carb was good—we had some brilliant French fries, rolls, and a soft pretzle most days. German doner, a Turkish meat wrap with vegatables and various sauces, was pretty uniformly good and Mark had it a few times. I thought it would be like a cousin of Canadian Maritime donair only without the sweetened condensed milk, but Mark insisted it was an entirely different food—but if push came to shove, he would prefer the sweetened condensed milk version. I do not eat whatever meat is in either doner or donair—it was not identified but clearly not in my wheelhouse, so I had fried halloumi one time (excellent) and falafel another (weird, in little discs and very soft). There was on place that had roast chicken doner but I ran out of time to try it. We were staying a great neighbourhood that I’d recommend, Potsdammer Strasse, which seemed to me to be a bustling residential neighbourhood filled with grocery stores and restaurants and approximately 30 doner places, and if I’d had time I would have tried them all.

I am out of odd conversations we had in Berlin but here is a more recent one, from Costco.

(RR and MS walking into Costco)
RR: Did you see that guy flossing?
MS: What? No.
RR: He was walking out as we were walking in. He was flossing as he walked.
MS: I didn’t know that was allowed.
RR: It is not.
MS: Maybe this is my future?
RR: No.
MS: Now that I’m middle-aged, I will embrace public flossing.
RR: You will not.
MS: ….
RR: Ow!
Stranger: Sorry!
MS: ???
RR: Someone just hit me with her cart. We have been here five seconds.
(perhaps one minute later)
RR: Do you want this tiny cup of black coffee?
MS: Sure. (attempts to drink coffee while pushing giant cart) Why did you take it if you didn’t want it?
RR: I thought it was something else but then I was too close and I didn’t want to be rude.
MS: I don’t think they care.
(while leave store, pushing cart to car, the Sampsenblums make a terrible mistake)
RR: Are we in traffic? Have we pushed the cart into a traffic lane?
MS: I don’t know, maybe.
RR: People seem mad. People are mad at us.
MS: They’re always mad. What we’re going to do, when we get up here, is run really fast. Try not to get hit by a car.
RR: I don’t like this plan.