Hallo aus Berlin!

bethlehem berliners

Monday morning began my week with Jeylan! It's already been so filled with interesting things, that I'm antsy to write it all down!

Monday morning- arrived at Jeylan's apartment exactly at 9 - was nervous i might not be exactly on time- i'm doing without a cell phone this week (gasp), so we are relying on good communication skills (indeed, it can be done). i arrived and we lugged my big suitcase up 5 big flights of stairs to her top-floor apartment :) As she is busy until late afternoons, I'm taking the time to read and plan out little excursions, and it's really been so rewarding!

Monday: Kurfurstendamm- it was the hub of West Berlin and is a 2-3 kilometer stretch of really ritzy shops, which isn't exactly my thing, though it was entertaining seeing the big BMW and Mercedes glass-walled stores. What I went for, however, was to visit the Evangelical Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedaechtnis Kirche (remembrance church). It is a towering church, but it was bombed in 1944 (along with much of Berlin, and indeed many churches.... on my block in Kreuzberg, I walked by a huge, bombed out church called St. Micheal's most every day). Though the city of berlin considered demolishing the church because of it's condition, the citizen's of Berlin voted for it to remain as a reminder of the war. Really stark contrast of the jagged steeple (it looked as if someone grabbed the top of the steeple and just cracked it in half, leaving the jagged lines where it cracked off) and the ritzy, bussling, newly built up street. The church also built a very modern bell-tower right next to the bombed church, so that as well is a start contrast. There is no body of the original church remaining, but I went and sat inside the new one which is super modern and glows blue on the inside with a modern, golden Jesus over the alter-- very surreal.

Last night- Jeylan introduced me to the A-Trane. So very neat! It is a well-known Jazz club in Berlin. And last night was free entrance to boot! We heard a jazz pianist, Andreas Schmidt, who played with a guitarist and amazing drummer. The style was mixed- the drumming was very new-aged, experimental. The piano also mixed electric keyboard and a recording device, but also with excellent piano playing. What a blast!

Today: I began in Viktoria Park which is just a few blocks away in Kreuzberg. It is on a large hill and a waterfall falls down it! at the top is a memorial to when Prussia pushed back Napolean around 1815, built by Schinkel, who is famous for his architecture, much of which can be found in Berlin. The top of the park, at the monument, provided a fabulous view over much of Berlin. So much grass, water and flowers, sunbathers, bikers, walkers. I love the multitude of public spaces in this city. It is so easy and wonderful to retreat to such places - I can only take so much city, and i find it impressive that a city would make such an effort to provide so many public parks. Spent 10-15 minutes talking with a friendly German man about the city, my studies, etc. It's been very rewarding to be able to handle such conversations in German.

In the afternoon I went to the Nikolai Viertel (Quarter). It is located near central Berlin, and is a section of town reconstructed to look as the area did long ago (not too sure how long), though the St. Nikolai Church there was originally built in the 13th century (it was also completely destroyed in the War, though it has been rebuilt in the same style and many remnants of the old church such as a 600 year old stone bath and other artifacts are now in the rebuilt church. I stopped in a year round Christmas shop there, and it made me miss Bethlehem!

The last part of my excursion was to find the cemetary and grave of Felix Mendelssohn. Amazingly, soon before I had to meet up with Jeylan, I found the cemetary where I thought the grave might be. It was incredible to wander around with graves from teh 18th century. Much of the cemetary stones were ruined and not kept up, because during the Berlin Wall, the cemetary was not kept up at all because the cemetary was on one side of the wall and the parish it belonged to was on the other side. incredible. more incredible, however, with the minutes ticking away, i found Mendelssohn's grave! I was looking for a grave marker that would be some sort of large, 2 meter high colums like other grave markers there of rich, Berlin notables. Interestingly, Felix's gave stone is no larger than a typical one - it might have been 2 feet high. His sister Fanny's (who was a very good composer, particularly for the piano) grave marker, which was next to her brother's, was actually much more sizable than his!

Tonight, Jeylan and I had dinner with some of her friends from her program at a restaurant overlooking another public park. I had a very german dish- hash-brown like shopped potatos fried with cheese melted on top. Served with bread. Yum.

posted by Jayne @ 2:58 PM