The history of East and West Berlin is very interesting in that the Berlin Wall legacy still plays a role in the personalities of each side of the city. On my train ride from Prague to Berlin, I actually met an American couple (but the guy was studying in Germany) who gave me an overview of the city. Apparently, there is some beef between Bavaria and Berlin because Bavarians think that the more raw feel of Berlin tarnishes their image. Munich and Berlin are definitely very different cities overall.
I have a friend from UW living in Berlin, so she suggested some places throughout the city that I should visit. She was spending a long weekend in Paris, so we didn’t get a chance to meet up, but I enjoyed checking out the places she suggested during the day.
I started my day at the East Side Gallery which is cited as the longest art display (and was about a two minute walk from where I was staying!). It is a portion of the Berlin Wall that was supposed to be torn down, so artists began decorating different parts of the area, but never was. It has remained since as a permanent display with pieces that have many different points of views and statements about Berlin, the world or life. Here were some of the ones that sparked my interest the most.
I walked around Alexanderplatz, one of the main parts of town and grabbed a quick lunch from a mobile bratwurst seller complete with umbrella in case it rained. The Germans are always so inventive!
From there, I headed to a building called Tacheles, which is where a bunch of independent artists sell their works. The walls of the five (if I remember correctly) floors were covered in all types of graffiti. I want to learn more about the area, but it reminded me a lot of my visit to Kristiania in Copenhagen, an area that is not technically part of the EU, but its own governing entity. Such “off the grid” places really intrigue me since there isn’t really anything similar in the U.S.
Nearby, there is a street (Augustrasse) that features many different art galleries and small cafes, so I walked around the area to see some of the modern art featured in the city. I love the chalkboards lining the streets with each store’s offerings and I also loved the name of this bookstore.
I spent my evening at a performance of “Peer Gynt” by Staats Ballett, the ballet company in Berlin. There were some speaking parts in German that I did not understand, but overall it was an amazing performance. There was a mixture of classical ballet, modern dance and even some more theatrical components. Definitely not like one of the more traditional storybook ballets that I am used to seeing from the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. For the entire second half they had poured a lot of sand on the stage and incorporated sliding across the material into the choreography. Very interesting indeed. The venue and the performance were much more Berlin than the last ballet I saw in Budapest. The Deutsche Oper building did not have ornate decorations or lavish staircases welcoming guests and was instead more simple and functional, but housed great entertainment nonetheless.
