Set It Off » Berlin 2004

March 25, 2006

Berlin 2004

These are some pictures of my trip to Berlin (shut up, Maggie) in June of 2004 (read up on it in the SIO archives!). These ones mostly focus on the cool stuff around the city, which in general we saw during the first week of the trip.

The Group, from left to right: Joni, Jennie, Jon, Chelsea, Liz, Pat, Molli, Scott, Ben, Brian, Stephanie, J. Dub (see the smile?), Kevin, Lori, Pastor Paul

Our home away from home, the Inter Varko Pension & Gaestehaus. It was a great little place; right on Greifswalder Strasse, a few minutes from the middle of Alexanderplatz. All told, we had lodgings and breakfast every morning for about $10/day.

This has been posted before, and it’s the Fernsehturm of Alexanderplatz. I wish we had one of these in Grand Rapids (it would be about 3 times higher than the Amway building).

The Berliner Dom (Cathedral), easily the most magnificent building in the city (if you ask me, and you’re not really in the position to be asking anybody else). We had ample opportunity to photograph this guy, as it was right along the main road between east and west Berlin.

Kaiser Wilhelm Gedechtniskirche (Memorial Church). The only building still standing that bears damage from World War II. The Berliners nicknamed it “Lippenstift” (lipstick), due to its shape. When we visited it the bells in the adjacent building (which is actually home to a church of some kind) started ringing, and all together the scene was quite inspiring.

The great Brandenburger Tor. Not much to look at but actually quite amazing to stand under. The wind was really whipping through it that day, and on my video you can’t hear my interesting dialogue due to the sound of the wind. Note the late Dr. Charles W. Krahe, my old Latin teacher, in the foreground; he was the man that got me signed up for the trip, and for that I am eternally grateful.

What you see before you is the Reichstag; the most powerful building in the city. The thing is absolutely huge, as you can tell from the vehicles that are parked right up next to it. We’re standing way out in the grounds, which were grass but still hard as concrete.

We spent alot of time in here. This is the Kaufhaus des Westens (Shopping Mall of the West), and it’s the biggest single-building hopping mall in all of Europe. In fact, some people in our group were in KaDeWe nearly every day of the 12 days of our trip. Coincidentally, this picture is nearly identical to the picture of the KaDeWe found in my old German 201/202 textbook (sans the random passers-by).

Behold the Blue Walls of Babylon; these are apparently really old, and I know for a fact that they are really blue. They hail from the great Pergamon museum, which also had other old stuff from the Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Sumerians, etc. etc. etc.

We took a day trip out to Lutherstadt-Wittenberg, the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation. Lots of history action going on around here. This is the church building of the Wittenberg castle, and the door you see in the lower left is The Door (it’s actually a steel replica of The Door, but it’s still in the same spot as The Door was. In fact, since the 1400s, I’m sure there’s been many Doors in that spot, and only recently did they actually replace it with a steel replica). Inside was Luther’s grave, and the top of the tower afforded a great view of the surrounding countryside.

The great Schloss Charlottenburg. Really beautiful and all that, but the tour was actually really boring. Within minutes of this picture being taken rain began coming down in sheets. This prevented us from roaming the grounds, which would have been really fun.

Here we are at a cafe in the heart of West Berlin, drinking Berliner Weisse (a strange adult beverage, which as any fool can see was green). Supposedly, this drink can only be obtained from this cafe in this city. As you can see, I’m thrilled with the sheer scarcity of it all.
These are actual satellite images of some of the places in the pictures (courtesy Google Earth). It’s so awesome to look back at these images, remembering walking down those roads and seeing those trees and stuff. Seeing Berlin on Google Earth was almost like going back there.