Falling into the Past: My Weekend in Berlin

I was a little apprehensive about seeing Berlin at first, I'll admit.

In fact, I'll go as far as to say that had the frisbee team not had a game there, I might not have attempted to make a trip there at all. This may come as a shock to some of you, since my love of World War 2 history is about as well documented as sightings of Britney Spears' vagina. However, I was afraid that Germany would not be as...comfortable with their history and would have very little left in terms of World War 2 sites. I figured it would be completely modernized, especially with the many comparisons I heard to London and New York City.

And they couldn't have been more wrong.

Absolutely, it has its modern segments. But I actually felt like I was running through pages of a history textbook (which I'm sure sounds completely drab to most normal people who hated history textbooks) with each step that I took in this magnificent city. This is not a city trying to hide and forget its terrible past; in fact, you can't walk 3 feet without coming across a visually terrifying memorial of some kind. Just seeing the streets I recognized from history books (such as Wilhelmstrasse, which my companion so aptly said "Dude...shit went down here.") sent shivers down my spine. The good kind though; I had to restrain myself from jumping with glee like an unpopular, pimple ridden teenage girl who just got asked to the prom by the star quarterback (which sadly never happened to me in my high school days). I saw the site of the book burnings, which happens to be right across the street from the major university in Berlin and right next to the Deutches Oper Haus (German Opera House), where I would later on see my first opera. I saw the Reichstag, Hitler's bunker (or where it was at least), and the parts of the Berlin Wall that were still standing. According to the few locals I talked too, they actually wish the wall was still up. The East and the West are radically different to this day, and they all hate each other. It's fascinating. Even walking around Berlin, you can tell which sector was the Soviet sector and which was the Allied sector. The dessicated world of East Berlin was something out of a cheap 70's horror movie (terrible color matching schemes included). Houses were covered in graffiti, authored by homeowners as communications to their Government. If houses are monuments to ourselves, these were letters of despair written on the crumbled remains of egos. Bombed buildings reminiscent from their World War 2 heyday are still littered throughout parts of the city, and even classic Berlin monuments, such as the Berlin Dom (that really extravagant and gorgeous cathedral), is almost black, scars from fires and bombings the city received a short 63 years ago.

I also got the privilege of seeing the Pergamon Museum on the last day of its world renowned Babylon exhibit. I spent at least four hours wandering around with my walkman listening to the history of everything I was seeing. It was broken into two segments: the myths of Babylon, housed on the east side of the Museum, and the facts of Babylon, located on the west side. While all of this was interesting, the biggest treat was seeing the Gates of Ishtar. Completely stunning. I wish I could have seen it in its original environment.

In short, Berlin is by and large my favorite city I have encountered, and I highly recommend it to all of you. I was sad to leave, and I can't wait to have the chance to go back again one day.