(CH)ICAGO ABROAD: WO IST DIE.....?

Germans dressed up like American Soldiers at Checkpoint Charlie - 2 euro for a picture

Between doing nearly 12 loads of laundry, running a crazy amount of errands, and studying for three Deutsch exams ( just remembered I have another test tomorrow), the wife and I managed to take a quick trip to Berlin. Unlike our trip to Prague, we decided to do slightly more research and ask our friends, all three of them, about what we should do in Germany. People mentioned Museums, Museums, Museums, and more Museums. I enjoy Museums as much as the next person, but if everyone you talk to says "You have to go to this X museum" then that's probably a city I need to avoid. In Chicago, I love the Art Institute, the Museum of Science of Industry, Museum of Modern Art....all of them. Yes, all of them, but I also enjoy a nice beer at The Cell, or walking along Lake Michigan or having a great meal in Oldtown, Lincoln Park, Hyde Park and Western Springs (I strongly recommend The Pellings, they throw a mean BBQ in the summer time). Speaking of food, I have a Turkish colleague in my Deutsch course who recommended that I try a turkish kebob in Berlin. I was even more shocked when everyone in my class emphatically agreed. WHAT!!! Turkish Kebob from street vendors in Berlin! I eat Turkish kebobs almost everyday in Switzerland for Lunch...Durum Kebob and Doner Kebob are my Kebobs of choice but in Berlin too? Supposedly Berlin has a large Turkish population and having a Turkish Kebob is a rite of passage. Unfortunately, we did not have a Turkish Kebob but we did eat at a 400 year old restaurant.

My German instructor, from my first two Deutsch Courses, recommended a Museum in the Checkpoint Charlie area. I politely mentioned to her that I'm not going to a Museum, not because I don't like Museums, but because that's all everyone keeps recommending. But I would get to see Checkpoint Charlie because that's where our hotel was located. Before I discuss Checkpoint Charlie, we did stumble into one Museum. The wife was a going through withdrawal and needed her daily fix of Diet Coke. CurryWurst Museum!!! Yes it was a real Museum with real CurryWurst and a real CurryWurst Truck (See below).

I'm not taking a picture with some fakey american soldiers

Checkpoint Charlie Americanization...hmmm Big Mac!

Currywurst Museum truck...real Museum, real curry, real Wurst

Although all our friends in Zurich, all three of them, recommended Museums, I was quite interested in seeing where DIE WALD was located. From my earlier blogs, you probably remember me alluding to the idea that all the countries I've visited thus far is greatly influenced by WWII. Well we're finally here, where all the drama began and I was excited to see all that Germany had to offer. We quickly learned that Checkpoint Charlie was the name given to the West Berlin checkpoint operated by the US government. The wall was pretty much built by the East side of Berlin and East Germany to keep it's citizens from crossing over to West Germany The East became heavily influenced by Communist Soviet Union while the West was influenced by the capitalist democratic West, U.S, Britain, and France. Those from the West, for the most part, could travel to and from the East pretty freely but East Germans were not permitted to leave the country. The Soviet led East said it was to protect its citizens from the fascist (Nazis) that remained in the West but many historians noticed that the highly educated youth were leaving East Germany, creating a brain drain. When I think about it, it's similar but completely different than what's happening in Ireland, Northern Africa, and in the Middle East. When things are not optimal the youth either leave or rise up. In Ireland, they leave for better opportunities whereas in the Middle East and Northern Africa the youth are rising up against their governments. In any sense, they are signs that change is needed for the people. Ironically enough, Rome was not built in day and neither was the wall. The U.S, France and the U.K allowed the wall to be built with a policy of only being responsible for West Berlin and West Germany. For more than a quarter century, the Berlin Wall would truly represent the Cold War and a divide in once powerful empires, Prussian and German

Who needs a Museum when you can read all that on the streets at Checkpoint Charlie?

Picture taken after the wall came down....

Picture I took...notice anything similar?

We also saw another historic piece of Berlin.

Brandenburg Gate

The Gate

Checkpoint Charlie, check, Brandenburg Gate, Check...next I need to see where the wall was located. Some kind of demarkation or some leftover rubble. But I searched high and low and didn't see anything. I know that the history of the Wall is not all great, but it's the Wall and it's part of the history of Germany. I had a work trip about a year ago and I stayed in Maryland for a week and drove to Pennsylvania, crossing the Mason Dixon line every day, and twice a day I read the sign that said "MASON - DIXON LINE".

With that being said, Germany was better than advertised. I expected a very large somewhat industrial city in the heart of Germany. What the wife and I got was an amazingly historic city with the perfect, as my wife would say, juxtaposition of old and modern architecture. Everything was just BIG. The streets are wide, twice the size of American Boulevards and all the buildings are ginormous (GIANT and ENORMOUS). Pretty amazing but also not what I expected. Unlike Paris or Rome, in Berlin when they built a great building, they built a great building and that's it. No wonderful flowing garden or water features. Just an immaculately beautiful building leaving my wife and me saying "WHOA, do you see that?!?!"

I'll let the pictures do the talking....but Berlin was rich in culture with it's historic buildings, domes, and Churches.