I Heart DT

This blog post has been a long time in the making-- and while that mostly means that I was not diligent enough in blogging throughout the trip like I was supposed to be, I think it will still be a worthwhile read for whomever may still be lurkin' on this webpage, and above all else, a good way for me to wrap my head around the amazing experience I just finished.
Okay so rewind to almost 3 weeks ago now, when we were still fresh off the airplane and stumbling around Munich like the drunken toddlers we arguably still are. The city was to us a labyrinth of pastel colored store fronts, baroque facades and monstrous classical monuments. Was it, in the barest of descriptions, incredibly amazing? You betcha. But was it also overwhelming, congested, and did I on multiple occasions choke on the unexpected smoke of an offending cigarette? Yes. That's why visiting the Alps both on my birthday, and later when we stayed in Garmisch-Partenkirche, was such a welcome relief from city life. It's a complete cliche, but returning to the slow and simplistic side of natural, country living brought a much needed detox from the tight schedule we were running in Munich. And while Berlin, the next gargantuan city we visited, was crazy amazing, I found myself wishing for a quiet Alpen refuge I could escape to.

But I can't complain too much, because Berlin was a whirlwind/hailstorm/tornado/category 5 hurricane of epic adventuring. In our in-person reflection, I talked about Berlin as the city where "History is everywhere and nowhere", and I think I will try to elaborate a little more eloquently on that topic here. And I mean eloquently in the most generous of ways--basically it won't be me stuttering nervously through a bullet pointed list of my unaffecting, asinine observations.

Because Berlin was significantly destroyed in World War II, much of the city is fairly modern. It's once elaborate storefront facades have given way to flat faced bauhaus apartments, and the fishing village it was founded on can no longer be located on a map. Berlin does not rely on it's pearlescent, romantic European architecture or hundreds-year-old monuments to convey its status or its wealth of history--it can't. Rather, its past has fed certain aspects of Berlin life that have given us the evolved Berlin we have today. We see the history and evolution of German guilt and absolution in unmarked, repurposed, or dilapidating Nazi buildings; in expansive museums dedicated to Jewish history and the holocaust and in small golden steins with the names Terezin, Auschwitz, Treblinka; in the waves of immigrants pouring into Berlin's diverse boroughs, and in the commentary of many theatrical productions. We see Berlin history in the way the former Berlin Wall is completely unmarked, denoted with cobblestones, or has become a living, breathing work of art. We see Berlin history in bunkers that have become Art exhibitions and  in abandoned and decaying DDR era warehouses, prisons and shanties that are now hotspots for East Berlin night life. We see Berlin history in the strong, alternative, anti Neo-Nazi presence among not just the youth, but their parents as well, who remember all too acutely life before the Iron Curtain dropped.  Berlin isn't pretty like Prague or Budapest. But it's got a past that's easy to see and feel if you take the time to look, and a character to it that is unique among Germany, and even all of Europe.

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Kristin Cimmerer