What I learned in Berlin

For Ted's birthday we headed to Berlin for the weekend. We went to the Parliament building-Reichstag and learned the history of this building from when it was built by the German Kaiser (King) in 1894. The pictures throughout history were great showing pictures of the King, then later him giving up his power to the legislature (defeated), WWI, and ultimately a few photos of the rise of Nazism before the building was destroyed. It was rebuilt and is again home to the country's government since 1990 when Berlin became Germany's capital again. The view was great. It was right next to the Brandenburg Gate built in 1791 by a Prussian King. Napoleon stole one of the statues when he came through town in1806. It was destroyed during WWI but rebuilt and ended up in the middle of the boarder of East and West Berlin after WWII in No Man's Land. When Ted went to Germany 10 years ago the sky line was full of cranes and mass building as the areas around No Man's Land and the wall was being filled in with buildings. Now it's just a mass of buildings. We walked passed a section of the wall that was still standing, it was built above the foundation of Hitler's Gestapo Command center, of coarse this building was leveled during the war and very shortly there after the wall was built. It was close to The Museum at Checkpoint Charley. This museum gets all the attention in the American tourism books of Berlin but I thought it was pretty disappointing, partiality due to my weak understanding of German history. This museum was began shortly after the wall was built. It became the sentinel of "The Wall" debacle. The problem is, the museum is so haphazard I couldn't make out the history of the Wall and all it's ramifications from this little hole in the wall museum that hasn't changed much since it first opened in the 60's. This is what I got out of it: So after Hitler was defeated the allied forces (US, England, France, Russia) gave Germany the ability to start their own government. There was this party called the Deutch (German) Democratic Republic (DDR) that didn't agree with the other parties philosophies. I think they were more communist? in their beliefs. So they get the Russians to help them come to power in one section of Berlin that the Russians were given when they split up the city after the war. The wall was put up nearly over night, not so much physically but the German and or Russian army was suddenly standing all along this invisible border saying no one can go down this street any more. Many people that lived in one part of Berlin but worked not too far away but on the other side of this new boundary were badly affected. So life in East Berlin is terrible. The DDR are doing terrible things like taking people's children away if you aren't good DDR citizens. Technology hardly grows in the next 30 years in this isolated little spot. East Berlin built this tv tower with this globe Many escapes are made, only some work and this Check Point Charlie museum right next to the wall show cases how these successful escapes worked. The most well known was the passenger seat that a person could shape themselves into the cushion and look like the seat was empty. So there were car escapes, tunnels, one guy made a zip line with a seat for his whole family, one guy made a submarine type thing and escaped in the ocean. The overall take home message that I got out of this confusing museum was that life can turn up side down from what we know it as in a very short time. Even after Hitler there was a dark force in Germany and this era only ended in 1990. The want of power at the cost of freedom still continues around the world today.
So the next day we went to Berlin's Pergamon museum and saw ancient relics from Babylon. We learned how King Nebacanezer's life was and his fall from power. We saw the architecture, pottery, ancient writings on tablets, jewelry, agriculture tools of this 6th century B.C. civilization that was much more advanced than the Europeans in the middle ages. We saw 2 examples of what the tower of Babel would have looked like. It was interesting to hear how Sadam Hussein claimed he was a descendant of King Nebacanezer and died a similar death. The biggest thing in the museum was the front half of this 2nd century B.C. Greek Temple called the Pergamon alter. The statue carvings were cool, but not overly intriguing. Museums equal sore feet and tested patience as Ted reads every single thing there is to read and the girls are wanting to run and scream like children do. All this stress has usually always been rewarded with ice cream at the end. All in all I think Ted had enjoyable birthday weekend.