My favorite building

Last Saturday I wandered into the city to meet a friend. She slept late so I took the opportunity to find out about a building I'd always admired from the S bahn line. Looked like a church, but not like any church I'd seen recently. It is, in fact, a church (or a piece of one). This is what it looked like after the war. Since then, they've torn down the majority of the building and all that remains is the front hallway that contains the large steeple. They also made a conscious choice to keep things minimalistic. The stained glass windows were bombed out at some point, and were never replaced. In fact, except on the ground floor, there are no windows at all. Birds fly through the space that once contained the rose window.

Here is a more current image of the building. Obviously not taken by me, but it gives a good image of the whole thing.

























I don't know much about its history except that it was constructed for Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1891 and was bombed in 1943. I think what I love about it is perhaps a bit cliche and embarrassing. None the less, for me it represents the beauty in the rubble. I find it not only striking, but beautiful. An image of redemption maybe? My absolute favorite post card is one that displays a church service that took place inside the building. An "open air service", on Pentecost, in 1953. Taken from high above the altar, at the back of the church, one sees hundreds of people in their Sunday best. They're focussed on the priest standing before the altar. The altar is framed by an enormous archway. And above it, the open sky.

Traveling band

Yesterday I saw a band on a bike. Not kidding. There were six guys, all dressed up in band uniforms (with the hats and everything)! One bike, six seats. The front guy had to steer and occasionally squeeze a hand- held horn and play a cymbal. Then came two saxophones, a trumpet, an accordion, and a TUBA! The guy on the tuba could also press down with his heel and play a bass drum attached to the back. These men were for real. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera.

The speed at which they moved, in order to draw a crowd I presume, made me concerned that the laws of physics would somehow have them falling over. I'm obviously not that good at physics because they had no problems at all. And they drew a crowd, which had no problem keeping pace with them.

Prague is Gepacked and Back to Berlin!

At the request of my friend Sarah, I post again. She says, "I'm tired of Gothic Leipzig!" Turns out someone reads this...

Fernando and I decided to take a long weekend in Prague. For the sake of my father, we took a photo of me next to the Gepack Center. Um, it's where you keep your Gepack.

Everyone told me that Prague was beautiful. I cannot be sure, as I couldn't see it beneath all of the people. Here, Fernando is standing next to his favorite statue on the pedestrian bridge. There were occasional signs that one had moved further east, and this statute was one of them. (Other bits of this statue included a jail cell with prisoners screaming inside. Yikes.)

There were some beautiful buildings, but unlike my mother I don't take enough photos. So I guess I have nothing else to say about Prague. Can you believe it?

On Fernando's final weekend here, we spent a bit more time wandering through the beautiful parts of Berlin. We even went to Schloss Charlottenburg. Here's what my guidebook says about it, "It was intended as Berlin's answer to Versailles. It's not a very convincing answer..." That's all you need to know. Here's what we thought:

Actually, I exaggerate. The castle was not very imposing, but the grounds were quite lovely. We had a very nice walk through the park on a warm spring day.

On Fernando's last full day here, we visited Neues Palais in Potsdam. For more photos, revisit the posting "Park Sanssouci". We actually went inside this palace and wore the dorky headphones. Turns out the dorky headphones rock! There was an incredible amount of information about the palace and its history. We even saw the room where Kaiser Wilhelm II signed the authorization to mobilize troops and begin World War I. Crazy. My favorite room in the palace is full of mosaics of sea dragons and other sea creatures made out of shells and minerals. The walls are covered with designs, and it's only when you get close that you can see the remarkable individual pieces. The room is referred to as the "grotto hall". Even the marble floor has designs of sea creatures embedded into it.

Gothic Leipzig

Fernando and I traveled to Leipzig last weekend to see Bridget perform in Giselle and a Jerome Robbins piece "The Cage". Our arrival and stay overlapped with a "Gothic Conference" taking place that weekend. Bridget had warned us to that effect, but nothing prepares you for the site of goth attire on about 20 percent of the population in the city. Everyone was very friendly and mild-mannered. They just wore lots of eye makeup and dark clothes. And spikes made of metal, sometimes. Shopkeepers change their window displays to fit the style and attitude of the gothic shopper. Even the wedding store had a black wedding dress in the window.



Leipzig is a beautiful city with a small inner ring ruled by pedestrians. Perhaps its greatest claim to fame is that it was the home of JS Bach. He was named Cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig in 1723 and remained there until his death in 1750. He was also the Director of Music for churches in the area. I suppose the aspect of his story that I enjoy the most is that he did not set out to achieve great things or make a name for himself. While well respected in Europe during his lifetime, he became most famous during the 19th century (mostly due to Mendelssohn I believe). Fernando is standing in front of the Thomaskirche, where Bach is now buried. We went into the church on Sunday afternoon and heard a small chorus practicing. The acoustics of the place are fabulous, and I had a window into why people are fascinated by chamber music. Then again, I'm not sure that's actually chamber music. So maybe I just like to hear people singing.

We returned home to a huge rainstorm and tons of snails. This is the first or second one we found. They were rare and cute. On an evening stroll about two hours later, we spotted over 200. Not rare, but still cute. As long as you don't have to touch them.

Just the same, all the world over

Just an observation today, in honor of my father as I know he'll appreciate this more than anyone else. The apartment staff posted signs a few weeks ago stating that the city would be doing construction outside our front gate from May 16th-May 21st. "Be advised there will be no access to the back parking lot."

Thus far, no signs of construction. Yesterday afternoon I returned home to a sign on my door. The construction will now take place from May 25th to May 31st. I won't hold my breath.

Three days in London

I had the pleasure of visiting my friend Giuseppe for three days this past week. He's recently taken a permanent position at King's College in London, and he invited me to give a talk this past week. I've been to London once before, so I was not feeling the necessity of seeing all of the sites, but it was nice to walk around Westminster again and look at all of the beautiful architecture.

We paid 8 pounds each to take a 2 hour walking tour through Westminster. The place was in a bit of chaos, as elections took place last week, and there was not a party in the clear majority. In fact, the Liberal Democrats - the small third party - would give the majority to whichever major party with which they chose to align. The day of our tour, the question remained if Brown would remain prime minister or if Cameron would replace him. (Nothing like being in a country at a time of transition to figure out how the government works). Labour had held the majority, and thus the PM position, for the past 13 years. But at the end of my trip, the Lib-Dems announced they were siding with the Conservative party, and thus a new PM moved into 10 Downing Street. Don't I sound informed?

Anyway, during our tour there was a bit of chaos about which included a few war protesters who had found their way onto the roof of a portion of Westminster Abbey. Our tour guide was quite offended by the whole thing, but I found it interesting so I snapped some pictures when she wasn't looking.



This is another portion of the abbey, which was added onto the building much later than the initial construction. Notice the distinct change in styles. I expect my mom to look up some history on the building, find the names of the styles, and post it as a comment at the bottom of this blog. Mom knows how to get this information, and I expect she'll be interested in it. So, go to it, Mom!

One interesting tidbit I learned: The Victoria Tower houses all of the records that remain from past parliamentary proceedings. It's like a giant file cabinet. The longest parchment in the tower is 1/4 mile long. The content? Tax law. That should surprise no one.

My evenings were with Giuseppe and his wife and son, Luchen. He's two years old and already speaks a bit of Italian, Chinese, and English. (Giuseppe's wife is Chinese.) My favorite trick is the following conversation that took place between Giuseppe and his son:
G - Luchen, say "La"
L - "La"
G - Say "Tey"
L - "tey"
G - Say "Latte"
L - "Milk"
He's an automatic translator!

Here's a photo of me with Luchen in between playing with playdough and reading bedtime stories. Don't worry Allison, Ian is still first in my heart...

Economy class airlines - UK style

I flew from Berlin to London this morning on the budget airline "RyanAir". Think Southwest, only take away the humor and add in a steady stream of infomercials. The boarding lacks a bit of the organization of a Southwest flight. Basically, they wait until everyone is off the plane from the flight before, and then they open a gate and everyone runs out onto the tarmac to climb the stairs and board the plane. They're very, very strict about one carry on bag. Literally, just one. Not one and a purse, or one and a man bag. Just one. They mean it. They make you pay 35 Euro if you haven't said you want to check a bag ahead of time, but then are forced to do so. Harsh!

Once seated, I discovered that the seats had no tilt feature. Not kidding. You can't lean back in your chair. I'm surprised they even had cushions. Seriously people. Thank God it was only an 80 minute flight. Even so, my neck hurts right now.

As for the infomercials, I was offered food and drink, smokeless cigarettes, scratch off lottery cards, and much, much more. Announcements about the available items are made by a live person in English. They then proceed to push a button and the Deutsche version is made by a prerecorded audio file. Upon landing, they played some cheesy horse racing tune and announced that "90% of all RyanAir flights land on time". That's good. I'm happy about that. But must we suffer needlessly in the process?