May Day in Berlin

I woke up yesterday morning into my routine and felt for a Dienstag morgen something was not quite right. Restaurants were doing business but the shops weren't. I passed it off to an overly leisure society (die Freizeit) with tuesdays off...warum nicht?

I purchased ein tageskarte and decided to spend the day touring around the city, ich habe die Stadt besichtigt, hitting places I had been before and touching somethings new. First off I went to the Nollendorf Platz, before touch finish with Jason. It was the landscape of Cabaret and much of the stories by Christopher Isherwood. It was quite the place during its heydey. A great place to walk around and snoop...I ended up having lunch at the Tim Canadian Deli on the corner of Maaßen und Winterfeldstraßen. Die Sonne schient und everyone was sitting outside at tables on the sidewalk. I tried to grab a place in the sun but all those spots were taken. I decided on a place in the shade seeing that the sun, in its march across the sky, would soon include me.


I ordered einen Kaffee mit Milch, French style; it arrived in a big bowl which I slurped and then I had a bowl of Spargelsuppe and it was delicious. I had some interesting bantor with my waitress and she, in a most friendly way, corrected me on my usage, from which I learned.


From there I boarded the U-Bahn and thorugh various connections, which were quite easy to decipher, headed for Victoria Park (something new). On the way, twice, musicians played for the passengers, when finished passed a cup. I threw in €0.50 each time. One was playing something akin to a mandolin and the other was a hammer dulcimer. Both were very good and lended an atmosphere has I headed into "the other side", or East Berlin.


Victoria Park is a huge park with trees and water and people out sunning and paths. There is a hill down which runs a huge cascading waterfall which is quite picturesque. At the top there are great views of the city and a cast iron monument-spire built to commemorate the Prussian Wars of Liberation. At the tip of the spire is a cross, thus Kruezburg, the name of this area, Cross Mountain. Surrounding the base of this monument are twelve niches, each filled with a statue of a person who is allegorical for a particular battle. Its the names that intrigued me and I thought of the cast from CATS:

Belle Alliance

Gross Beeren

Katzbach

Gross Goerschen

Culm

Dennewitz

Leipzig

Wartenburg

La Rothiere

Bar Saraube

Laon

They all were quite distinct and my favorite was Culm. He had long locks and was the only one leaning on a branch-staff and had good looking legs. Afterward I enjoyed a half liter of Berliner Pilsner at a small cafe just below the monument before heading all the way down to the bottom.


From there I headed for the Reichtag; my favorite of all government buildings, simply because of the sheer beauty of its glass dome that sits atop it representing transparency (no lies, no secrets) in government affairs for the German people...engraved across the main entry are the words: die Deutsche Volke. As I lay there in the grass out front of it I got to thinking about how it was burned and Hitler had used that event to his political ascendency and how strikingly similar this event is to the destruction of the World Trade Center and how George Bush used it for his own advantage when it could have been used to bring so many more people together in addressing the societal concern of our time which is terrorism...well...when we hear a bell another angel gets their wings...so, I am hoping this disparity in the world is eventually corrected.


My-my this is so long winded and I have not even talked about two other things I want to talk about. Yesterday was May Day, a big deal over here and that is why all the shops were closed! After I walked through the Brandenburg Tor, I saw a big party going on with thousands of people, with a stage and music, with selling of bier und bratwursts. That kept me occupied for a bit until I ventured over to the Holocaust Memorial which was something completed in 2005, I believe, after we were here in 2003.



It is composed of hundreds, at least, of these various rectangular blocks and columns that cover acres and which one can walk into and amongst. I felt quite awed here. As one gets deeper into the structure one is silenced from the others that you know are also in the whole thing. There is a hushness mixed with a definite feeling of frustration of what it might of been like to be shut off from others and unable to do a damn thing to change it.



I did more things yesterday..by the time I got home there was a little sunlight left...just enough to walk around the neighborhood before getting back to Manuela´s Wohnung...my feet were tired.