Monday, 5 October 2009 - Unsettling

One quick note about Berlin - it is a city of graffiti - some very interesting, most not.  It is everywhere, buildings, roads, private homes, public homes, churches, you name it.  I find it unattractive.  There is an abandoned building near our hotel - not built pre-war, not destroyed in the war, but rather recent - say the '80s. metalic panels, perhaps 10 stories - just sitting there and covered with graffiti.  I wonder what the story is.

The first job today is to get a replacement battery charger for my camera, due to the thief who relieved my luggage of a couple of electronic things somewhere between SFO and Firenze.  So where to go? - Sony Center, which soon relieved me of €65.  Now I can take pictures again.  Our original intent was to go to the Altes Museum on Museum Insel.  However, since we are so close, we decide to go to the Judaisches Museum instead to see the exhibition and Liebeskind's building as well.

It is an extraordinary building - with somewhat of a liturgical bent, in that some aspects of it force you to experience certain feelings, losses, difficulties, and disorientation.  I'm glad that we got that out of the way right away, because the exhibits are far more engaging, and the stories told by the pieces gathered in the exhibition engage in a way that the building can only attempt to do.  From Palestine to Hackeshesmarkt, we walk along with the Jews on their way to Germany.  It is not painted in broad strokes, but in the fine detail of individual lives and things.  For that reason it is quite telling.  We interrupt the day for some coffee and cookies, but the story is too compelling to leave it for long.

The Egyptian Museum will have to wait, because now it is late in the afternoon, and we have agreed to meet Günter and Franziska on Albrechtstraße at 16:00, so we rush up there from the museum, and join them in a small Italian Restaurant, where we share an antipasto, gnocchi with sage and butter, and spaghetti with white truffle.  Not bad.  They have a plane to catch at Schöneberg, so we say our goodbyes and we walk to the Reichstag and decide to forego a 45 minute wait to get up into the dome.  Instead we walk the length of the Tiergarten to get back to our hotel.