Europe 2008

"TO HELL WITH IT, LET'S GO!"

We had been talking about this trip for a long time; several years at least. There were a lot of reasons we could have but the trip off - energy prices draining our household finances; the Euro doing do poorly against the dollar and worst of all I got laid off from my job ten days before we went. But there were also compelling reasons to go... like much of the trip was already booked and non-refundable. But the most one compelling reason to go was that it was our 25th Anniversary. It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip and we wouldn't be denied. So we said, "To hell with it, let's go!"

NEW YORK TO BERLIN

Getting ready to get on board... but that was only the beginning!

Our trip didn't get off to an auspicious start, with our plane stranded on the tramac at JFK by thunderstorms. The wide-body plane was pretty empty, with connecting flights stranded all down the line. We were held hostage in the plane for nearly three hours, followed by a scary takeoff and ascent through the clouds, but once we cleared the cloud cover it was a smooth ride. I slept through it as best I could in two coach-class seats!

OBAMA IN BERLIN

Berlin is a very cosmopolitan city on a par with New York. Nevertheless, However, what jumped out at me personally were the similarities to NYC more than the differences. The day after we arrived, presidential hopeful Barack Obama made what might have been the most important speech there by an American politician since Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall" speech in 1985. The speech at the "Victory Arch" got wall-to-wall coverage in Europe the entire week, and it was all everyone was talking about. Our traditional allies in Europe have been badly mistreated under eight years of the Bush Administration. Here Obama was sending a clear signal to them that under his administration there would once again be an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation instead of unilateral bullying. Throughout our travels in Europe, pretty much every person we talked to liked America but hated the Bush Administration. "How could you people have elected that cowboy not once but TWICE?" one Berliner demanded. "Easy," I replied, "they cheated."

Jamming outside the Berlin Dome. "Eyes on the GUITAR, George!"

SEEING THE SIGHTS

We saw all the essential landmarks - the Reichstag, the Berlin Dome, Checkpoint Charlie and of course the Wall. One thing that really strikes me about Berlin is how the shadow of the Third Reich is still very much over this city even though it was destroyed sixty years ago.

Berlin Abounds with Classical beauty.

The beer, the schnitzel and the kraut were everything I expected. Especially the beer, for which they are justly renowned. They have VERY STRICT laws about purity and not adding preservatives. Therefore it has more alcohol content than American brews but you can drink more of it with fewer ill effects. One disappointment was the dearth of live music. Terri and I COULD NOT find any here on a Saturday night. I'm told this is because it's the summertime. That's pretty weak, although on our next to last night I heard some of the best live BeBop I've heard in years, played by a bunch of twentysomething German guys. I find it remarkable how Europeans have such a great respect for American music - especially Jazz and Blues - that most Americans don't seem to have. It's sad, really.

There is some great Jazz to be heard in Berlin, even if it WAS hard to find.

WHERE OLD MEETS NEW

Berlin is a place where the modern lives side-by-side with the old. Since the city was basically bombed to rubble by the Allies in 1945, there is very little left of what went before. A few buildings escaped destruction but very few. What's left was often a combination of old ruins and new architecture, of which the Reichstag was the best example. You have the facade of the old building built under the Kaiser combined with a state-of-the-art building that uses green technologies to produce heat and electricity. The Reichstag - the original German Parilament - was of course famously destroyed by a fire in 1933; an event that the Nazis used to seize power (Not unlike our own 9-11 but that's another discussion for another time). The Reichstag, dating back to the Holy Roman Empire, ceased to exist as a parlimentary body under Nazi rule. The building today houses the Bundestag; roughly the German equivalent of our own House of Representatives.

Outside the Reichstag. Note the old facade and the modern dome above it.

The Reichstag was not rebuilt until the Nineties and only became the seat of the Bundestag in 1999. Inside, it's a fascinating example of how they've preserved ruins by adding new architecture. Inside, they have a huge heating coil which absorbs Solar energy and stores it in underground tanks below the basement. Its heating and cooling is entirely self-sufficient, in a very impressive way. It's a shining example of how Europe in general is decades ahead of the U.S. in "green" technologies. For another thing, there is almost no air conditioning in Berlin (or anywhere in Europe) except the hotels where the foreigners stay.

Solar heating coil inside the Reichstag bulding.

AT THE BERLIN WALL

One of the most moving parts of our trip to me was our visit to Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall; the place once upon a time where East met West. For people of the Baby Boom generation, this is a place that had great significance - the front line of the Cold War. It's just another tourist site now and it seems so long ago now. But, in the Grand Scheme of Things Berlin and Germany have only been reunited since 1990. This is a place I had been reading about since childhood but until I went there I couldn't imagine what it must have been like.

Wrap your mind around this: Imagine New York was invaded by foreign powers and reduced to rubble. Then imagine that the city was divided into four quadrants. Everything north of 42nd St. and East of Fifth Ave. belonged to France; everything north of 42nd St. West of Fifth Ave. belonged to Britain; everything south of 42nd St. and East of Fifth Ave. belonged to Russia and everything south of 42nd St. West of Fifth Avenue belonged to Germany.

Now, imagine that the Germans, French and English all gave back their quarters and the Russians decided to keep theirs. They built a wall across 42nd St. and down Fifth Avenue, and you needed a passport to get across. Then imagine that both sides had serious firepower trained on each other. Furthermore, imagine that Russian owned everything from Jersey to West Virginia and there was only one heavily fortified road you could take to reach New York. That's roughly what living in Berlin during the Cold War would have been like.

Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, where East once met West during the Cold War.

If the echoes of Nazism still reverberate in Berlin, so too do those of the Cold War. When Communism collapsed along with the Wall, the entire economy and infrastructure of the Eastern Zone had to be rebuilt. Even nearly twenty years on from reunification in 1990, the Eastern Zone is very much underdeveloped and in need of rebuilding. From the top of the Reichstag you still can see all the construction cranes in the Eastern Zone as the boxy, no-frills buildings of Communist rule are being replaced with more modern structures.

MORE LIKE NEW YORK THAN NOT

When the Wall fell in 1989, various artists were asked to paint on the remaining sections. Some gorgeous artwork was created at that time and there were some very moving pieces indeed. Unfortunately, twenty years on these artworks are covered by scrawls and graffiti in a style that very much suggested New York circa 1985, in that pre-Bullyani era when it was covered by graffiti. In fact, graffiti is a blight that was ever-present almost everywhere we went in Europe; much worse than here.

At the Berlin Wall, note the artwork covered by graffiti

When most Americans think "European Vacation," they think narrow streets and quaint old buildings and it would be a mistake to think you'll find that in Berlin. Although the beer is a whole lot better it is very much a cosmopolitan, modern city with little Old World charm. The Zoological Garten bus depot smelled like the Port Authority and attracted the same kind of low life. The crowded streets with their subways and buses are very similar to New York. All the same stores are there - high end stores like you see on Fifth Avenue and even lower-end stores. Almost everyone speaks a little English since Berlin's history in the last half-century is so intertwined with America's.

EAST BERLIN

Although it's gradually being rebuilt, much of East Berlin still looks very much like it did under Communist Rule. The jaunts into the Eastern Zone were illuminating. Remember, Berlin has only been reunified since 1990 and the Eastern Zone will need some time before they catch up to the rest of the nation in many ways. Everywhere there are still constuction sites, razing the old Soviet - style buildings for something newer and better. So, Berlin is still very much a city in flux and portends to be for a long time to come. But then, from what I've learned of their history they've always been right in the middle of things!

NO AMERICANS!

With the U.S. Dollar doing so poorly against the Euro this year, we met very few Americans in Berlin. Also from what I'm told, the city was much less crowded than it usually is, even in summer. I think all the Berliners were vacationing in the U.S., where their buying power is so much better.