The journey was long and included a small disaster — me accidentally leaving my cell phone on a chair at Heathrow before boarding a connecting flight — but I am now resting comfortably in my hotel room in Berlin, Germany.
I actually find my hotel quite appealing. Modern art hangs both on the walls in frames and is painted directly on the walls along the hallways, unlike anything I've ever seen anywhere else in a hotel. My room is adorned with numerous framed photographs of Berlin streets, parks, and buildings, as well as a personal, framed, handwritten welcome letter from a former Vancouver resident named Andrea, who moved to Berlin in 2012 and details her favorite places around the city to visit. Again, very unique. The building glows green at night. The word that comes to mind is "elegant."
Having spent a couple of days exploring the city, I thought you might want to hear about several of my visits on Day 1.
My first Berlin experience was the Reichstag Building. As the historic meeting place of Germany's parliament, it stands as a powerful symbol of the nation's turbulent political history—from the German Empire through its 1933 fire and destruction in WWII—culminating in its modern incarnation featuring Norman Foster's glass dome, which represents transparency and reunited democracy. The dome spirals upward to the top, offering a great view of the city from all directions, with a myriad of history lessons on the historic building before you walk up.
Here's where I first learned that when you need assistance navigating the city, you can often find friendly folks who will guide your way, sometimes in English. There is something quite exhilarating about finding someone who speaks your native tongue when you need directions. And there are more people in Berlin who are at least somewhat familiar with English than I expected. Danke.
The information worker at the Reichstag directed me along the beautiful, wooded path to my next stop: The Brandenburg Gate. Originally built as a neoclassical city gate and triumphal arch, it witnessed the rise of Prussia, Nazi torchlight parades, and the harrowing division of the Cold War before ultimately becoming the ultimate global symbol of German reunification and freedom.
I gazed up at the Quadriga's goddess of peace (misappropriated by Napoleon and taken to France, but later returned to the Germans in 1814) and walked under the magnificent, towering columns. I thought about getting a coffee at the Starbucks across the street but held off. This fantastic monument still stands, as it has for more than 230 years, now among hotels, Starbucks, restaurants, and a throng of tourists from around the globe.
Several blocks over was a much more somber stop for me, once again showing this is a town that doesn't seem to shy away from the fact that not all of its history is pleasant. This stark, undulating field of 2,711 concrete stelae serves as Germany's central, solemn national monument acknowledging and remembering the horrific atrocities of the Holocaust.
I saw groups of people, a number of them school-aged, sitting on or walking among the sculptures, getting lost in the paths between the concrete.
Later in the afternoon, I did pick up that Starbucks coffee (black, grande) and took a long walk down Friedrichstraße, one of Berlin's major historic thoroughfares, meandering through the beautiful, surprising Gendarmenmarkt along the way. Then, onward to Checkpoint Charlie. This famous Cold War crossing point between the American and Soviet sectors serves as a poignant reminder of a divided Berlin, symbolizing the tense standoff between East and West during the height of the ideological conflict.
Then there's that photograph of an American soldier, Jeff Harper, which stands above the checkpoint to this day. Harper probably joined the military thinking he would serve his country, play his tuba in the Army band, and mix in inconspicuously with the millions of others who proudly wore the uniform at that time. He had no idea his face was immortalized over one of the world's most famous former border crossings until a friend mailed him a postcard in 1998.
