Sightseeing in Berlin

One of the new cities for me that I was looking the most forward to  on this trip was Berlin.  I had two nights in the city, playing one show each night, and also was able to do some sightseeing with my couchsurfing hosts, Alice, Sophie, and Fachreddin.  The pictures from those city excursions are below.

As far as the shows go, both were amazing, and I was astounded with the Berlin audiences.  The first night I played at a place called Cafe Hilde.  For some reason, I had a really bad feeling about the gig beforehand, really felt it was going to be a bust.  The place ended up being packed with people who listened intently for the entire two sets.  And during set break and after the show, everyone I talked to said that they came out specifically because they had seen my name in the local music rag and took the time to listen to the music online beforehand.  It is a seriously amazing feeling to be in a gigantic city in a country you've never played in before, and have that sort of crowd, I felt very fortunate.  The next night was also an amazing gig and audience, and the venue was my couchsurfing hosts' flat.  More on that in my next post, for now enjoy Berlin...



Potsdamer Platz.  Before World War II this was Berlin's vibrant downtown, and became a no man's land afterwards as the Berlin Wall ran through the middle of it during the Cold War.  Since the fall of the wall, it has been transformed into an uber modern business and entertainment area.  This is the "ceiling" on the outdoors Potsdamer Platz, it kind of feels like you are in the middle of the Death Star or something.


The Brandenburg Gate.  The only one of Belin's old city gates still standing.  Napolean carried the equestrian statue on the top back to France with him, but it was later returned to Berlin.


The Reichstag, Germany's "capitol".  It was nearly burned to the ground in 1933, and this fire helped Hitler rise to power, as he blamed his political enemies, the communists.  Most historians think that Hitler himself ordered the burning.  It sat abandoned from the end of World War II until it was resurrected in the last decade or so, and now once again houses Germany's government.  It has a very elegant glass dome, but unfortunately I couldn't get a good vantage point to capture the whole building.


What is left of the Berlin Wall has been transformed into an art gallery.  Walking along the east side here would have been impossible 25 years ago, as guards and machine guns guarded its entire length.


A check point between east and west.

Dresden

After the gig in Chemnitz on Tuesday, I had Wednesday night off before crossing the country for a show in Unna on Thursday.  I decided to spend it in Dresden, which is only an hour by train from Chemnitz, and is the capital of the region of Saxony.  I set up a last minute couchsurf with the help of my friend Rolf (Prague), and had a lovely evening.  My host Maria invited some other cs'ers from Dresden over for Poker, and I even taught some of them how to play Euchre.  It turned into a bit of an impromptu house concert, as well.  After getting the hell out of Chemnitz asap I did a bit of sightseeing around Dresden before meeting up with Maria, and so below are some pictures from that.  



Dresden is a beautiful city in the eastern part of Germany, and is still rebuilding and re-inventing itself.  Towards the end of World War II it was the target of a massive bombing campaign by the British and American air forces, and the city was pretty much completely destroyed.  It remains a very controversial military operation, as 3,900 tons of incendiaries were used on a town that was not a strategic military target, and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 24,000 to 40,000 innocent civilians.  Kurt Vonnegut wrote about the firebombing of Dresden in his book, "Slaughterhouse-Five", and the author actually witnessed the attacks first hand as a prisoner-of-war at the time.  All of the buildings in the pictures have been rebuilt since that destruction, even if they look old.


The domed building in the background is the Frauenkirche (church), a proud symbol of Dresden's re-building.  More on that in a moment.





A piece from the original dome of the Frauenkirche, which has been set in this main town square as a memorial.


Ok, so the Frauenkirche is an important symbol for Dresden, because it was almost completely destroyed in the bombing and was only recently reconstructed.  Only one wall remained standing after the bombing, and the ruins of the church sat untouched under communist rule for nearly 50 years, and the ruins became a sort of memorial to the city's destruction.  After the fall of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany, the city began to plan to rebuild the church.  It was only finished in the last few years, opening in 2005.  The few darker blocks you can see are the few usable pieces from the original church.

Intro to Germany: Chemnitz

I left Prague in the morning by train, and left the familiar eastern European countries and friends I had visited the year before, and headed into Germany.  Now when I was younger I visited Germany twice with my family, and I am mostly of German ancestry, but I wasn't going anywhere we'd gone on those trips, and my destinations were based entirely on where I had gigs.  This meant that my first destination was far from a tourist haven, and its very name caused most people to laugh when I said thats where I was headed: Chemnitz.  Formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt during the Soviet-run East Germany days, the town is known for being a dull, cold, industrial city.  I was playing a show at a place called Subway To Peter, which ended up being a very cool bar and a surprisingly awesome crowd for a Tuesday night.  I didn't take many pictures, and was pretty much in and out of this town, but here are a few so you get the idea.


The view upon walking outside of the train station.


The band apartment furnished by Subway To Peter.  I think its really cool that venues do this in Germany, it seems pretty standard.  Unfortunately, I didn't pack a blanket or sleeping bag due to lack of room in my backpack, and they didn't have any there.  I slept in my clothes and froze my ass off all night.


A courtyard behind the building with the band apartment.


I did enjoy this attempt to color the city a bit!