Germany Trip, last installment, Weimar

After the conference, I headed about 15 minutes east on the train to the town of Weimar. I got off the train and basically had to find somewhere to stay and find my way around the town, since I hadn't really actually planned on visiting this town. I ended up getting the last bed in the cheapest hostel in town. It was great since it was right in the centre of town and I ended up in this nice 4 bed room. I really just needed somewhere to sleep so it was perfect. I spent the day wandering around (following the walking tour in my Lonely Planet book) and exploring. Weimar has this great park right in the middle of town, so I spent some time wandering around there. Plus it is a town that seemed to be the centre of the music and intellectual scene in Germany for a while, so big names like Goethe, and Bach were there for a time. You can walk by the front of Bach's house (it is now a car park) and Goethe's house (which is now an actual museum).

My second day in Weimar I went to Buchenwald which is the concentration camp about 20 minutes north of Weimar. This time, I took myself on my own tour. It was really good. I showed up when it first opened so I was pretty much the only person there, which was kindof creepy but good because I don't like being in museums and stuff with big crowds of people. It was a beautiful day which is a little weird when you are walking around a place like this. I'm glad I went on the tour in Berlin because I knew what to look for here. And each camp sort of had things set up that the other did not so I think that with the two camps I got a pretty good feel of how these camps were set up. I'm really glad I did these tours, this is something that I've been meaning to do for a while so I'm really glad I got a chance to go this trip. There are a couple other ones I would like to see but that will have to be on another trip.

So, that was pretty much my trip. I left Weimar pretty early on the 31st to get back to Frankfurt. I hung out for a while in the airport and bought an Asterix book in German to practice. I arrived in Glasgow at 9 and decided that I really was going to try and catch the last train so had to catch a cab from Glasgow Prestwick to downtown Glasgow for 50 pounds. Then the train to Dundee for 10 pounds. I missed the last bus from Dundee to my town so had to get another cab for 25 pounds. So, that last leg of my journey cost more than my plane tickets to Germany. Crazy.

So, to recap.
Hours spent....
On airplanes: 3.5
In airports: 15
On trains: 11
number of Bratwurst consumed: 5
number of cities visited: Glasgow, Frankfurt (although both of these were pretty much just the airports and train stations), Berlin, Erfurt and Weimar

Erfurt

I woke up quite early on Saturday, the 24th of March so that I could catch an early train to Erfurt. I got to Erfurt again with no major problems (I love the German train system. It's way better than the British) and found my way to the accomodation booked for us by the conference organizers. The accomodation is a sort of student accomodation thing associated with the university but many of us at the conference liked to call it the "Cold War Palace" because honestly, it actually looked pretty scary from the outside (paint peeling off everywhere, these dingy windows.... unfortunately I didn't take a picture). I dropped off my stuff and then decided to spend the day exploring the town since I arrived a day early.
My Lonely Planet Germany book had a little walking tour laid out so I decided that would probably be the best way to see the town. I just sort of wandered, with my book, thus looking extremely like a tourist. Lots of people came up and spoke to me. They were all really nice. I spent my time mostly looking in Churches (this is the town where Martin Luther first preached and there are some amazing buildings). I ended up walking into one church while someone was having an organ lesson so I just sat and listened for a while. Amazing!
The town has this amazing cathedral on a hill which I had to of course go see. You weren't allowed to take pictures so I had to settle for a postcard. It really was an amazing building. It even still had all its icons on the outside which living where I do, is odd because all of the icons were smashed during the reformation here.
The walking tour finished in front of town hall and as I rounded the corner I heard music. A violist and a cellist were playing vivaldi in the square. Amazing! I sat and listened for about 15 minutes.
So, the conference.... well, it was great and I made some fantastic connections. I was talking with Richard Gordon (who is a huge name in Roman religion) and was whinning about these expensive books (about $100 per volume, it's 4 volumes) that I have to use all the time but are on short term loan at the library and its been really frustrating. He asked me for my address and said that he isn't using his copies right now so he would lend them to me. It was like meeting a movie star and now he's lending me books!!!! I know how nerdy that sounds but it is really awesome! Other than that, we just found some interesting brewpubs in town and just hung out. It really was a great time and made me even more inspired about my work. By the last day of the conference I really just wanted to head home and start writing. I got some really great ideas but we'll have to wait and see if they actually work in my research. Anyways, instead of heading back home I had one more stop... Weimar...

Berlin (Part 2)

So, after a fun filled day of museums and touring I decided to spend my second day in Berlin at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It is found about 45 minutes (by U-Bahn, aka public transport) north of Berlin. This camp is one of the earliest and served as the SS training camp and model camp that most of the other camp were suppose to look like. I went on a guided tour of the camp with the same company that did the free walking tour of Berlin the day before. The tour was alright and I'm glad I did it considering this was my first trip to a concentration camp, it was helpful to have someone there showing me stuff that I wouldn't have known to look for. However, as I was with a large group, we can only move as fast as the slowest person, and well, there were a lot of people who were dragging their feet through places that I personally wouldn't have spent that much time in. This is the reason why I don't like going to museums and stuff with people. It was a neat experience though and I'm really glad I went. There is Solviet propaganda everywhere since they were the ones to liberate the camp in 1945. It's interesting, but also quite disturbing because most people then don't talk about the fact that the Solviets continued to use these camps much in the same way as they were used by the Nazis well into the 60s. I guess since they were on the "good" side during WWII it makes it ok (?).

I got back from the camp about 5:30ish and met with my Aussi buddy to go see the Holocaust Memorial. (why not do all this depressing stuff all in one day?) It is a very well laid out memorial and looks at the stories of Jewish individuals and families who lived under Nazi control. Very interesting. I had no idea that almost half of the Jews killed came from Poland and that there were very few from Germany itself. Perhaps this is because of the intensive emigration policy the Nazi had during the 30s(?). An interesting day to say the least.

After the memorial, we headed back to the hostel and met up with two americans who were also staying there (they were on vacation from their university in southern Germany where they are studying for the year). We headed off to a place called "White Trash" near our hostel which had been recommended to us by the tour guide. It was originally a Chinese restaurant which had been bought by a guy from France, a Brit and a German. Needless to say, they figured they couldn't cook Chinese food but wanted to keep the amazing decor so, you walk into this crazy oriental place and order burgers and stuff. Very weird. Apparently it is the place where all the young people (university aged) go to hang out and has live bands and such. A live band (playing some kind of english country music) was playing that night and by the time we left it was difficult to get out the door because the place was packed. It was a great way to end my time in Berlin and I got the chance to meet some really cool people. I've decided that I really do enjoy travelling alone. You never know who you are going to meet or what you'll do on a given day. All in all a really fun experience.

Berlin is an interesting city because so much rebuilding is going on right now. There are over 50 museums and since I only made it to 3 I definitely have to go back. Plus it will be really interesting to see how the city changes over the next 10 years. What a great place to start my travels and I think it was a really great city to introduce me to travelling alone. The people were really nice, helpful and enough people spoke English (and along with my very poor German) that I didn't have any problems communicating.

Berlin (Part 1)

So I just got back from my 10 day adventure in Germany, and lets just say, I loved it. Germany is such a beautiful and amazing country. So much history, and yet so much rebuilding as well.

I flew from Glasgow to Frankfurt Hahn (which is about an hour and a half by bus outside of Frankfurt) and since my flight didn't get in till about midnight, I spent the night in the airport. Not a terrible experience and I would probably do it again if I had to but definitely not the nicest airport I've ever seen. There were a ton of people who were thinking along the same lines as I was, except they were much better prepared than I was since they had almost their own campsite set up on the floor, complete with sleepingbags, therma-rests, and pillows. I just found a little piece of disgusting floor and curled up with my bag, using my jacket as a blanket. Oh well. At least it was free.

I caught the first bus into Frankfurt in order to try and catch the 9:00 train to Berlin. Needless to say, my first impression of Frankfurt was not a pleasant one. Since the city was almost entirely destroyed during WWII, it's a completely rebuilt city but still looks disgusting with no atmosphere or pretty skyline or anything. I decided that I wasn't going to spend my last 2 days here and started thinking about somewhere else in Germany to go.

My trip to Berlin (and in fact all my travels) was uneventful. My German reading course proved helpful as I had very little trouble reading the signs and figuring out where to go, however, actually communicating with people was a little more difficult. I arrived in Berlin and had no problem finding my cute little hostel right in the heart of Berlin. It was within 10 minutes walking of pretty much everything that I wanted to see. Excellent. Plus, as soon as I showed up, another girl staying at the hostel also showed up. We chatted for a bit, she's from Australia and travelling for a year, and found out that all we both really wanted to do was spend our time in museums. Great! We spent most of the first day just wandering around, headed down to the Bombed out Church by Zoo Station and endulged in some "Street Meat" aka Bratwurst. Since I had not had a great sleep the night before, I ended up heading back to the hostel fairly early and went to bed.

A free walking tour of Berlin leaves from the hostel every day and so, I decided that this would be a great way to see the city, get my bearings, and then decide what I wanted to see more of. The tour guide was excellent, a PhD student in modern history, with some great stories. Unfortunately, the weather was absolutely miserable, freezing cold and raining, so that made the tour a little less enjoyable but all in all, it was great. I learned a lot, since I don't really know any modern history, and enjoyed getting a better feel of the city.

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Berlin was to see the Pergamon Museum. When I went to Turkey, I saw a lot of empty spaces where triumphal arches, temples, altars, etc. should have been. The Germans who had excavated the area had taken a huge number of these large artifacts back to Germany with them. (Some with the Brits and the Britist Museum) So, off I went after my walking tour to see the "rest of Turkey" as I've taken to calling it. What an amazing museum. The main feature is the Great Altar to Zeus at Pergamon (below) which is absolutely incredible. I had no idea how big it was even though I've seen a ton of pictures of it. It's the first thing you seen when you walk in and the expression on people's faces when they first walk in is priceless. As much as I hate having people in my pictures, I'm kind of glad that there are some, just to give people a sense of the scale of this altar.


The rest of the museum is just as impressive and I spent a good chunk of my afternoon there. I then headed off to the Altes Museum, which is quite small but has a really neat room copied from the Pantheon in Rome. It has a great bronze head of Julius Caesar (with the eyes still in so it looks quite creepy) and some beautiful, and pretty famous mosaics.

My Aussie friend and I met up for Cocktails in the evening and then just got some doners and some chocolate and headed back to the hostel to regroup. It was an incredibly full day of seeing things, but amazing and made me realize that there are so many things going on in Berlin that there is no way you could see them all in one trip. Just means I'll have to head back there some day...

(I haven't put up alot of pictures here but of course all my Germany pictures are on my photo website under Germany, so feel free to check them out: http://picasaweb.google.com/medea.colchis/GermanyTrip)