Power of the People
Berlin is an impressive sprawling city - both the city limits themselves as well as the streets. It's all incredibly modern with only a few buildings preserved as they would have looked before WWII - and these are only significant buildings, so no “regular” houses or storefronts look as they used to. Luckily, the city has an amazing public transport system with busses, subway, above ground trains, and trams! I took advantage of this today to head farther east to the East Side Gallery and Stasi Museum. I loved seeing the East Side Gallery's affirmations of hopes for unity and peace and overcoming. These feelings were broadened further at the Stasi Museum where the outdoor exhibit, before even entering the proper museum, went through the resistance and revolution in eastern Germany and the other soviet occupied states at the time. I loved learning about the power of grassroots organizing and defying oppression, especially given my fears of what may need to be done in the near future of my own country. This past semester I also took a class called religion and politics so I was excited to learn about how the Protestant church played a role in the revolution in the 70s-80s.
I loved learning about how people simply stood up to and defied the government. The blatant denial of the restrictions placed on them is what I think made them so powerful. Overcoming (or seemingly ignoring) the fears imposed on them by the ruling regime and embracing the consequences makes them so powerful. I remember in my freshman year introduction class for my major, we learned about the power of the people in that grassroots organizations, by working outside of imposed political oppression, can work outside of these institutionalized barriers… kind of like the cat in Alice in Wonderland… There was much more to this theory, but I believe it was in a reading by Homi Bhabha. These grassroots organizations are bound by pure drive, passion, and commitment and, as naive and romantic as it sounds, I think this can be incredibly powerful (but my inner realist can’t help but say, no, guns are much more powerful, let’s not fool ourselves). Lastly, I was excited to learn about how important creative movements, especially music but also writing and pictures, played key roles in the revolution. I think that creative expression can be incredibly powerful and cathartic and while this is not a new idea by any means, as a creative person, I gravitate towards it. I think art can access parts of the mind and emotions that other more cut and dry organizing cannot.
After leaving the Stasi Museum, my stomach ready to eat itself whole, I set off on a mission to get döner kebap. I've heard that the city is known for it so of course I HAD to have some. Finally, after Google Maps had lead me astray, kebap in hand, I sat in the park near Museum Island and devoured my lunch. Although dreary and overcast this morning, the sun was now blazing bright, which only added to the jolly field of beer-sipping sun bathing spring park-goers, complete with a street musician playing his acoustic guitar. If I weren't wearing black pants I could have stayed there all day! In addition to my heat-absorbing pants, I was also eager to leave because of an ice cream place I had spotted on my way to get kebap. I know me craving ice cream is nothing new but it was the kind of ice cream place where they make your ice cream look like a flower in a cone and it has been a life aspiration of mine to get a cone like this so I just could not resist. Plus, as I discovered, you could get as many as three flavors on a small cone! I got a medley of sorbets: lemon, grapefruit, and raspberry. It was quite amazing I must say.
After discovering how sprawling and modern Berlin is, I was craving some narrow streets and small, tightly packed buildings. Per recommendation of my tour guide yesterday, that could be found in a neighborhood called Nikolai Viertel so I headed in that direction, ice cream in hand. The neighborhood was pretty cute but I would hardly call it a neighborhood, as it really only consisted of a few streets. Granted, I didn't wander very far off as I my back was ready for a break from carrying my things around all day but it didn't seem to extend very far. I must say, Switzerland really does satisfy in the realm of tiny classic European streets. I then returned to Alexanderplatz to look up some things I could do in my final hour but they were either too expensive or too far to go in an hour. I even tried to get in a classic Bavarian experience at Hofbrauhaus but my mere 2.70€ I had left just wouldn't cut the bill. Literally. So I meandered to my bus and set off to the airport, thankful for a day of beautiful sunshine and a weekend of delicious food and eye opening historical lessons.
