Wrapping up the city overview…

The first part of this course is full of city tours, which is intended to help us students get acquainted with Berlin and develop some ideas for stories that will eventually lead to our final project, the slideshow (see the 2007 slideshows here). We did a bike tour yesterday, and today was the walking tour with Sarah, originally from Connecticut, but a transplanted Berliner for the past six years.

Our starting point was Hackescher Markt, then a visit to Museum Island. One thing about Berlin – everything seems to be under construction/renovation, and it sounds like that is fairly normal for this city. Cranes stretch across the skyline, scaffolding hides the buildings from our cameras, and workers can be found around every corner. The photo shows one of the museums surrounded by cranes working on various projects in that area.

 One of the more interesting stops along Unter den Linden was Neue Wache, the “new guard house”. I only processed a few pictures I have from here, but will get the rest up eventually. The building has been in existence for quite a few years – Wikipedia dates it to 1816, and the meaning of the building has also changed over time – it was first dedicated to “Prussia’s role in the Napoleonic Wars (known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation). It shows Nike, the goddess of victory, deciding a battle.” (Wikipedia) Apparently this was an actual guard house until 1918, and after that the building was redesigned to commemorate war casualties. It was rededicated in the 1990’s as the “Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny.” The statue was apparently replaced with one of a mother and her dead son. Visually, this spot is very striking due to the simplicity of the building, the open space surrounding the statue, and the hole in the ceeling that lets light in.

One of the things I must thank my Seattle flickr friends for is getting me used to shooting in a fairly large group. This class is smaller than the vast majority of flickr outings, and people are extremely competitive here about their photos. This ends up making folks cranky when they see others shooting the same thing. Really, everyone should just relax and have fun – we will all take the same photos because we are all tourists, and those first shots we fire without much thought are not nearly as unique as we might wish they are. It should be our challenge to take the photos to the next level and get something more original. It makes me a bit homesick for the Seattle Flickrites because of the unbelievable willingness to share and teach others on our outings, and to challenge each other to find that next level.

Aaaanyway, that aside, our walking tour was good for the detail. I was interested in whether or not some of the objects at the various museums on Museum Island were being demanded back by their home countries (this is a common story at lots of famous museums), and our guide hadn’t heard of that, but had heard of the Germans requesting items back that are in Russian museums.