Berlin

I'm a bit behind on my blog writing so I'm playing a bit of catch-up. I went to Berlin 2 weeks ago with my friend Melissa and it was so fun! We packed in so much into just two days. We started off our trip with a 3 hour free tour of Berlin which was excellent. Sandemans has free tours in a bunch of cities in Europe so if you're in one of them you should definitely check it out. On the tour we saw the Brandenburg Gate, the French and German Cathedrals, where Hitler's bunker was, a book burning memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and some other places. We also learned about "ampleman." It's the name of the cross walk signal that was used in East Berlin which looks different than the normal crosswalk signal used in West Berlin. So you can use the cross signals to figur out which part of Berlin you're in.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jew is a
collection of concrete slabs of various sizes.
It doesn't really have a single "meaning" so
some people don't like it because it's
rather abstract. 

These cars were prevalent in East Berlin and now
you can rent them to drive around the city
and they have some displayed throughout the city.

Ampleman is on the right and the West Berlin
signal on the left. 

These bears are all around the city decorated
with a different theme. This one is inside
 the American embassy.

Then we went into the Berlin Cathedral which was gorgeous inside. We went to the top as well and had a pretty good view of the city. But there are so many cranes in the city!

See what I mean about all the cranes?!?

At the top of the cathedral

We went back to the Brandenburg Gate to see it lit up at night which was really pretty.

Then we went back to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and went into the museum they have. They have one room where they play a short biography of a murdered Jew (about one minute audio in German and then in English). It will be almost 7 years before they have to repeat a person. We went to the museum by Checkpoint Charlie which had so much information. They had a lot of displays on how people got from East Berlin to West. They hid in gas tanks in cars, suitcases, used a flying machine, and other innovative tactics. Then we went to the East Side Gallery. It's a 1.3 kilometer section of the Berlin Wall that was turned into an outdoor mural shortly after reunification. There's over 100 paintings on it but sadly many of them have been defaced by graffiti.

From the East Side Gallery

On Sunday we went to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp which is about 1 hour away from Berlin. It was mainly used to imprison political prisoners but was also used to keep Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, prisoners of war, Roma, and homosexuals. The camp was also the site of a mass counterfeiting operation as part of a plan to ruin the American and British economies. Over one billion fake British pounds were recovered from the operation. Most of the buildings from the camp are no longer standing but they have them marked out on the ground with stones so you get an idea of the layout. One of the barracks they still have is the Jewish prisoners barracks. After reading so many books with descriptions of the cramped quarters and unsanitary living conditions it was hard to actually see it in person. The bunks that looked like they should be enough space for one person, actually had 2-3 people sleeping on them. The latrines were too small for that number of people and no real showers. Even though it was a sad experience, I feel like it was something I had to see after studying the Holocaust so much. If you want to read more about the concentration camp you can go here.

Memorial to the Death March

Entrance to the camp

Then it was off to someplace a bit cheerier: Charlottenburg Palace. It was built in the end of the 17th century for Sophie Charlotte, the wife of the first King of Prussia. Although the palace sustained damages in WWI from bombs so much of it has had to be reconstructed. All of the rooms were very impressive. One room, called the Porcelain Cabinet, was built to hold Sophie Charlotte's large collection of porcelain (although it wasn't completed until after her death). We couldn't take pictures inside but you can see pictures from the interior here. The gardens out back were huge and also very impressive.

Front of the palace

Back of the palace. Postcard-worthy photo courtesy of Melissa :)

Part of the gardens

About half of these photos are from Melissa so thanks for letting me use them! It was so much fun to go to Berlin with you!

Weekend with Susan in Amsterdam!

This past weekend Susan was in Amsterdam after having spend 3 weeks in France on a farm and a week in Germany. I was so happy to see her! We had a very busy weekend and our final tally was 7 seven museums, 2 churches, a botanical garden, and a canal cruise.

Anne Frank statue

We started Saturday morning by getting to the Anne Frank museum early and only had to wait in line for about 45 minutes. It was very emotional to see the rooms they lived in and to see pages from her original diary. I bought her diary in the original Dutch so my goal is to be able to read it before I leave the Netherlands.

Susan in the Tulip Museum

Next we went across the canal to the Tulip Museum. This was a tiny museum but it was interesting. We learned that tulip bulbs used to be super expensive and at what point were worth over 100 times their weight in gold. We also heard a song about the history of the tulip bulb and the crash of the tulip market so that was pretty funny.

Blurry picture of the chart comparing tulip bulb
prices to salaries...CRAZY!!

Right next to the Tulip Museum was a cheese store that had a free "museum" in the basement. So we went in there, sampled a lot of really good cheese, and dressed up as cheese farmers.

Cheese farmers!!

In the afternoon we rented some bikes because, as I told Susan, if you visit the Netherlands you have to ride a bike while you're here! We went to the Dutch Resistance Museum which was so informative and I really liked the set up of the museum and how they displayed the information. This and the Anne Frank museum were my favorite museums of the weekend. The museums also had an exhibit on the Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia) under Japanese occupation during WWII. I really liked that exhibit because it was all new information for me.
We went to the nearby botanical garden which, although many things were dead and not in bloom, was still nice. It was a nice change of pace from walking around in a museum. It looked like it would be really pretty to visit in the spring or summer.
In the evening we went on a canal cruise and learned more about the city including the fact that Amsterdam has over 1200 bridges!

One of the many bridges we saw on the canal ride

Sunday we got up early once again to go to the Van Gogh Museum. That museum was really nice but I wish there was a no photography rule! People would just go from painting to painting taking pictures of them and block your view. I kind of just wanted to stand right in front of their cameras. Van Gogh is a famous artist; just do a google search of the painting and you'll see better pictures of it than your smart phone is taking. Ok, rant over. I liked Wheatfield with Crows because it's very fall/Halloween looking I think. We also saw one of Susan's favorites: Sunflowers! At the museum they also have pictures of x-rays they've done of the paintings. He re-used his canvases a lot so you can see parts of the old paintings with the x-rays. They also had paintings done by some of his artist friends and others who inspired him so it was interesting to compare their paintings and techniques.
Then it was down the path to the Rijksmuseum, a national art and history museum. It was very big so we didn't go to all the rooms but we still saw a lot there! They have a lot of well-known paintings such as the Milkmaid by Vermeer and Night Watch by Rembrandt. I remember learning about all these paintings in AP European History so it's really cool to get to see them for real now. They also had rooms full of ceramics, Deltfware, jewelry, clothing, and even a room of model ships!

In front of the Rijksmseum

Susan and I in the "S" of the sign

In the afternoon we went to the New Church. It had an exhibit on the Ming Dynasty in China which was interesting and they had a lot of gorgeous paintings and embroideries. The church was built in the 15th century and is where the current King and Queen were married.

The New Church

The last museum for us was the Rembrandt Museum which was good too. They have so many paintings but they don't put next to the paintings the name of it or the artist (not all of them are by Rembrandt) so that was kind of annoying. You have to listen to the audio tour to get that information which we didn't feel like doing. But we did see an informative demonstration on how to make oil paint.

Bikes, canal, and bridge...typical Amsterdam

It was such a fun weekend and I'm so happy Susan was able to come here! I already miss her!

Antwerp

I didn't have enough time in Antwerp to see the things I wanted to see so I definitely want to go back there! It's only a two hour train so it'd be easy to go back for a day.

Wednesday morning I went to Rubens House which is now a museum with paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, paintings from his studio, and by some of his contemporaries. An interesting fact is that many of his larger paintings he would sketch out and then the students from his studio would do most of the work of actually painting it. Then Rubens would come in at the end and fix some parts and do the details on the important objects or people in the paintings.

In the Grote Markt

My grandparents were taking a 2 week cruise along the Rhine and Mosel Rivers and their last stop was Antwerp. That's how this trip got started for me. I wanted to meet up with them in Antwerp and then I decided to make it a longer trip to some other cities. I met up with them by the boat, we showed each other our pictures from our trips and then we went out to lunch. I had pumpkin ravioli with candied ginger, macadamia nuts, carrots, and sweet curry. It was so delicious and if you know me, you know I love pumpkin flavored things so that was exciting that they had that. After lunch we went back to the boat and played a game of cards. I sent with my grandpa a couple packages of stroopwafels (I want these to catch on the States so I can buy them there!), black licorice and a stack of postcards for my mom to mail out. I was given some Reese's, pumpkin spice M&M's, and pumpkin spice hershey kisses sent by my awesome mom! The pumpkin spice things are so good! I've been deprived of pumpkin flavored things here, it's not very popular.

In the afternoon I went to the Cathedral of Our Lady which is a huge church in the center of Antwerp. Inside they have some huge paintings by Rubens that he painted specifically for the church and some by other painters as well. It was gorgeous inside!

I took the train back to the Hague and that was the end of my trip. I had a great time  but I was happy to be back in my own room and able to get some rest. Next weekend I'll be in Amsterdam with one of my best friends which I'm really excited about! I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to share from that.

Brussels

My overnight bus ride to Brussels was not any better than Basel; I only managed to sleep for 2-3 hours again. But just like in Basel I dropped my stuff off at the hostel, got a coffee, and started walking around. The city center was absolutely stunning. When I walked into it, it took my breath away. The buildings are gorgeous: they all have magnificent carvings and gold leaf and they're huge! My pictures of the buildings didn't turn out very good. The sun was still rising so I don't think the lighting was good for pictures, but trust me when I say it was stunning!

Then I went to St Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral. That was gorgeous as well. Construction was started in the 13th century and lasted for 300 years! You could also go under the church and see the remains from the previous church on that site from the 10th-13th centuries. 

The beautiful confessional

They had a lot of really pretty priest's robes on display

Next up was the Royal Palace. It's only open for tourists in the summer so I couldn't go in, but the outside was really pretty. In the front of the palace there's a big park that I walked through which was nice. 

Front of the palace

Back of the palace

Then it was off to the Judicial Building. I had a map of Brussels that had little drawings of some of the big, important buildings and it looked neat so I decided to walk there. It was under construction so you couldn't see much of it but from what I could see, it looked cool. 

Judicial Building under construction

WWI and WWII memorial by the Judicial Building

Then I went to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart which was on the outside of the city. It was so big and a gorgeous building. You're supposed to be able to go to the top and have a panoramic view of the city which I wanted to do. But I got there at the beginning of the hour and half (!) lunch break for the visitors center. The self service machine to pay to open the door to the top wouldn't accept my credit cards and didn't accept cash. So that was disappointing that I couldn't go up.

The Basilica

Then I went to the Atomium. Here's the description of it from the website since it describes it better than I could:

The Atomium was the main pavilion and icon of the World Fair of Brussels (1958), commonly called Expo 58. It symbolised the democratic will to maintain peace among all the nations, faith in progress, both technical and scientific and, finally, an optimistic vision of the future of a modern, new, super-technological world for a better life for mankind. 

The peaceful use of atomic energy for scientific purposes embodied these themes particularly   well and, so, that is what determined the shape of the edifice.  At 102 metres high, with its nine interconnected spheres, it represents an elementary iron crystal enlarged 165 billion (thousand million) times. It was dreamed up by the engineer André Waterkeyn (1917-2005). The spheres, though, were fitted out by the architects André and Jean Polak. 

It's such an unusual building and so cool looking! I went in it to see the exhibits and see the city skyline. It's at the very top of the city so you can't see the main part of the city very well. I walked around the nearby park which was very peaceful. 

The Atomium

View from the top

The second day in Brussels was much slower. I went to see Manneken Pis, the fountain of the little boy peeing. The boy was only about 2 feet high (I thought it would be bigger) and it's just on the corner of a street. It's not that impressive so it's funny that it's become such a symbol of the city. But I don't think you can leave Brussels without seeing it! Some history about the statue can be found here.

In front of Mannekin Pis

Outside of a waffle shop by Mannekin Pis

I went to Belvue which is a museum right next to the Royal Palace. It's a museum of Belgian history and also had a lot of exhibits about the history of the royal family. I also walked around the ruins of Coudenberg which are under the museum and surrounding buildings. Coudenberg was the former royal palace built in the 12th century and destroyed in the 18th century. The ruins were so big and there was a lot of rooms to walk through! Although, all that's left is some of the walls and support structures it was still neat to walk around down there. 

I also got a delicious waffle topped with Nutella and Strawberries. It was so sweet and big that I couldn't eat the whole thing. 

My delicious waffle!!

Then I went to the Jewish history museum of Belgian which was interesting. Their exhibit on the Holocaust was of course very sad. 25,000 Jews were deported from Belgium (mainly to Auschwitz) and only 1,200 of them survived. About 40,000 Jews weren't deported at all either because they went into hiding or they weren't called up for deportation. Even though I've read so many memoirs and listened to survivors speak, it never gets easier hearing the stories. They had a short documentary showing at the museum and one thing a survivor said really choked me up and has stuck with me. His wife and young children were all murdered at Auschwitz and in the documentary he said, while standing next to the train tracks they were deported on, "Every day I calculate how old my children would if they were alive. And I think about the children they would have and the family I could have had." Sorry to include that in the post and make it sad but I think it's important to keep talking about the stories and what happened, especially since soon there won't be any survivors left to speak about what they went through. 

Early that evening I took the train to Antwerp and I'll put up a post tomorrow about my day there!

Basel!

I got back last night completely exhausted from my 5 day trip but it was so much fun! I was in Basel for 2 days, Brussels for 2 days and Antwerp for 1 day. Since I have so many pictures and things to say I'm splitting the trip into multiple posts.

The trip started with a 13 hour bus ride from The Hague to Basel, of which I was asleep for about 3 hours...not a very good start to the trip. But I dropped my bag off at the hostel, got a coffee and was ready to begin my day. I went to Markplatz in the middle of the city and saw Town Hall. All the surrounding buildings are beige but Town Hall is a striking red with magnificent colored carvings. It was really a gorgeous building. 

Close up the carvings

City Hall...couldn't get a good shot
of it without the power lines

Next up was Munster Church which is a few streets behind Marktplatz. It was gorgeous! The church was built between 1019 and 1500 during which parts of it were destroyed and rebuilt and additions added. I walked around the inside of the church and went up to the top of it for a view of the city. I loved that Basel doesn't have many new buildings. This was especially evident from the top where in some directions you couldn't see any modern buildings!

Looking up at the church.

One of the statues on the front of the church

View from the top

Close up of the colorful roof

Selfie from the top!

I saw the Elisabethan church which was gorgeous as well.

Elisabethan Church in the background

In the plaza by the church is a cool fountain by the artist Jean Tinguely. All the different sculptures in the fountain move. My favorite was the face that shoots water out of its eyes. Below is a video from Youtube showing the fountain in action.

Then it was off to the History Museum of Basel which is right by the fountain and church. It was a really good museum with old religious objects, gorgeous tapestries and obviously a lot of historical information!
I saw the Spalentor which is the old city gate of Basel. It was neat but it was under construction so you couldn't see the bottom half of it.

Spalentor

Next was a Paper Mill Museum and then I walked along the Rhine for a bit to have different scenery from the city. It was really pretty! I also saw the boats that you can use to cross the Rhine to get to the other side of Basel (although I didn't ride in one). The boat is attached to a wire that spans the river and gets across by using the current of the water to propel it across and the wire to guide it. During the summer it's popular to swim across the river. You put your clothes and belongings in a waterproof sack and swim with it!

The Rhinefahre

Sunday was a slower day as I just went to two museums: the Kunstmuseum (fine arts museum) and Haus zum Kirschgarten. The Kunstmuseum was huge so some of the less interesting rooms I just quickly walked through. They had a lot of great paintings by Dali, Van Gogh, Monet and other notable artists. Their temporary exhibit right now is of the modern artists Mondrian, Newman and Flavin. I didn't find that very interesting since Mondrian and Newman's work is just lines on a canvas. Flavin does arrangements of different colored lights which was a little more interesting but I didn't think the pieces they had were very good. Some of his works that turned up in a google search look more interesting than what I saw.

  

One of the stoves. 

One of the clocks that's not very
convenient for telling time

Then I went to Haus zum Kirschgarten which  is an old house that is now a museum showing  what life was like in the 18th and 19th  centuries for the Basel elite. They had a lot of  interesting things on display. I thought the  porcelain stoves were really cool because  they're so big and heavily decorated. They also had a very large collection of  watches and clocks (2 large rooms!) and  though that doesn't sound very interesting, I  thought it was really cool. They're so decorative and on some of the clocks you had to search for where the clock actually was because their purpose was more for decoration, not for actually telling time.

In the afternoon since it was raining and so many things are closed on Sundays (not to mention my feet and legs were so sore from the previous day!) I decided to go see a movie and rest for a few hours. I saw The Butler which I really enjoyed! The movie had an intermission...I wish we had that in the United States!

That's it for Basel! I'll try to put up a post about Brussels tomorrow.