Bonus Day in Germany

Wednesday I had the morning to explore Berlin a little more.   It was fun to be on my own - without a set itinerary.  It allowed me to take public transport (the wrong way 1st) and wander and  'feel' the city more. I visited the New National Museum and saw part of the Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art.  Many of the exhibits combined various medium but always in a minimalistic way.  The pieces were more unique than many I have seen. I went inside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church which was destroyed in 1942 and stands as a strong symbol of the destruction of war .... and I marveled at how much water there actually is in Berlin. I saw a part of the Berlin wall.... I listened to some local conversations.....  Speaking of conversations, I have known Kerstin and Dr. Kai Schellhorn a director at the Aspen Institute for quite a while but until this trip, I didn't know that she grew up in East Berlin and he in West Berlin.

Talking to them about their experiences was facinating.  This combined with seeing the divide between new and old ways of thinking and architecture as well as things like the vast rolling space of the Holocost Museum was much more powerful and distrubing than I had expected.  It made it made it all more ........

.......... Human.