24/10/2010: Berlin Revisited

Spent five days of this week in Berlin with my Dad – bizarre to be back there so soon (returned from a trip there just a month earlier with Monty and Arnold etc.). Unfortunately I had a cold the entire stay. It was a bit depressing to be in the same city but going to completely different places – walking past Watergate in the daytime, seeing Teufelsberg in the distance from up inside the Fernsehturm, not visiting Keb-bup in the small hours... But I did see more of the place. We got out to Wannsee and visited the mansion house where the Nazi’s proposed the Final Solution – the Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz – very bleak down by the lake this time of year. Went to the communist memorial at Treptower Park. Went up the Fernsehturm twice, once in the day, once at night. Loxx Am Alex – Miniatur Welten Berlin, one of the world’s largest model railway layouts (awesome). The Bauhaus Archiv – they had a brilliant exhibition of experimental work by students of (and including works by) Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a few nice Schlemmer sculptures, a handful of excellent architectural models including Mies Van Der Roe’s gargantuan, un-realized glass skyscraper. The Pergamon Museum - amazing, particularly Ishtar gate and the Pergamon itself. The DDR Museum too. All in all I guess we saw quite a lot over just four full days…

A eugenicist doctor examines the eyes of twins – from a display in the Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz: