Day 125: Art and Culture

My basic goal for the day was to visit a couple of the museums on Berlin's aptly named Museum Island. When I went to buy the ticket it turned out that the cost of the region ticket for all 5 museums on the island cost the same as it would for just the 2, so I spent the next 7 hours exploring all the museums. There was a strong antiquities presence in most of them, which suited me just fine, and while I liked some more than others I'd say they were all worthwhile.

For the most part I'm not going to break down each individual museum, but the Pergamon Museum (one of the two I'd initially planned on) deserves special mention. Like the British, Germany has a bit of a notorious reputation for going into less organized and developed countries in the past, excavating sites, and taking what they find home with them. It was interesting to see some of the things taken from places like Troy and Pergamon where I had seen the sites in Turkey, but not what was found in them.

Also in the museum was the famous Ishtar gate of Babylon.

Test rest of the museums had a mix of ancient sculpture and art, Egyptian hieroglyphics, early Christian art, and more recent sculptures and paintings.

In the middle of the museums I had a quick lunch of currywurst, which is basically what it sounds like (sausage with curry powder on it). It is pretty much everywhere in Berlin, and easily the most common street food.

It rained off and on through the day, and by the time I'd finished the museums the temperature had cooled off quite a bit, so I decided to walk around some more. I started off just following one the elevated public transit train tracks because it had some interesting street art around it, but my walk ended up getting pretty elaborate. It included the East Side Gallery, which is a stretch of the Berlin Wall that has murals painted on it. To be honest, I wasn't very impressed with it. It seems to be all commissioned pieces that I didn't find very skillful or interesting - but there was a lot of other interesting art in the area. I'm going to save that for future posts, as I'm trying to figure out how to document probably the coolest street art city in the world without being too overwhelming to those who don't care.

The real treat of the evening though was exploring some of the little sub/counter culture spots in some of Berlin's grittier areas. My travels included visiting an anarchist shanty community, a bar/club in the basement of a derelict apartment complex, a beach club that had basketball courts and a skateboard park, and a lot of people just chilling out, and an overgrown lot full of people who live in tents on the lot having a drum circle. These are not the types of bars you find back home.

I want to get some laundry done tomorrow morning, but haven't thought much past that. Still have lots of things I want to see in the city, so I imagine tomorrow will be another day with a lot of walking.

Here's a final few night pictures, before I go to bed.