Cemeteries tell a story, and the Weissensee Cemetery in Berlin is a giant historical war novel. However the story is not necessarily about what’s in the novel, it’s about what is missing from the novel. Weissensee is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world and is the resting place for 115,000 Jews who […]
I lean my head back on the seat and gaze out the window as I gently rock back and forth. The landscape accelerates by me in a blur and I allow my brain to explore it’s dark depths. I think, “this could be anywhere, it looks like Illinois, Nebraska, or Wisconsin. I continue to suspend […]
Put the words German and Food together and you think about hearty, heavy food – with visions of sausages, sauerkraut, potato dumplings, spaetzle, and cabbage dancing in your head – and sitting heavily in your stomach. Being my first trip to Germany this is exactly what I was expecting, however my first night in Berlin […]
Politics are normally conducted behind closed doors – seedy deals, negotiations, handshakes, promises, and sometimes even sexual favors (aka – the blue dress). But in Berlin, a city with a dramatic political past, politics are transparent. Politics The Reichstag building was part of that dramatic past and paid the price in many ways including burning […]
“Be careful, watch your head.” the guide says as he shines a flashlight up towards the low doorway. I’m startled upon hearing his warning – I look up and break my laser like concentration on the floor leaving my feet to fend for themselves on the uneven ground as I watch out for my forehead. […]
Even fun has a shelf life – this is what runs through my mind as I walk around Spreepark, the abandoned, dilapidated amusement park in Berlin. I can’t help but get visions of the many cemeteries I have visited in the past – the former amusement park is like a graveyard of fun. I walk […]
I walked deep into the middle and with each uneven step I seemed to descend from where I had started at street level. I could no longer see the horizon; all I could see were gray stones surrounding me, towering over me. Under my feet was a grid pattern which seemed to simulate the larger […]
Our short, spunky guide named Grit had us all circle around her in the cold dimly lit prison cell and started by asking us a simple question, “What is the first article of your country’s constitution?” The group was international and one by one each person tried their best to remember their country’s political backbone […]
I had heard it over and over – “you must go to Berlin – you’ll love it.” I had tucked it away in my ‘planning’ folder and was sad that I didn’t have time to stop there last summer as we drove through Germany for the Mongol Rally. So this year I was determined to […]
This was it – one of the main reasons I took on the Mongol Rally in the first place. I had been scared to drive in foreign countries on 4 wheels for a very long time now – but that was about to end. We left Brussels and I took the wheel for the first […]
