WARNING: This ended up being a longer post than I originally intended. If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, skip to the end for a surprise.
After having visited most of the major landmarks and tourist sites in one fell swoop, I had a few days on my own to wander, explore, follow up on recommendations and see what I would see.
One of the best recommendations I got was from Katie, who insisted (and rightfully so) that I visit Kunsthaus Tacheles.
Right now, the place serves as an art center housing a café, art studios, tons of galleries, concert spaces, and the whole thing turns into a bar/club every night for the Pub Crawl or other parties.
Every inch of this place is covered in paintings/posters/graffiti/stickers/canvas/anything you can think of, really. The "back yard" is full of more galleries, sculptures, tables and chairs and places to hang out.
My kind of scene.
The building apparently has a history almost as colorful as its insides. It was built as the entrance to a big shopping mall/department store in the early 1900's. That quickly went out of business, and since then it's been home to a showroom for the German General Electric Company, the Nazis as the central SS office and a prison, the German Free Trade Union Federation, and a movie theater, until it was scheduled for demolition in the 1980's. They closed the theater and removed the dome that once crowned this place, but work was stopped in 1990 when a group of artists moved in and went through the motions of having it registered as a historical site.
It's funny that this keystone of Germany counterculture is situated in one is now one of the most gentrified neighborhoods in Berlin. On the one hand, the site needs tourism to fuel itself. But seeing something again and again through the tourist's camera lens has the effect of making it remarkably trite. I imagine it's difficult to maintain the integrity of the commune as a vibrant place for art and expression (and a fair share of radicalism) while becoming more and more of a tourist trap.
Another great Katie recommendation: The Pergamon Museum, museum of Classical antiquities, the Ancient Near East, and Islamic Art.
Massive Greek temple:
The Ishtar Gate, which was at the entrance to the inner city of Babylon, built around 500 B.C.:
Massive. Just fantastic.
I spent one day visiting the sites just outside of Berlin: the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and memorial, and Potsdam. I went with a girl I met my first day in Berlin, Nerea, who is from Spain, living in Norway, but currently on a tour of Europe.
Well, needless to say, the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camps were depressing. It was more difficult than I had expected it to be for me to walk through the grounds and actually see the sites that I had previously only studied from a safe distance. Established in 1933 as a prison for political opposition, Oranienburg was one of the first sites that would later become known as "concentration camps," and in many ways served as a model for those to come. In 1936, Sachsenhausen was built to expand upon the idea. You know the rest of the story. Again, as with Tacheles, it felt disconcerting how such a site was becoming a tourist trap. Many people who visit concentration camps do so respectfully, whether they be mourners or descendants or simply individuals learning about a terrible story in history. But I couldn't help but grimace at the girls making frowny faces behind the gate reading "ARBEIT MACHT FREI."
On a brighter note!
Nerea and I had a deliciously filling lunch of döner kebabs, the German equivalent of shawarma, those Greek/Middle Eastern sandwiches I love so much.
Then Potsdam!
Potsdam played home to Prussian kings right up until World War I. It is also, of course, the site of the Potsdam Conference at the end of World War II. Nowadays, it's a cute little town just at the outskirts of Berlin's metro area, that just happens to have a few palaces and a spectacular garden.
Unfortunately, Nerea and I got there just after they stopped admitting people into the palaces. So we took some pictures outside and went on a walk through the huge garden (perhaps "small forest" would be a more accurate term).
Neues Palais:
The last excellent recommendation I got: the Fleamarket (Flohmarkt) at Mauerpark!
This is a huge, weekly fleamarket a little bit off the path so well-trod by tourists. TONS of stands selling everything, from antiques to clothing to art to knick knacks to bikes to furniture to tools to fresh fruit/vegetables to spices...you get the idea. Plus tons of great (cheap) food.
After walking for a few hours through all of the stalls and hordes of people, I was just considering heading home when I decided to take a seat at a little amphitheater just beyond the market in the park.
I AM SO GLAD I MADE THIS DECISION.
Bearpit Karaoke.
I don't have the slightest idea why it is called that, but after sitting for a few minutes the amphitheater was filled to capacity and then overflowing with people waiting for the karaoke to start. Berliners really, really love Bearpit Karaoke, apparently.
It was hilarious watching them belt out American karaoke standards, shamelessly, for the crowd.
This guy opened the show:
Spectacular.
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