Owner: Berlin O Philia URL:http://www.berlin101.com Join Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 05:05:25 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Berlin guide blog, with reviews, articles and tips about tourist attractions, flights and transportation, museums, hotels, foods, shopping, and more. Site statistics:Click here
The Berlin Wall is Dying 2007-09-16 03:54:41 The East-Side Gallery is the only part of the original Berlin
Wall that is still standing, relatively unharmed, with its beautiful historical graffiti on. Located in Friedrichshain, near the Ostbahnhof railway station, it is about 1,300 meters in length (0.8 miles), covered with over 100 paintings, some of which are real masterpieces.
When we went to [...] Read more:Dying
Berlin Wall - East-Side Gallery 2007-09-14 03:25:26 The East-Side Gallery
was created in 1990, during the first year after Berlin
Wall’s collapse. Hundreds of artists from all over the world came to Berlin, and covered some 1300 meters of the remains of November 1989 events, with 106 stunning wall-paintings, most in a graffiti-like style. The paintings are said to reflect the artists’ [...]
The Berlin Wall 2007-09-12 12:24:16 The Berlin
Wall (Berliner Mauer) was a separation barrier between East and West Germany, which divided Berlin for 28 years.
The Wall’s construction begun on August 13 1961 (funny, exactly 10 years before I was born) by the East German communist regime, as an “Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart”, and became an iconic symbol of the cold war.
There [...]
Germany: Land of Ideas 2007-09-10 05:54:44 Last year, we came to Berlin a month after the FIFA World Cup. I don’t watch much football (”soccer” in American), but I actually like the game when it’s played well (unlike the way it’s played in Israel. We do have an occasional shining star every once in a while, but they usually go to [...] Read more:Germany
Yitzhak Rabin Strasse 2007-09-08 03:05:25 As we were walking along the 17th June Street towards the Brandenburg Gate, we came across a familiar name on one of the street signs - Yitzhak Rabin, our former prime minister, who was assassinated on November 4th, 1995. I was there, in the demonstration after which he was shot by Yigal Amir, the disgusting [...]
Berlin Town Hall (Rotes Rathaus) 2007-10-02 05:03:04 Berlin Town Hall, known as Rotes Rathaus (the red Town Hall, because, well, of its color), was constructed from 1861–69, according to plans by Hermann Friedrich Waesemann. In 1879, the exterior was decorated with the “Stony Chronicle” on the first floor (36 plates, each 6m in length), showing scenes from the history of Berlin. Read more:Berlin
SATURN: Gadgets and Consumer Electronics 2007-09-30 11:05:58 Berlin, as previously stated on this blog, is very cheap compared to most other European cities. So the Saturn stores can make a good example of how low prices can actually be in Berlin.
The Euro’s high exchange rate makes some of Saturn prices expansive compared with the US prices. But if you’re from another region [...] Read more:Consumer
Berlin, Alexanderplatz - the novel 2007-09-28 05:34:58 Berlin Alexanderplatz is a novel
by Alfred Döblin, published in 1929. It is a story about a small time criminal, Franz Biberkopf, who at the beginning of the book had just got out of prison, his struggle to become a good rehabilitated citizen, and his road back to the underworld. It is situated in the [...] Read more:Berlin
Ostalgie 2007-10-14 04:13:45 After dealing with the commemoration of the darker side of the communist regime in East Germany, I turn now to deal with the phenomenon of Ostalgie, also mentioned here before, in relation to the current situation of the German Unification.
Ostalgie is like it sounds - the German word for nostalgia for life in the former [...]
Communist Era: more memory sites and museums 2007-10-12 04:09:14 In the website of the city of Berlin you can find a lot of very useful information about sites and museums, dedicated to the commemoration of the wall, its victims, and the GDR (German Democratic Republic, as East Germany called itself) period and works.
Among the memorial sites for the victims of the Berlin Wall you [...] Read more:Communist
Communist Era commemoration: Checkpoint Charlie 2007-10-10 04:01:50 The communist era is heavily commemorated in Berlin, with memorials, museums, special tours and more, scattered all over the city. We have already mentioned and elaborated about the Berlin Wall, and mentioned the sweet and sour issue of German Unification, but there still remains a lot to be said. Read more:Communist
, Checkpoint
, Charlie
The Spree River 2007-10-08 09:22:33 The Spree
is the river that passes through Berlin. The river runs through Saxony, Brandenburg and Berlin, and is approximately 400 km in length. Its source is on the Czech border, and its final portion runs through the city center of Berlin, and joins the Havel River
in the western quarters of the city.
[...]
Tiergarten 2007-10-06 03:30:32 Tiergarten (translation: “animal garden”) is Berlin’s Central Park (although somewhat smaller than New York’s). It is located in the heart of the city, and is a popular outdoor oasis for Berliners and tourists.
Is the German Unification a Failure? 2007-10-04 07:35:03 About a fifth of the German
people would like to have the Berlin Wall back. 74% of the former residents of East-Germany say they feel like second-class citizens.
The 17th German Unification Day was celebrated all over Germany yesterday, but the above mentioned figures may have clouded the celebration..
The survey, conducted by the German independent opinion [...]
Berlin Must-sees: Nikolaiviertel (Nikolai Quarter) 2007-10-04 05:02:11 Nikolaiviertel is a small district in the historic center, part of Mitte, near Alexanderplatz. The district, which borders the Spree River, contained some of the oldest buildings in Berlin
before it was destroyed in WW2. Its reconstruction began only on 1979, as a part of the preparations for the city’s 750th anniversary, and took 8 [...]
Ampelmann, the East German traffic light man 2007-10-18 04:25:14 My personal favorite Ostalgie item, as I mentioned before, is the Ampelmann, the man in the trafficlight
s of East German
y (”Ampel” is “traffic-light” in German).
My first encounter with the Ampelmann was actually in a traffic-light. I immediately liked that cute darling. And then I found out about his oh so naïve and sweet [...]
Ostalgie in Berlin 2007-10-16 04:19:35 The official Berlin
tourism site offers a program for East Berlin nostalgia tours, which you can find here. They claim that “The recent history in Berlin has many aspects and different ways of handling. On one hand there is the difficult historical discussion, on the other hand is the (n)ostalgic mood… Our tour shows both [...]
The Lives of Others 2007-10-22 06:11:16 The Oscar winning film “The Lives
of Others
” from 2006 (”Das Leben der Anderen” in German) is another film about the days of the former German Democratic Republic, very different in ambience from the film Goodbye Lenin!.
Click on the picture to buy the DVD.
Goodbye Lenin! 2007-10-20 05:21:05 The film GoodbyeLenin
!, from 2003, was the most prominent example of Ostalgie to the world outside Germany. The film is basically about a son who, for his mother’s health, tries to create a make-believe world, in which the Wall didn’t come done and the GDR didn’t disappear from the face of the earth.
Click on [...]
Hello from Berlin… 2007-10-25 04:16:29 You probably noticed we did not update the blog for a few days now. Well, due to lousy planning and a flood of irrelevant event from the uninteresting realm of everyday life, we have flown off to our yearly vacation, in Berlin
, natürlich, without preparing enough posts in advance. But I cannot leave you with [...] Read more:Hello
, hellip
Berlin Must Sees: Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church 2007-11-03 06:13:09 The Kaiser
Wilhelm MemorialChurch
is a protestant church, located at the Breitscheidplatz, one end of the famous Kurfürstendamm boulevard, in the center of former West Berlin
. The church was damaged in the war, and left in ruins as a monument to peace and reconciliation.
Berlin - City of Lights 2007-11-01 04:04:40 Paris may be usually known as the city of lights, and it is true that most cities look more impressive when night falls, but this year we got a special treat, and came to Berlin
during the third annual Festival of Lights
.
       Â
Berlin, a Kingdom of Pastries 2007-11-09 03:34:41 Culinarily speaking, Berlin
is a city of great diversity and almost endless choice - with dining choices ranging all the way from American junk to the oriental delicacies. There is, of course, the huge selection of street foods, including all varieties of wursts and sausages, pizzas, soups, Turkish döner, and all kinds of sandwiches with [...] Read more:Kingdom
, Pastries
KaDeWe - A Temple of Abundance 2007-11-07 05:57:36 This famous and humongous department store, Kaufhaus Des Westens (KaDeWe in short), is a major attraction, almost a legend, especially its sixth floor, the food department, which is a temple for the “abundance society” of late capitalism in the Western world. Read more:Temple
, Abundance
Shopping in Berlin: Ku’damm 2007-11-05 05:44:28 Ku’damm is the nickname given to the Kurfürstendamm, the long boulevard sometimes considered as Berlin
’s “Champs-Elysées” or “5th Avenue”. The boulevard stretches for 3.5 km, from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, through the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf borough to Halensee.
The boulevard takes its name from the former Electors (Kurfüsten) of the Roman Empire. During the separation of the [...] Read more:Shopping
Berlin Must Sees: Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church 2007-11-03 06:13:09 The Kaiser
Wilhelm MemorialChurch
is a protestant church, located at the Breitscheidplatz, one end of the famous Kurfürstendamm boulevard, in the center of former West Berlin
. The church was damaged in the war, and left in ruins as a monument to peace and reconciliation.
Berlin - City of Lights 2007-11-01 04:04:40 Paris may be usually known as the city of lights, and it is true that most cities look more impressive when night falls, but this year we got a special treat, and came to Berlin
during the third annual Festival of Lights
.
Hello from Berlin… 2007-10-25 04:16:29 You probably noticed we did not update the blog for a few days now. Well, due to lousy planning and a flood of irrelevant events from the uninteresting realm of everyday life, we have flown off to our yearly vacation, in Berlin
, natürlich, without preparing enough posts in advance. But I cannot leave you with [...] Read more:Hello
The Lives of Others 2007-10-22 06:11:16 The Oscar winning film “The Lives
of Others
” from 2006 (”Das Leben der Anderen” in German) is another film about the days of the former German Democratic Republic, very different in ambience from the film Goodbye Lenin!.
Click on the picture to buy the DVD.
Goodbye Lenin! 2007-10-20 05:21:05 The film GoodbyeLenin
!, from 2003, was the most prominent example of Ostalgie to the world outside Germany. The film is basically about a son who, for his mother’s health, tries to create a make-believe world, in which the Wall didn’t come done and the GDR didn’t disappear from the face of the earth.
Click on [...]
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