Berlin
Third time to Berlin and it did not disappoint. I had never done the museums before, so we got tickets to all of the museums on Museum Island, which are all next to the Berliner Dom. We started with the Pergamon, which housed huge transported pieces of architecture from the near and Middle East, like a massive Greek frieze, full archways from a marketplace in the Middle East, and several portions of decorated walls from Uruk.
Everything was grand in scale and impressive in detail. We then went to the national art gallery, where there were some beautiful sculptures and one gorgeous room of paintings by the European masters. The rest of the art was mostly poor to mediocre with the exception of one romantic piece depicting a hawk attacking a dove and a huge painting in the classical style of Prince Wilhelm riding into Jerusalem on a white horse as the population throws palm fronds before his horse and entourage.
We also visited the museum beneath the new Holocaust Memorial. It was expertly designed, melting away into the subject itself. The terrifying quotes and photos made for one of the most visceral experiences I've ever had in any museum.
We stayed in extra rooms at Berlin Brandenburg International School, a boarding school in Kleinmachnow. According to the headmaster, the facility was originally built as a top secret Nazi research facility, then used as a communist training center, before being repurposed as this boarding school. The architecture clearly reflected its heritage, but the insides were nice and modern.
On Sunday, Spencer and I walked to the nearby church, St. Thomas Morus, to attend mass. It was just as we expected, and just like when I attended mass in Berlin last summer, the only words I recognized in the homily were freundschaft, leben, and frieden (friendship, love, and peace).
We gave a performance that afternoon on the school's stage in their multipurpose room, rehearsed some new music, relaxed in the student lounge (Brandon H. and I worked on a 1000-piece puzzle!), then to Croatia very early in the morning!
