Berlin part 2

The Pergamon.
What else needs said? It's like the Louvre, the Brittish Museum, the Smithsonian. It's the grandfather of museums, a collection to be envied by other countries.
Actually, that goes for all of "museum island," which is supposed to one day be connected into one gigantic complex even bigger than the Louvre. Anyway, the Pergamon was big enough for me and it's lucky I got to see it, it's going to be closed from 2005-2010, if not longer, for rennovations.
There are 3 huge things in the Pergamon. Dozens upon dozens of smaller, and in some cases more notable things, but we'll start with the big things first: The Pergamon Alter, The Babylonian Ishtar Gate, and the Roman Market Gate of Miletus. All of these structures are massive, but only the Roman Gate of Miletus is 100% original, and it was under a net while they reconstruct it. Still, they are all at least partly original, which is about the best you can get for things over 2000 years old.
The Pergamon Alter is a 3 story reconstruction of the original one in the 2nd century Greek City of (you guessed it) Pergamon. The original freizes wrap around the walls of the room, telling the story of the gods battle against the giants (I think we tend to translate that as Titans, I'm not real up on my mythology, though). They're magnificently done, to say the least. I'd always heard the Greek statues referred to as "living stone," but never really seen it until then. These statues are frozen in motion in such a way that you can almost hear the crushing of bone and sword and spear. It's amazing, really.
By the way, "reconstructed" only goes for the actual walls, I think. The columns, freizes, and so on are original.
I took tons of pictures of the various greek statues, as you've probably noticed. Nashvillians, you should recongize one of them. She has no gold, or arms, for that matter, but it is the same dress and face that stands in our parthenon today. The original Parthenon Athena (who was duplicated in the 18th century with all the added gold and such) was a pleasant surprise to my visit. Note, also, the size of the parthenon columns. Pretty overwhelming to think everything was built that way, isn't it?
The Ishtar Gate, and the exhibit beyond, literally gives life to the biblical setting. Nebuchadnezzar II's throne room facade is there, along with the forementioned gate, which looms over the processional way in shining blue and orange. It is remarkable to walk through these artifacts and imagine their uses. I couldn't help but dream of building such a set for VBS back home, to show the kids what power the Isrealites were faced with on a nearly daily basis. We've all seen Egypt, but Babylon is too often forgotten.
The Market Gate of Miletus was part of a huge procession of Roman bits, including quite a few caesars and some other things I'm even less familiar with. The coin collection was impressive, with pieces from all throughout the empire. I got a shot of the Casta Regalia coins of the time. In other words, the ones from Regensburg.
I can't describe the Pergamon as a whole. I just can't do it. We hurried through the middle east exhibit, which featured a couple of maginificent prayer niches and a remarkable wooden ceiling, and didn't see whatever the exhibition was. Even without all that, it took us 5 hours. I don't think I'll be able to look at the ancient world the same again, which I guess was the point.
After the Pergamon, and a quick lunch courtesy once again of the breakfast bar, we went to the Berlin Zoo. If you didn't already know, the Berlin Zoo dates back to 1844, when it was expanded off the Royal Gardens (the Tiergarten, also a royal hunting ground). Today it boasts the most diverse species collection in the world, along with much of the original 19th century architecture (though not, thank god, many of the original cages).
The Zoo is not very big by American standards. Most of us were skeptical of the variety of animals that could possibly be in such a small space, but we soon discovered why. It's built very much like the old zoo, with small spaces seperated off from eachother. In the states we have this movement toward "natural" environments, where the animals wander around in a fascimile of the wild. The Berlin Zoo really doesn't. It's just a glassed in cage, or a open air part seperated by a pit.
The animals were amazing, though. I saw things I didn't even know existed. Some of these I tried to photograph but, as you may have noticed, they move a little too fast to manage this well.
The zoo is built for strolling through. It was a nice day, cold (it's always cold in Berlin), but clear. Tiff and I took are time exploring. She had to describe many of the animals there because I didn't even know they existed anymore. We saw one in the Rhino House staging an escape. He managed to get the food door open and was trying to get up the nerve to jump into the pit and go through it. I don't know if he ever made it or not.
Breakouts seem to be a problem there. I read about a gorilla escaping in June and a bear escaping in August. Luckily it was a vegetarian one. The grass is always greener, right?
The Zoo was nice. What else can I say about it? It was a Zoo. The creatures were fascinating, the architecture was more so. Many of the original buildings are still used, though not for their original functions. They mimic eastern architecture, mostly, showing the 19th century fixation with exploration.
After the Zoo we hit a few souvineer shops, then had mexican for dinner. The Mexican place by Checkpoint Charlie is delicious!! We went to B-Flat, a somewhat famous local Jazz club, but the house band wasn't looking so hot and the place was deserted. I decided 8 Euro for such a venue just wasn't my thing. So we wandered and saw a good bit of the city at night before coming back to crash.
Sunday morning I tried to get to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedschtniskirche to go to the world-church at the foot of it, but we made it there too late. We probably wouldn't have had time to stay through the whole service anyway. The "world-church" is the flat building beside the "hollow-tooth" of the actual Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It's made of thousands of glass panes set to form a globe around the modernesque church. It's not open very often, it seems like.
Since we couldn't get in there, Tiff and I wandered our way down to the Ka-De-Weh, a huge Macy's-like store that houses a bit of everything (it's something like 2 city blocks in diameter, 9 floors, just insane). Lucky for me, it was closed. So we meandered our way back to the station, got on the train, and came home to do all the homework we'd neglected.
Quite a trip, really. The tour encompassed most of the "typical" Berlin things you're probably worried that I didn't mention here. I'll try and get that page done soon. But Berlin, like Paris and NYC, is just not a city that can ever be seen completely. By the time you think you've seen it all, they've rebuilt something or put in something new. Still, I'm looking forward to a chance to one day come back and see what they've done.