Warsaw/Berlin

So you know how sometimes you hear a noise, and you turn around and around and can't figure out what it is? So you think either you're crazy and are hearing things, or you aren't crazy and someone's making noises near you and then hiding? Well, the mystery is over. Those noises are the pigeons in Warsaw. It's true. Every faint noise you hear in the United States is a pigeon in Warsaw.

So now you know.

Now I'll back up to Berlin, then skidaddle back to Warsaw and get all depressing on you. Now that I think about it, parts of Berlin will be a little depressing, too. Gah.

BERLIN
Not counting the Pissy Man and my encounter on the U-Bahn, Berlin was absolutely amazing. I spent just three and a half days there because I feel like I'm running out of time, and crammed five or six things into each day.

I stood at Brandeburg Gate (or Brandeburger Tor, to keep the tradition the fatty seems to admire so) and went to Checkpoint Charlie. I sat in the stadium that was the site of the 1936 Olympics but is now a modernized, cosmopolitan arena revamped for this year's World Cup. I saw the area of the stands Hitler had built for him so he could shake the athletes hands after they received their gold medals, and then left the area when he realized Jesse Owens was going to win a gold medal because he didn't want to "shake the hand of a negro."

I walked through the area, now essentially a pit in the ground called the Topography of Terror, where the Nazi headquarters were located. There was all kinds of controversy about what to build there, and proposals went from a public park to a practice driving range for people without licenses. In the end, they decided on a memorial, but ran out of money early in the project, simplified the design and still didn't have enough money. So they kept it as this pit, which seems fitting. The exhibit housed there, an outdoor exhibit with signs posted about the camps and the Nuremburg Trials, was supposed to be temporary but drew so many visitors that they decided to leave it up.

I walked around inside the Rotes Rathaus, which essentially translates to Red City Hall. There are sculptures and artwork everywhere, and it feels a little more like a museum than a place of government.

I stood inside the Reichstag, which was burned down pre-WWII, and Hitler used that as validation to imprison all communists. The building was only recently unveiled in its current state, which is this amazing glass structure with a dome on top that visitors can stand in to look down on the Parliament floor.

I went to the Neue Synagoge, which was almost all burned down, but was partially rebuilt very recently. What was left of it after the war was actually torn down around 1950, I think it was, because it wasn't stable. I think it was the late 80s when they rebuilt what they could from what was left.

Next to Checkpoint Charlie is a museum, that was actually opened while the Berlin Wall was still up, chronicling different escape attempts. It exhibits cars that people escaped in, two hollowed-out surfboards that a woman hid between, a hot-air balloon that a family escaped in, and more things I can't think of right now.

I'd write about some of my favorite paintings at the art museums, but my time is running a little thin and I want at least 10 minutes with the NY Times. Some of the art at the Gemaldegalerie and the Alte Nationalgalerie was amazing, though. I think I might really like Louis Cranach, especially this one painting of the fountain of youth. It's like a whole story -- you see these old women (saggy boobs and all) climbing feebly into this pool and get out on the other side young and beautiful (and, of course, perky). The middle of the pool has a small statue of Venus and Cupid, which I guess means that the fountain of youth is really just love, but cheesiness aside, the painting was pretty amazing. I really wanted something of it, but they didn't have a postcard, so I bought a slide. So now I have one little slide.

Oh, one more thing, Berlin kinda reminds me of the Big Dig.

ROOMMATES IN BERLIN
Samo people will appreciate this one. Arika, a girl I met in my hostel in Berlin is from Japan, but she went to Peninsula for a few years of high school. Her brother even ran cross country there. It's like when I was in Brussels a girl I met went to high school with my friend Dari, who I don't think reads this thing (because she's clearly not as cool as the rest of you). Maybe there really is something to this six degrees of separation.

WARSAW
I arrived in Warsaw at about 5:30 this morning on an overnight train from Berlin, and after dropping my stuff at a hostel, basically sat in a coffee shop staring at the wall for a few hours before I could finally get moving. But once I did...

Warsaw's a pretty interesting place. I think I read that something like 80 percent of it was destroyed in 1944(?) on Hitler's orders after the uprising, but it's been rebuilt since then. The weird thing is, most of it still feels and looks really old. There are aspects of modernization all around, and parts of the city are more modern, but the centre (suitably called Old Town) is all cobblestones streets and old buildings.

The Jewish Historical Institute here is wrenching. It's a whole exhibit about the lead-up to the ghetto uprising and then the uprising itself. (the Warsaw Historical Museum covers its aftermath, but most of that's in Polish) After the exhibit I watched this video that showed clips of emaciated kids begging in the streets, rolling around and making themselves look as helpless as possible, and other hungry people walking right by them. Street vendors, who were just as poor as anyone, had to start putting barbedwire around their food so kids didn't run by and steal it.

The video also showed the guards throwing these stringy bodies, basically piles of bones wrapped in flesh), on to wagons. The limbs would flop over the side violently and the guards would swing another dead body on top. Sometimes a body would flop over the edge and fall on the ground while they were wheeling the carts away. They wouldn't notice until the back wheel hit a bump in the road, which was maybe a knee or a head or any other body part. Then they'd sigh (tough job to wheel bodies around), walk around the side, and throw the body back atop the pile.

And on that note, I'm about out of time, but I'll try to pick it back up a little -- there was one synagogue left standing in Warsaw after the war, the Nozyk Synagogue. The doors were locked when I got there so I couldn't go in, but I did get a picture of the outside, which is painted in front a yellow color that I'd call tacky on any other building. About five minutes later some police yelled at two other people who took pictures of it, so apparently that's against the rules.

I'm not sure why I thought that would pick it up, except maybe because yellow is happy (unless it's wallpaper and you're surrounded by it), and at least something's left.

One more day in Warsaw before I head to Krakow, where I actually have someone to stay with (Thanks, Kansas Paul!).