So, it’s been a while. I’m back in Miami.
As you presumably know, I spent a while traveling around Europe. I have particular problems with the term “EuroTrip” — which may later be explored here on this blog — but that was essentially the idea. Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Copenhagen, Lund, Paris, Flavigny, Gubbio, Madrid again. 4 European capitals, 4 smaller cities. 29 days. 6 cemeteries, 13 museums (‘though heavily stacked up in Berlin), only 3 churches. 3 synagogues, too. Moved my luggage 13 times. 5 flights, 2 longer bus rides, 6 longer train rides. 3 hostels, 5 couchsurfers, 3 friends’ houses/flats. Only 1 novel, and 1 magazine. But the novel was in Spanish and 667 pages long.
In the past, when I’ve taken a grand trip, I’ve made one or two posts on my blog with pictures and descriptions. I’m not going to do that today. Instead, I’ll take a page out of the way blogging services like tumblr work, and keep it small. What I’m going to do: over the next few days, I’ll post each day (as I have time) a photograph (or two) and an excerpt from my travel journal, which will probably be brushed up and expanded for the blog. (To be fair, I won’t change all that much. You’ll notice my shortcuts, like dropping the subject a lot more than is really called for. When it’s obviously me, why write “I”?) The idea will be to highlight the best things I did, and ignore some of the worst. Not that there was much bad. Some days the writing will align with the photographs; some days they may not. So it is.
In any case, when better to start then today? First up, Berlin.
The room at the end of the Axis of the Holocaust tower, in the Jewish Museum of Berlin. A giant, empty room, with only a hole at the top for letting in light
Friday, 02 July. Berlin.
I’m sitting now in a Jewish cemetery on Groß Hamburger Straße — I’m the only one here. People look in occasionally, but almost no one opens the gate to come in. In the New Synagogue, the exhibits mentioned this cemetery, just down the street — the oldest Jewish cemetery in Berlin. All the graves have no headstones, now; it’s just green. They were torn down; they don’t exist anymore. There’s a sprinkler in the distance watering the foliage. It’s beautiful, and quite peaceful for the middle of Berlin. I wonder what it was like with gravestones? There are more than 5,000 graves in this tiny space. They have a sign at the entrance asking men to cover their heads, so I’ve got a yarmulke on from the box below the sign. First time I’ve worn one of these in quite a while.
It’s interesting how Berlin today reacts to Judaism.
This morning, I went to the Museum für Gegenwart (the Hamburger Banhof) — a modern art museum in what was once a train station. The temporary exhibition was work by Bruce Nauman, and called Dream Passage — there was some very intriguing experiential work that I rather liked. The permanent collection wasn’t bad, either. I enjoyed the museum. Upstairs, there was an exhibition called “Models.” On one half, there was an interplay between these super-detailed bug models (made by Alfred Keller) and Gerd Rohling’s work, using plastic containers and lighting to make them look like fancy glass bowls, pottery, etc. The other half was this really cool piece called Schattenspiel (Shadow Play) where, by shining light on toys and random objects arrayed on a table, the artist (Hans-Peter Feldmann) created a shadow world. Then, and perhaps most interesting, was a piece called Spielzeugland (Toyland), by Jochen Alexander Freydank — a short live-action film that won an Oscar (2007), a very moving film. (It appears to be on youtube, but I couldn’t find subtitled versions — look for it if you speak German.)