To Berlin and back

Palabra del día: regresar
Translation: to return
Frase: Estoy muy contenta de regresar a Granada después de mucho tiempo viajando.
Translation: I'm so happy to return to Granada after so much time traveling.

Comida del día: tapas
Yes, tapas are Spanish, but our second to last night in Berlin we went to a tapas restaurant that had some of the best tapas I've ever eaten.  They were so good that we went back the next night for their weekly paella night!  I think the fact that I was perfectly happy eating Spanish food our last two nights in Berlin means that it was time to come home to Granada.

Foto del día: I can't decide, so I'll give you two!  Some of the most unique art I saw on my trip was at Berlin's East Side Gallery, which is a remaining segment of the Berlin wall that is now covered in a variety of street art.

A few people asked me at the end of my trip if I was sick of traveling.  Before the trip started, I was sure that halfway through I would be ready to stop.  Surprisingly, it was only on the last three days of the trip that I started to get sick of museums, living in a hostel, constantly looking at a map, and going out for every meal.  The places we visited were so varied that I was always excited when we arrived somewhere new.  I've had a luxuriously long vacation, and for me it turned out to be the perfect length.

So, about Berlin.  My word for Berlin is "young," in reference to both the architecture and the population.  Like Budapest, much of Berlin was destroyed during World War II and ignored during the communist era.  Unlike Budapest where there are still bulldozers everywhere, Berlin's post-communism "reconstruction" seems complete, with lots of modern buildings and memorials.  For example, the Reichstag Parliament building has a giant transparent dome that signifies that the government won't keep any secrets (and that tourists are allowed to climb up for a nice view into the building and of the whole city).  The city was also young because there were young people everywhere, though it seemed to me that almost half of them spoke Spanish rather than German: I had heard that Spanish people are flocking to Germany to find jobs after graduating from college, since there are no jobs to be found in Spain, and based on my observations that seemed to be completely true (and would also explain why the tapas restaurant was so good!)

Other common things in Berlin: there seemed to be vegan cafes on every corner (which I loved) and some great up and coming neighborhoods with fun vintage boutiques (which Annie loved).  Berlin was quite a contrast to Rome or Venice, both of which have held on to so much of their history, but overall it felt like a city meant for living in rather than a city meant for touristing.

Despite its lack of historical sights, Berlin certainly isn't lacking in culture.  My favorite part of my time in Berlin was, by far, going to a philharmonic concert.  Whenever I want to listen to a piece of classical music, I always try to find a recording by the Berlin Philharmonic, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to hear them live.  We bought the cheapest tickets but our seats ended up sitting behind the stage and directly above the horn section.  This meant that I could hear the horns perfectly and watch the conductor the entire time, so if I tried hard enough I could almost imagine that I was playing with the orchestra in their gorgeous rendition of Dvorak's cello concerto...but then I was snapped back to reality in the second half, in which they played a piece based off of an 80s punk rock band that had musicians moving through the audience, sounds I had never heard before, and a few of the older audience members walking out in the middle.  It was a unique piece and (obviously) very well done, but since I had never heard the Berlin Philharmonic before I would have preferred to hear something a bit more classic.

Before going to the concert, I went to the musical instruments museum next door, and saw some very strange instruments, like this cross between a violin and a horn:

And this strange loopy thing which is apparently a tenor trombone in B-flat and F:

I also walked through Berlin's gorgeous snowy Tiergarten Park, where I found these cows:

Berlin was also the final stop in my exploration of the Jewish history of Eastern Europe.  I went to three Jewish sights.  First, I went to the Holocaust memorial, which was a field filled with rows and rows of pillars of different heights, and an accompanying exhibit that explained the experiences of various people and families who were victims of the Holocaust.  Next I went to the Great Synagogue, which used to be one of the biggest in Europe but was completely destroyed during the war.  Now, the facade and three rooms have been restored, and there is a patio in the back where you can see where the bimah once was and where the congregation once sat.  The Great Synagogue was also interesting because the architecture was modeled after the Alhambra - yet another piece of Spain that has found its way to Berlin.  However, it was a bit of a shock to see the beautiful facade and then to walk into a building that remains halfway destroyed.  Finally, I went to the Jewish museum,  which was built in 2001, with maze-like architecture and an exhibit in the basement that is also a memorial to the Holocaust.  

Restored facade of the Great Synagogue

Going to all of these sights where so many horrible things happened to Jewish people was not only a chance for me to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, but also prompted me to think a bit about my own religion.  I've never been very serious about celebrating Jewish holidays (in the past year I've been to mass more times than synagogue...), but thinking about how much Jews have struggled throughout history to practice their religion, I've realized the importance of practicing my religion and sharing it with other people.  This doesn't mean that I'm going to start going to services every week, especially since the values and the community of the religion has always been more important to me than the purely religious aspects.  However, I think I will make a conscious effort going forward to share my religion with other people, and since Spain has so few Jewish people this semester should be a great opportunity to do that.

And so the longest and by far the best vacation of my life has come to an end, with classes starting up again on Monday.  Normally I would be dreading going back to classes after vacation, but after such an amazing trip and with the fact that my classes are in the lovely city of Granada, I really have absolutely nothing to complain about.