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sister_luckIsn't that a wonderfully pretentious title?
While we were drinking our cafe latte sitting outside a Vietnamese-run bakery plus Imbiss, i.e. a fast-food place selling chips (B.E.)/fries (A.E.) and the ubiquitous Currywurst, Mr Obama took the back entrance to his hotel and the crowd of people standing in front of the hotel kept the police officers busy. From where we were we couldn't observe Mr Obama's arrival but that was the word on the street and it was also in the papers the next day, some of which had a minute-by-minute account of the senator's day. Yes, I can see why some Republicans latch onto that. But then most of our politicians are so dull that they make the British bunch (including David Cameron, but maybe not William Hague) look positively lively and fascinating. But more about Obama's appeal in another post.
When we walked back towards the Brandenburg Gate, the front entrance crowd still hadn't dispersed.
In the first picture you can see the Siegessäule where later that day Obama would talk. Also, on the right there are some camera-men with their equipment.
The second picture shows more tourists and the gate at a more pleasing angle. The gate complex was probably imposing once, but today it is surrounded by buildings of a similar height, so it seems quite small.
Just around the corner from the famous gate there is the Reichstag building. Now that's what I would call Herrschaftsarchitektur. It was designed to make you feel small and standing on the stairs in the midday heat waiting to be allowed inside makes you feel even smaller.
Not being part of a tour group like the last time when we were whisked past the long long queues and got to sit in the visitor's gallery, we were only allowed to go up onto the roof and did not see the actual parliamentary parts of the building. You can just turn up and stand in line and while there is an airport style security check they don't want to know your name or see your passport. We got through smoothly, but more about security checks in another post.
Alas, the dome was closed to us as it was being cleaned.
But the view from the roof is nice enough. Here you can see what I said earlier about the Brandenburg gate. The building with the strange roof close to the gate is the brandnew American embassy.
I don't know whether you noticed the inscription on the front of the building saying DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE, i.e. for or to the German people. It was in the original plans but only turned up in 1916 more than twenty years after the building was finished. Apparently, it sounded too democratic. I've read somewhere that the letters for the inscription were made from cannons taken from the Napoleonic troops during the so-called Befreiungskriege. In the 90s though for the German people was by some seen as not democratic enough, so that an artist decided to create a different version inside one of the courtyards of the buildings with a different wording, DER BEVÖLKERUNG, to or for the population, i.e. including those living in Germany who are not Germans. He then asked all members of parliament to bring a handful of soil from their constituencies (which only a few did), but this is the result:
My, this is getting long. Originally I had planned to include the Chancellor's Washing Machine and the Pregnant Oyster in this post, but I'm done for now, I think.
While we were drinking our cafe latte sitting outside a Vietnamese-run bakery plus Imbiss, i.e. a fast-food place selling chips (B.E.)/fries (A.E.) and the ubiquitous Currywurst, Mr Obama took the back entrance to his hotel and the crowd of people standing in front of the hotel kept the police officers busy. From where we were we couldn't observe Mr Obama's arrival but that was the word on the street and it was also in the papers the next day, some of which had a minute-by-minute account of the senator's day. Yes, I can see why some Republicans latch onto that. But then most of our politicians are so dull that they make the British bunch (including David Cameron, but maybe not William Hague) look positively lively and fascinating. But more about Obama's appeal in another post.
When we walked back towards the Brandenburg Gate, the front entrance crowd still hadn't dispersed.
In the first picture you can see the Siegessäule where later that day Obama would talk. Also, on the right there are some camera-men with their equipment.
The second picture shows more tourists and the gate at a more pleasing angle. The gate complex was probably imposing once, but today it is surrounded by buildings of a similar height, so it seems quite small.
Just around the corner from the famous gate there is the Reichstag building. Now that's what I would call Herrschaftsarchitektur. It was designed to make you feel small and standing on the stairs in the midday heat waiting to be allowed inside makes you feel even smaller.
Not being part of a tour group like the last time when we were whisked past the long long queues and got to sit in the visitor's gallery, we were only allowed to go up onto the roof and did not see the actual parliamentary parts of the building. You can just turn up and stand in line and while there is an airport style security check they don't want to know your name or see your passport. We got through smoothly, but more about security checks in another post.
Alas, the dome was closed to us as it was being cleaned.
But the view from the roof is nice enough. Here you can see what I said earlier about the Brandenburg gate. The building with the strange roof close to the gate is the brandnew American embassy.
I don't know whether you noticed the inscription on the front of the building saying DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE, i.e. for or to the German people. It was in the original plans but only turned up in 1916 more than twenty years after the building was finished. Apparently, it sounded too democratic. I've read somewhere that the letters for the inscription were made from cannons taken from the Napoleonic troops during the so-called Befreiungskriege. In the 90s though for the German people was by some seen as not democratic enough, so that an artist decided to create a different version inside one of the courtyards of the buildings with a different wording, DER BEVÖLKERUNG, to or for the population, i.e. including those living in Germany who are not Germans. He then asked all members of parliament to bring a handful of soil from their constituencies (which only a few did), but this is the result:
My, this is getting long. Originally I had planned to include the Chancellor's Washing Machine and the Pregnant Oyster in this post, but I'm done for now, I think.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 03:24 pm (UTC)I like the second ones you took of Brandebourg Gate and the Reichstag Gate. Not only the angle is better but the sky is more interesting on those.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 03:34 pm (UTC)Thank you!
I included the first Brandenburg Gate pic because it shows the Victory Column and the journalists. The second one is definitely the better-looking picture.
I'm not really happy with the first Reichstag picture - I tried to get across the scale of the steps and the imposing facade, but it just looks like I can't hold the camera straight.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 03:30 pm (UTC)Friends told me the Brandenburger Tor isn't actually as big as it looks in images but it looks a bit smaller to me here, probably now that I've been told!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:10 pm (UTC)I definitely imagined it to be bigger, probably because its symbolic value is overpowering.