Berlin and Dresden

Germany definitely didn't win us over.  At least not Berlin, where we spent five days, with one day trip south to Dresden. Sean points out that we should withhold judgment until we've been to Munich, which everyone raves about. There are some positives, like the fact that most people speak English and aren't annoyed to do so, or that things are relatively clean and orderly, and that the transit system is excellent.  It was also nice for us New Englanders to actually get a sense of autumn! The sound of huge brown oak leaves crunching underfoot on the paths through the Tiergarten was quite delicious.  The landscape we saw from the train headed south also seemed incredibly familiar, like Massachusetts or the more wooded parts of Connecticut.

That said, what I didn't like about Berlin was also tied to its familiarity.  Due to the WWII destruction, the city's architecture is mostly post-war modern and contemporary glass-steel structures, which gave it a certain sense of interchangeable-ness with other cities, like New York.  I couldn't get a sense of a central point (which I'm realizing is very much a thing I look for in urban environments).  It didn't help that seemingly every inch of Berlin is under active construction: lots of buildings were covered with scaffolding and cranes and lots of streets were blocked off.

The consumer culture is also much more like ours than it is like the Italians, which is not really a positive thing, in my opinion.  There aren't many cafes where you can grab breakfast, so when we spotted a Dunkin Donuts from the bus on the way to the painting gallery on our first morning, we shrugged and figured "why not?"  We were promptly reminded exactly why not: blech.  There were also Starbucks all around, but Sean opposes those even more strenuously than Dunkin Donuts, so we never tried.  Since they don't have a cafe culture, they also don't have a concept of just getting a quick coffee to drink at the bar; I tried this in a museum cafe and they had us sit down and look at a menu just so I could order an espresso (which cost 2.50, the unfortunate side effect of the strong German economy!)

The worst of all, though, is the food.  German traditional food is heavy, salty, and meat-based.  Fuck arteries, who needs them?  But even the wide availability of ethnic food, which is what everyone here raves about in Berlin was disappointing: we went to one lackluster, well-reviewed Thai restaurant, and a tiny ramen restaurant which was recommended by a friend and which had a line out the door at 6pm (oh, another positive of German culture: continous restaurant hours! People eating dinner before 9pm!) but which proved ultimately underwhelming.  Sean did point out that since he had begun to feel a certain ennui about the food in Rome, going to Germany was useful as a shock to the system, making him eager to return to the land of pasta and vegetables.

The actual purpose of my trip, however, was the art, and in that I'm happy to say Germany didn't disappoint!  In fact, as students, we were able to get three-day entrance cards to all the state-owned museums in Berlin for 12 euro apiece.  Even at the regular price, 24 euro, that's an incredible deal.  At the Gemaldegalerie, we had the museum virtually to ourselves for an hour, since everyone else was lining up to see the Botticelli exhibition (pace Dr. Hall, we skipped it).  Titian's self-portrait was really awesome, and Sean pointed out a very interesting observation about the white sleeve and whether he might have ultimately intended to glaze it red to match the other--which would diminish competition for the viewer between the light-colored sleeve and the face, the typical focal point in his portraits.

On our final morning, we checked out the German Historical Museum, which had a very powerful temporary exhibit on the direct aftermath of the war in 12 European countries.  The rest of the museum was less interesting (I admit it: I'm not that interested in German history) except for the portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder, here shown alongside the pendant of his wife (which it never is in art history books--patriarchy!) and described in the accompanying label as a "plea for the right for priests to marry."