Berlin: Day 3
Sorry no pictures today. This computer cannot handle my memory card. Also I apologize for messing up the comment feature. The problem is that the site only displays in German here and it makes it hard for me to know what I am doing. Even more so than usual...
Anyway I think that the comments should be working now, or maybe starting with tomorrow. We can hope.
Thanks for asking about the concert, Sandy! It was amazing. The concert hall was like a small basketball arena with perfect acoustics. Very tall ceiling with a weird shape. Karen says if you imagine looking down into the hull of a ship, that is the shape that you see looking up at the ceiling. It was built in the 1960s with lots of sharp angles. The orchestra plays down in the center and the audience is seated all around at all different levels. Its like they stuck seating sections to the wall at random places around the room. We were looking towards the conductor, over the shoulders of the first violins.
The music was beautiful. I do not have the experience to compare orchestras but I can say that I never heard better. The concert was Schubert Symphony #5 (sounded like Mozart) and #8 (sounded like Beethoven). At the end the audience applauded for 15 minutes - even after the orchestra got up and walked out. The conductor had time to shake hands with every player during the applause. But it was not a standing ovation. Apparently that is not done here. Instead they shout Bravo! over and over.
Today we slowed the pace a little bit - only 7000 steps so far on the pedometer. We went to the museum at Checkpoint Charlie. Amazing stories of escapes and escape attempts. Lots of pictures of the Wall and newspaper accounts. We saw flying machines, inflatable boats, cars with hiding places, even surfboards and speaker cabinets that were used to hide people. We saw lots of pictures of tunnels and read the stories.
Then we went to the Jewish Museum which is very difficult to describe. The experience of going through it is somewhat disconcerting. It covers the history of the Jewish race and all that has happened to them. It is extremely well done and very impressive.
We shopped and ate at Lafayette Galerie, which is pretty amazing for its architecture and incredible food selection. We toured the Gendarmen Market and stopped by the Hugenot Museum (my ancestors were Hugenots). And now we are going out to eat. We plan to go to Sans Souci castle tomorrow.
--Dave and Karen
Anyway I think that the comments should be working now, or maybe starting with tomorrow. We can hope.
Thanks for asking about the concert, Sandy! It was amazing. The concert hall was like a small basketball arena with perfect acoustics. Very tall ceiling with a weird shape. Karen says if you imagine looking down into the hull of a ship, that is the shape that you see looking up at the ceiling. It was built in the 1960s with lots of sharp angles. The orchestra plays down in the center and the audience is seated all around at all different levels. Its like they stuck seating sections to the wall at random places around the room. We were looking towards the conductor, over the shoulders of the first violins.
The music was beautiful. I do not have the experience to compare orchestras but I can say that I never heard better. The concert was Schubert Symphony #5 (sounded like Mozart) and #8 (sounded like Beethoven). At the end the audience applauded for 15 minutes - even after the orchestra got up and walked out. The conductor had time to shake hands with every player during the applause. But it was not a standing ovation. Apparently that is not done here. Instead they shout Bravo! over and over.
Today we slowed the pace a little bit - only 7000 steps so far on the pedometer. We went to the museum at Checkpoint Charlie. Amazing stories of escapes and escape attempts. Lots of pictures of the Wall and newspaper accounts. We saw flying machines, inflatable boats, cars with hiding places, even surfboards and speaker cabinets that were used to hide people. We saw lots of pictures of tunnels and read the stories.
Then we went to the Jewish Museum which is very difficult to describe. The experience of going through it is somewhat disconcerting. It covers the history of the Jewish race and all that has happened to them. It is extremely well done and very impressive.
We shopped and ate at Lafayette Galerie, which is pretty amazing for its architecture and incredible food selection. We toured the Gendarmen Market and stopped by the Hugenot Museum (my ancestors were Hugenots). And now we are going out to eat. We plan to go to Sans Souci castle tomorrow.
--Dave and Karen
posted by Dave Votaw at
9:07 AM
