In which Easter is quiet we burn the hell out of winter.

The Easter holiday in Germany is a long one, with Good Friday and Easter Monday both being national holidays. This makes it an optimal time for traveling, going home for holiday binging, and long walks after said binging if the weather complies. I didn't get my act together in time to plan any trips this year and have thus stayed at home, dividing my time between sleeping through the rain and adventuring in times of less precipitation. Friday was rather miserable, fitting with its biblical reputation, but Saturday was extra gorgeous to make up for it. I found a friend to go hiking with me and we spent the glorious afternoon in the Sachsenwald to the east of Hamburg, where the trees were just getting ready to pop. Next weekend it should be bursting with lime green life.

That evening I found a few other companions and joined to masses on the banks of the Elbe to see the Osterfeuer -- the massive bonfires topped with creepy effigies symbolizing the burning away of winter. Massive container ships and brightly-lit tourist vessels patroled the waters along the beach in work and in play as the embers rose high into the sky. The lighting of the main fire was delayed a couple hours due to strong winds and was then carefully controlled and promptly put out by the fire department, but the mighty minutes in which that mountain of Christmas trees came ablaze made the waiting worthwhile. Rather a different way of celebrating the Vigil than in a dark church aglow with candlelight, the mysterious and ancient beauty of the Exsultet shimmering in the window panes, hovering in the hushed air, winding up to the rafters in the smoke of the newly-lit Paschal flame. Bonfires accompanied by Bier, Bratwurst, and Brezeln may not be as poetic, but it gets major points for alliteration.  

After arriving home late and drenched in smoke, I slept away most of Sunday morning (thanks, daylight savings time), the sky gray again and leaking most efficiently. After some spontaneous Kaffee & Kuchen with a friend, the sun had wandered back to town and I went for a walk around the harbor, dressed in its Sunday best.

I've always loved living in Hamburg, but every now and then it hits me all over again and I find myself agush with feelings of delight -- the walk this evening having just that effect. What luck, indeed, and thanks, universe.

In which we visit Berlin à la GDR.

After a week in Portugal and a week back at work, I was ready for another vacation and eager to spend more time with old friends, so I hopped on a bus to Berlin to spend the weekend with my long-time friend, fellow Smithie and travel buddy (see Mallorca 2010, Istanbul 2010, Iceland 2010, among others...), Sarah, who happens to be studying in the Hauptstadt this year, hurrah hurrah. I'd been to Berlin several times, but the last time was already four years agozoooooooooommmm look at the time go! This was more of a social visit than a touristy one, so if you want touristy/other/more pictures check out other posts from 2009, 2010 and 2012. 

Well, we did do some touristy things, but avoided the main go-to sights. Instead we went to Bernauer Straße on the east/west border, where there is a brilliantly put-together park/memorial documenting the street's history and how drastically it was changed with the arrival of the wall -- the exhibit itself being multimedia-friendly, including photographs, audio and video clips, and physical structures. All information in German and nicely translated English. The park is a strip of green that runs for about two blocks, with various markers showing where the wall(s) once existed and it/they a.) affected the people who lived there and b.) reflected the political atmosphere over the years. Other markings included where escape tunnels had been built and successfully employed, as well as pinpointed escape attempts and specific events in other areas.

Many East Germans ran when they realized the scope of what was happening, especially while the wall was being constructed, and just took whatever chance they could to book it to the other side with no time to pack or think it over. Many more people didn't expect it to last and perhaps regretted their decision to stay when still walled-in three decades later.

After the wall went up in 1961, the wall-side buildings on Bernauer Straße became notorious for escapes because you could get over the wall by jumping out the wall-side windows. For this reason, the windows on the lower floors were actually bricked up and the ground-floor shops evicted first to eliminate the chance of easy exits that way. Some people did escape through the upper windows, though it was a dangerous thing to attempt and indeed the first person to die along the Berlin Wall was a woman leaping from her window there. Most did survive though, and there was one story in particular about a pregnant woman who had been able to tip off the West Berlin fire department in advance and have them catch her on the other side when she jumped. She gave birth three days later.

People were evicted from the wall-side buildings of the street in stages, the evictions kept secret and carried out suddenly to prevent escapes (ie. people jumping out their windows over the wall). There was an interview with one woman who, after returning home to Bernauer Straße from holiday, discovered that she no longer lived in her apartment and had been moved somewhere else. Soldiers had stormed the upper-level apartment and first run to block the windows so no one could jump out, then told everyone to pack up and leave, pronto. All the windows and doors were eventually bricked up and most of the buildings were later demolished, leaving only the blank, windowless faces of the connecting buildings behind.

Two escape tunnels were built there to help the East Berliners escape, the first of which helped 27 people sneak out and the second of which more famously freed 57 before the border guards were tipped off and put an end to it. A firefight ensued in which one guard was killed, who was then martyred by the government, accusing the wicked western smugglers for his death. Sewers were also used as escape routes with maps available and some West Berliners snuck into East Berlin to guide people safely through the underground labyrinth. This plot, too, was discovered and iron grates were implemented at strategic points in the sewers to block escapes, and were checked regularly.

Security technology improved over the years and anti-vehicle spikes were employed along the street and as blockades (though these were removed in the mid-1980s because of their negative image in the rest of the world), a rope system was put into effect that dragged concrete slabs under the back tires of any vehicle that broke through the barrier, trapping it, and later motion sensors were installed with sensitive triggers that would alert the border guards without the escapee knowing they had been detected, not to mention all the barbed wire and other unpleasantries.

Structure representing an old watchtower.

In spite of all this, Bernauer Straße was still a place where people on both sides would go to see each other from afar, though this was technically prohibited. Mail could still be sent east/west but the division of the city meant you couldn't see friends, family, lovers, anyone or anything located on the other side. As it was physically possible to see over the wall along this street, often people would arrange times to "meet" and would wave to one another until shooed away. One picture in the exhibit showed a newly married couple standing together with a bouquet still wrapped in paper, waving to his or her parents on the east side. The picture was paired with another of the parents looking down to them, waving, crying. Another picture that struck me later in the Berlin Wall Memorial was of a crowd of people packed in front of a little alleyway separating garden plots, someone in front holding up a baby. Border guards survey the scene and far behind you can see another crowd of people on the other side, trying to catch a glimpse of loved ones.

Later on, day passes were able to be arranged for West Berliners to visit friends and family in East Berlin for a few hours, though these passes were hard to come by and strictly regulated. It was a very special to finally meet in person again, though many people who had had such meetings said it made it even harder to say goodbye because no one had any idea when and if they would be able to see each other again.

There was a church in Bernauer Straße as well, amazingly called the Church of Reconciliation. Its front entrance was blocked by the wall, with its other entrances blocked off as well over time. The congregation continued to meet there until they were finally evicted outright and made to move elsewhere. From then on, the church tower was used for surveillance until the mid-80, when the government -- not liking the symbol the church had clearly become for the opposition -- literally had the whole thing blown up. After the act, cemetery workers hid the twisted metal cross that had once been perched on the spire, and it is now located there in the park next to the new, beautifully designed Chapel of Reconciliation. 

The Berlin Wall Memorial also had a great exhibit and a little tower of its own with a view over the restored border strip, also called the "death strip", around which life continues as usual in 2016. 

Inside I was particularly moved by video footage of protests -- peaceful ones -- all over Germany in the late 80s, and finally footage of the wall coming down, thousands upon thousands flocking to the site, flooding streets and trains, celebrating, looking dazed, crying. One man had just crossed the wall and was shouting, "Me! In West Berlin! Me!" Another shot started with a close-up of people scrambling over the wall in the rain and then zoomed out to show thousands of people standing there with umbrellas, people streaming over the wall and through the wall where an opening had been made. Footage of people holding "Welcome to West Berlin" banners, all without commentary, all very emotional. Even though I'd seen a lot of the footage before and learned about it for a long time and have spoken with people who were there when it happened, seeing it all put together there as it was still packed an punch.

We later went to the Kulturbrauerei to see their somewhat new GDR exhibit. We'd both been to a couple other GDR-related museums in Berlin, but not this one, which, to quote the website: "The permanent exhibition 'Everyday life in the GDR' shows the gap between the expectations of the SED-regime and the real living conditions of the people in the GDR. Individual stories illustrate the range of different attitudes under the communist dictatorship, which vary from committed support to resignation to opposition." The exhibit was much larger than expected and we didn't get through the whole thing before the closing announcement was issued from above, and there was quite a bit of sensory overload at first with all the objects, posters, photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, automobiles and the rest of the multimedia explosion that hits you when you walk in, but going slowly, one wall at a time, I was soon caught up in the recounting of this very surreal time and place, fascinated, often amused, sometimes shocked. The exhibit provided a lot of food for thought and I'll just mention some of the main things that have stayed with me.

One was a series of portraits taken by Stefan Moses of East Germans of all different professions taken in their work attire. Emphasis on all different professions, all different people, all different walks of life from coffin builders to business people to nurses to constructions workers to fishers to a particularly beautiful picture of a young shepherdess that I particularly fell for (for obvious reasons). They are simple portraits, lovingly taken, and the subjects all seem to be having a good time as many are laughing. It's an amazing visual summary of society at that time, and as the exhibit pointed out, some of the photographed professions no longer exist today. (There's a nice bio and description of the exhibit here).

A common theme was the Soviet Union being a role model, not only because the Soviets happened to take control of that part of Germany after WWII and not only because red happens to be a pretty color. All Germans and indeed a good chunk of the rest of Europe and world had just experienced one if not two very terrible wars and a lot of emphasis was placed on fighting the "war-mongering Western capitalists" and anyone who might promote another war. When the tension between the Soviets and the rest of the Allied forces escalated, the Berlin Wall was built as an alternative to war. You don't want war, the Soviets don't want war, so hug a Soviet today!

The SED State tried to keep as much control over its citizens as possible and one way of doing so was through its factories and other realms of employment. Now to quote the museum's info pamphlet: "Mass organisations and workers' collectives set the pace of daily life during and after work. By offering recreational and cultural activities, they created a feeling of togetherness and cohesion, but at the same time they served as a means of social control." Work brigades were organized as teams that often competed against each other on various levels, be it work output or sports teams outside of work, and there were big awards ceremonies honoring workers who had gone above and beyond in some way. You weren't forced to participate in such things, but often times people became socially isolated and or found themselves at other great disadvantages if they did not.

One propaganda video on display was "Die todkranke Ilona" or "The deathly ill Ilona" (the name might have been different) about a young woman in a textile factory who calls in sick to avoid a long shift when her boyfriend wants her to go dancing. Her work foreman happens to be at the same party and takes pictures of her dancing, then makes a little poster the next day with the pictures and something like, "We hope the deathly ill Ilona gets well soon!" and posts it for everyone to see. She is thus horrified and embarrassed and starts working extra hard to make up for her blunder. When everyone else starts working extra hard, too, she wonders if everyone else also has a bad conscience. Moral of the story: sometimes you screw up and wow, is that embarrassing, but if you work hard and get back on the right path it will be better for everyone.

Shaping the next generation was also an important factor, and often school classes would be paired with work brigades from various employers as a sort of pen pal or sponsor and they had many letters written by children, for example inviting the xxx brigade to their Christmas party, including a nice reply and presents for the kids later on from the brigade. Communist-friendly, all-day childcare was also provided by the State for hard-working parents.

Differences between generations was a big thinking topic as well -- imagining how life must be differently perceived in the GDR between older people who were used to life before the division and for those who were young or born afterwards, for whom it was normal without any sort of reference point to another kind of life other than what people tell them or what they might happen to see if they are able to receive West German television channels. In one part of the exhibit, school kids (9th graders?) in the 80s were asked to write essays describing what they expect their lives to look like in 2010. There were four responses on display and the remarkable thing was how the restrictions of the GDR played no part in their dreams. Most wrote that they hoped to be married with a family and kids, as well as a well-paying job and pretty house. One wanted girl to be a secretary for a millionaire and go on fancy vacations all around the world, like to Brazil. Some talked about technology and how there would be devices or robots to make life easier, though one mentioned that computers shouldn't control everything. There was concern for the environment and hopes that atomic energy would no longer be used. Peace reigned in all the essays. Life was good and people drove nice cars other than Trabi. Just normal kids with big dreams, same as any other.

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After all the heavy learning, thinking, and discussing, not to mention hours spent outside in the beautiful but very cold weather, Sarah and I felt more than justified tucking ourselves into the couch in the evenings with hot tea, kids' movies and Planet Earth. That on top of good food, good company, ample sleep, and banana pancakes to finish it off made it a truly ideal weekend. 

In which we lose track of the century (Portugal part IV).

One of the sightseeing tips we'd gotten from a local in Belmonte was to go to the historic village of Monsanto. This rang a bell, as it had been highly praised in several of my library guidebooks, but I hadn't read much in detail about it since it was so out in the middle of nowhere that I didn't expect a visit to be possible. However, with a rental car everything is possible, and Josh and I decided to prolong our stay in the mountains by another night in order to See all the Things. "It's so amazing and unique," the nice lady in the café had said of the village, "The houses are built into boulders and you can't tell them apart." Something like that. Sounded pretty rockin' (har har) to me, so off we went, headed over tiny roads south and east toward this mystical place among the super stones.

The roads took us away from the Serra da Estrela, though their jagged ridge was always present in the landscape. In sharp contrast to their rough outline came the lush, green valleys and olive orchards flooded with white flowers, dotted with quaint stone houses. Sheep grazed, donkeys donkied, dogs and cats were sometimes overly social, sometimes not. The little towns we passed through had names like Casteleiro, Meimoa, Penamacor,  Bemposta, Salvador, Bispo. Some looked well-tended, with well-dressed elderly citizens sitting on doorsteps in the sun. Others looked like the zombie apocalypse had stripped them of life and color and then moved on to juicier destinations. 

Monsanto is a little village built into a mountaintop amidst ancient granite boulders, with traces of humans dating back to the Early Stone Age (and I'll just say now that it's nice to have something pleasant to associate with that name in addition to the weight of all the bad juju it usually carries). Not having reread the guidebook passages I'd skimmed over before, we discovered it in a rather exciting if not backwards kind of way. This involved driving up the mountain road and parking at the edge of town, then taking a rough footpath up into a landscape of giant boulders and soft, wildflower-dotted grasses to see what we could see. Other than the aforementioned Things, we found that Things to See included quite a glorious, expansive horizon, red-roofed hamlets, and, oh, look at these very, very old stone walls! Oh! Look at that old tower up there! Wait, is that tower connected to a giant, beautifully kept 12th-century Templar castle? --Why yes, how nice of you to notice.

And just like that we were transported to the Middle Ages, walking the now humble footpaths around the keep, peering into the moss-covered chapel, looking out across the lands once treasured so highly by those who fought to maintain them from this stronghold so many centuries ago.

Only after "discovering" the castle (and boy, was I not expecting to stumble across that) did we mosey into the town itself. True to the word of our café host, it was truly a remarkable place. A classified historical village and touted in all the guidebooks as "The Most Portuguese Village in Portugal" (but who voted that, really, and why, since it is so unique and generally atypical of more typical Portuguese villages? /end), it appears to have grown out of the mountain, with houses and walls built into, around, over, and even under the massive granite monoliths. The structures blend into their environment in a way that is certainly admirable for today's standards, though I would not want to heat them in January, no sir.

After a good meal and a walk around the very, very sleepy village, we drove back down the mountain and then continued east. Our café host had told us that we couldn't go to Monsanto without taking a little detour to the nearby town of Penha Garcia, almost on the Spanish border. It is also built up a mountain and has a castle at the top, as well as a picturesque reservoir on the far side. It was getting late and we still had to drive an hour back to the hotel, so we just drove up to the castle and walked around the top for a little while before turning north again, in time for the late afternoon glow and a hot pink sunset above the star mountains.

The next day was our last full day, and as we were both flying out of Lisbon very early the next morning, we figured we'd better head in that direction. Our café host had raved about the little town of Óbidos, a fortified city situated between Lisbon and the coast. "You'll love it!" she exclaimed. After doing some reading up on it in advance (for a change), I decided that indeed, I would like to see this charming place. This meant that we probably wouldn't end up seeing Lisbon, and indeed we didn't, as the time it took to a.) drive to Óbidos, b.) explore Óbidos, c.) drive to the hotel near the Lisbon airport and check in, and d.) return the car to the rental place nearby, left us with not enough time or energy to go into the city proper and enjoy it, especially if we had to get up at 5 a.m. the next day and embark on international journeys. 

The drive back west was pretty uneventful and involved a lot of scanning through Portuguese radio stations. By this time I'd gotten used to the sound of Portuguese, and I was still impressed by how much it sounds like Russian. It's got the nasals, the throaty consonants, the shta-ing, and as someone who speaks neither language and has very little idea what I'm talking about, I was highly amused and think I would very much enjoy learning one or both of them.

Óbidos was, indeed, quite adorable as far as medieval towns go, though about as unlike Monsanto as you can get in terms of architecture. Where Monsanto was granite gray, Óbidos was white with bright colors trimming all walls and doors; instead of boulders, bougainvillea blossomed out of each convenient crevice, adding to the color explosion; and where Monsanto was quiet with empty streets, Óbidos was bustling with tourists and the souvenier shops that catered to them. After several days in sparsely-peopled vineyards and mountains, this felt overwhelming and cheap. We were near Lisbon, after all, and in a hub of other touristy destinations near the coast.

Despite this aspect, it was certainly a beautiful place and I was glad to have spent some time there. The tile work inside the church and city gate were particularly impressive.

In some places you could see the transition of trim colors over the years.

It was a bit of a shame to have missed out on Lisbon, but I am glad that we traveled the route that we did. Neither did we see any of the beautiful southern coast, but I don't regret that either. I figure that, for me, Lisbon is only about 3.5 hours away by plane, with cheap direct flights from Hamburg. And from Lisbon you can take trains and other modes of transportation to many other worthy places, but not necessarily to the very remote ones that our rental car allowed. The tourism shock on the last day just went to show how authentic the rest of the trip was, not to mention our adventures in places where no or very little English was spoken, or the person-free landscapes we explored. 

A marvelous week, and precious to spend with a very dear friend. We parted ways at the airport and I soon fell asleep on the plane, the direct sun warming the window behind the shade. At one point I woke up over a mountainscape of shining lakes amidst snowy peaks, the snow then ending abruptly and clouds blocking all else from view.

By the time we flew into Hamburg, we weren't seeing much of anything at all aside from dreary February. It was cold and had been raining all week, and I was slightly sunburned, feeling wonderful.