To start off our third day in Berlin, we went to our first German supermarket! With utter excitement, we scattered around the store, perusing the numerous aisles stacked with German foods, snacks, and beverages to find what we would eat for lunch.
After making all of our purchases, we headed to Prinzessinnengarten, a beautiful garden that served as a perfect example of this trip's theme, "Berlin: Monuments and Memory." Prinzessinnengarten was home to lush gardens and many graves, some dating back to the 1800s. By seeing these graves alongside the beautiful gardens promoting urban life, we were able to see the interconnection between today's monuments and memories. While the windy weather made our stroll through the garden a little chilly at times, the winds also made everything seem more alive. We even saw a red fox!
After Prinzessinnengarten, we visited the "Floating University," where we learned about urban ecology and water conservation.
Then we ate our picnic lunches outside Tempelhof Airport. The airfield where the infamous Berlin Airlift occurred in 1948-49 has been reclaimed as a massive adaptive reuse, multipurpose park space, offering one of the largest urban open spaces in the world! We saw a kite surfer, a community garden utilizing old shoes for potted plants, barbecues as much more. The grounds themselves date back to King Wilhelm the 1st and hosted some of the first Zeppelins in flight. The terminal building was designed and built during the National Socialist era and is now one of the largest protected structures in Europe.
Out front, an oversized metal eagle's head which was separated from its body that once adorned the roof of this Nazi airport which thereafter became a crucial lifeline to the "island" of West Berlin, and now serves as a refugee center and future home to various cultural institutes, the has been placed at the center of the roundabout at head height. The eagle has landed. With this decapitated symbol of the Third Reich dislodged and dislocated from on high, the memory of a would be capitol city of Germania that never came to be remains as an object-symbol of division and unification.
Afterward, we headed to another market; this one was more of a food hall with different cafes and food vendors. Many of us were excited to find a Photoautomat on a nearby street, where we took a few photos before heading to the Park am Gleisdreieck, where we had a scavenger hunt, exploring the park and making new friends along the way!
Finally, we returned to a street near our hotel, where we each tried different foods for dinner, including Korean food, kebabs, currywurst, and falafel.
-Ashley '25 and Hera '26
It sounds like you are having quite an adventure!
ReplyDeleteTempelhof- incredible to see how an airport exploited by the Third Reich has now become a massive park (reclaimed by nature) and is also a home to a settlement of refugees to Berlin. BTW- your diet reiterates that Berlin is truly a cosmopolitan place.
ReplyDelete