I left Berlin this morning with the first use of my eight-day Eurail select pass. I was sad to see its hustle and bustle dissolve out my high-speed train’s window. That city was quite good to me. But I’ve only got eight days until Rich shows up which should mean two more cities or possibly three, if they suck. But I’ve got to relate two tales of the city I just departed.
I again happened upon a magnificent once-in-a-lifetime occurance yesterday after having secured today’s travel. Good old Rick Steves had recommended the Gemäldegalerie as one of his top destinations in the city and usually his highest recommendations are good for a look-see. But I had no idea what I was in store for.
The interior of this spacious museum was filled with hundreds (perhaps thousands) of priceless works of art. Collections from Rembrant, Gioto, Caravaggio, Botticelli, Raphael, and far too many other masters for this art ignoramus to recognize lined the softly lit chambers. The walls throbbed with color and detail and the entire collection was of realistic paintings from the 15th through 18th centuries. But the absolute best part is that I was alone in the museum.
As I walked through the marble hallways and fixated on my favorite paintings the only sound was my own muted foot falls and the quiet drone of the air conditioning. I walked up to some pieces and nearly put my nose to the canvas as I inspected the detail and just sat down on the floor to comtemplate the others. I realized as I strolled through those rooms that I was enjoying an art show in the near privacy of an 18th century king that might have owned these works. But in my case I had access to way more art.
As a foil to this scene of piece and beauty, I’ll now relate a brief occurence later in the evening. A travel buddy of mine wanted to check out a bar in Berlin that he had frequented in a previous visit. As we sat down in the place with our first half-liters of fine German beer, a one-man-show started up in the center of the 20 person capacity bar. Seated at a desk covered with papers and a single desk lamp, a 30-something German artist started his show.
His piece was a 60-minute soliloquy that was–unfortunately for us–entirely in German. His voice flowed between deliberate, meloditic ruminations and frenetic, high-pitched Hitler-like screeching. And there was political motivation to his diatribe as I could make out occasional words like “America” and “Nazis” (but, thankfully, no “Juden”). Occasionally the punk crowd would supply sparse laughter, but generally this show was a little too desultory to be a skinhead rally and not funny enough to keep the crowd’s attention. But to non-Germans it was a surreal sight.
So now I’m in Strassburg (or Strasbourg) sweating myself wet in this internet cafe. I purchased the second in Neil Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle before I left to feed my addiction to his narratives. I plan on doing a lot of relaxing and reading in the following week as I know Rich and I will be having some fun when he arrives.