Travelogue 1993 / Episode Six

Travelogue Deutschland 1993 / Episode Six

All Roads Lead to Berlin
We rose early today, since our destination was Berlin, about a nine hour trip northeast. Martin's sister Heidi had an apartment there, where we would be able to stay while exploring Berlin.

During breakfast, I finished adding the previous days entries, that I had opted to skip the night before, into my sketch diary. Once we had packed the car for the extended trip, and traveled for a few miles on back roads through the Black Forest to reach the Autobahn.

Traffic on the Autobahn was relatively heavy, especially since this is really the only direct route to Berlin. Many of the roads to the northeast are in terrible shape, leaving the Autobahn as the only reasonable alternative.

In many parts of old East Germany surfaces on the Autobahn were still 1940s cobblestone, paved over in the 1950s with a layer of concrete. Several of the exit ramps were still paved with old cobblestones. In the worst parts, cobblestones peeked out from holes on the aging cement resulting in a very jolting ride. Side roads off of the Autobahn were not much better they were usually narrow and in many cases still made of cobblestones or bricks. To find a side road paved and smooth was a rare luxury indeed.

The Checkpoint Ghost Town
After an several hours of driving we passed over what had once been one of the most crossed East/West borders of divided Germany. There stood the city of Hof, and on either side of the autobahn I could see the rows of silent terminals that had once been processing sites for travelers passing between East and West Germany.

Martin told me his account of waiting at that checkpoint when he visited East Germany many years before. He had waited at least an hour to be checked, and then was needlessly detained while East German border guards checked his papers. He said that if you were really unfortunate, the guards might order you to unpack everything in the car for a search -- just to prove their authority.

A Visit to the Bauhaus
After another couple of hours driving, we saw a sign just outside of the city of Dessau, for the Bauhaus -- which is a legendary school of design. We spent several minutes discussing whether or not to try and find it, eventually coming to the decision of going for it. We were really taking a chance, since we had no map of the city and had no idea of where the school building might be.

Both the exit ramp and the road leading to Dessau were cobblestone and were quite bumpy. As we came to the edge of Dessau we were pleased that the road was paved with concrete. We pulled into a parking lot near the what seemed to be the center of town and found a map of the city on a large sign. It looked as though the Bauhaus was not very far away, so we took a last look and began to walk West.

Dessau which was an old industrial city, was still in rough shape after years of communist control. Everything seemed gray and depressing, including the trees and grass. The colors on the buildings were so drab and muted, that I was convinced the painters must have been trying to see just how close of a match to grey they could get using colored paint. They had a communist non-descriptness about them.

My first experience with a Trabant
In Dessau I had my first up-close experience with the small East German made car called Trabant. Its common to also hear them affectionately called Trabi.

A Trabant is a very small car, approximately the size of a Geo Metro. The Body is made of plastic that has been impregnated with pigment rather than painted. The selection of colors included pea green, powder blue, mustard yellow, gray and white. Trabants arent very safe because the plastic body is extremely brittle and tends to shatter on impact.

They are not considered as speed demons by any means. Hiding under the hood is the high-powered, 500cc two-cycle motorcycle engine. All of the Trabis that I encountered on our tour through the East, tended to slowly sputter along while spewing blue-black oil smoke. Even for all of its drawbacks, the Trabi has a kind of charm about it that reminded me of my old Volkswagen Beetle.

The Search for the Bauhaus
We ventured deeper into the city, walking up over a bridge that spanned the railroad corridor and back down the other side. Turning right we entered a residential neighborhood. The old narrow side streets reminded me of an old neighborhood in Chicago, with narrow streets and houses built very close to each other.

About halfway from our destination we passed through an industrial area. All of the factories appeared to have not changed since the 1940s or 50s. Everything seemed to be dirty, sooty, rusted or just plain old.

On the other side of the industrial area we came upon another residential area that seemed newer and a bit nicer than the other area we had walked through previously. As we made our way through the streets we spotted the Bauhaus building.

The Bauhaus structure was very Spartan, much simpler than I had imagined. It stood five stories tall and looked very modern for a 60 year old building. The exterior is mainly white, with a good portion of the buildings surface being large multi-paned windows. The window frames were painted black as a stark contrast to the white building. The school is still operational, though I had no idea just how many students or faculty attended the school.

We walked around the building to the main entrance. There I had Martin take a few photos of me. I stood in front of the entrance, below the words BAUHAUS that were mounted over the front door. I wanted to have some proof that I had really been there.

Venturing inside the building, we walked up several flights of stairs to check out the upper floors. On display at each landing were various student art projects, including sculpture, furniture and prints. We spent about twenty minutes walking to the top of the staircase admiring the student artwork.

Downstairs, in the basement of the building was a small coffee shop. As I opened the door, old seventies funk music emanated from the cafe. A few people sat in tubular metal and leather chairs at tables sipping cups of espresso. As much as we wanted to take a few moments to have a seat and enjoy a coffee, we realized that it was still pretty a long drive to Heidis apartment in Berlin if we wanted to arrive by nine that evening.

We found our way back from the Bauhaus the same way we had came. We must have passed the industrial area at quitting time, because there were people walking, riding bicycles and driving cars away from the factory buildings around the same area that had been very quiet only forty-five minutes before. We found the car and followed the cobblestone road back to the Autobahn, leaving Dessau behind.

When we were still twenty miles from of Berlin, I witnessed the longest traffic jam I had ever seen. Cars and trucks extended for several miles. People stood near their cars or sat on the hoods looking off into the distance, hoping that the jam would end soon. Fortunately for us we were traveling in the opposite direction, with no traffic jams in sight.

Arrival in Berlin
It was dusk as we came into the Berlin city limits. Tall buildings loomed on the horizon as we followed the Autobahn into the heart of Berlin. The skyline faintly reminded me of Chicago.

Heidis apartment was in the Northwest side of town called Charlottenburg. We found Franz Heinrich Strasse, and Heidis apartment soon after that. Parking was crazy. In Berlin it isnt uncommon to see cars parked on curbs or even sidewalks because of the severe lack of space and over abundance of cars. We must have spent fifteen minutes squeezing the car into a parking space across the street from her apartment.

The front door of her apartment building was buried in between shops along the busy street. Martin rang the bell, and Heidis voice came through the small speaker at the door. Moments later, the front door opened and she invited us inside. We followed her through the dark hallway, across a small courtyard to her apartment building. From the style of architecture I guessed that the structure was postwar, probably vintage 1950s.

Heidi's flat was up four flights of darkened stairs, lit by a wall mounted buttons that would switch the lights on for a few minutes at a time, to conserve energy. At the top of the fourth flight of stairs, Heidi opened a tall wooden door, and led us into her apartment.

Her flat was a small, cozy place, with a narrow hallway that led back to the living room which was the largest of the rooms. Against two walls stood bookcases filled with books and other items, and on the opposite side of the room was a desk and a small, round glass table. We sat down at the table and Martin updated his sister about our journey, ending with our experience in Dessau at the Bauhaus. It was nice to finally relax after another long day of driving and walking.

Heidi prepared a delicious dinner that we ate sitting at the small table in the living room. During the meal she suggested that it might be interesting for us to explore the city at night. Surprisingly, the thought of driving and walking seemed pleasing after the respite in the apartment.

The city at Night After dinner, we put our coats on and followed the directions Heidi had given us. After winding our way through the narrow streets, we came to the center of Berlin. The Kurfurstandamm is the main street though downtown Berlin and is simply called the Ku-damm by Berliners.

A thin layer of drizzle covered the streets and sidewalks, reflecting the glow of shop lights closed for the evening. We began walking along the thoroughfare toward the center of town, passing Lighted, free standing kiosks that lined it. Each kiosk contained different advertising merchandise sold at the shop beside it. In one kiosk I noticed several Ralph Marlin ties which were produced from artwork painted by my friend Tim Peterson. I thought it was great to see his work thousands of miles away and later when I told him about it, he was excited to find his artwork internationally appreciated.

At the very center of the city stood an old church called the Kaiser-Wilhelm memorial church, which had been bombed in World War Two. Amazingly, some of the structure remained intact, even though a good portion of the building had been destroyed. The top of the steeple had been sheared off on an angle. An archway which looked as if it had been hewn off with an axe stood facing the area where the sanctuary had once been. The combination of large cracks extending up the walls of the ruins and lights positioned below the structure gave the church an ominous appearance. Standing next to it was the new church building, built after he war to replace the damaged one. The tall, narrow structure was covered with thousands of small, blue stained glass panes.

Next to both churches on the Ku-damm, was a shopping mall. We made our way inside the mall where Martin directed me to an interesting water clock which kept time by the gravity of water running through tubes. It was very cool. To fully explain the clock is a bit difficult, so youll just have to believe me when I say it was cool.

We found our way back to the car and drove across the former border of East Berlin, where we spent an hour driving around the back streets. On the East side, the buildings looked older and a bit more utilitarian than those on the West. Even though the wall had been gone almost three years, it seemed that some differences still remained between Eastern and Western Berlin.

Somehow, we found our way back to the apartment after nearly getting lost on the East side of the city. The parking spot we eventually found was ten blocks from the apartment, a bit farther than the spot across the street where we had originally parked. The funny thing about it all was that any parking place inside of fifteen blocks would probably be considered close by a Berliners standards!

Martin had a key, given to him by his sister, so he opened the front door and we walked through the dark courtyard and up the stairs to her apartment. As quietly as possible, we unrolled our sleeping bags onto the floor. After a few minutes of talking about the days explorations, we fell asleep.

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