Tag Archives: Berlin

Barbarians at the Gate – Museums and Madness in Berlin

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The thing about football fans is that they travel long distances to see a game that lasts an hour and a half, get to visit incredibly diverse cities all over the world, but really never get to see the cities themselves. At least that was my observation when our Italian friend who doesn’t like football insisted that we spend a cultural day in between the superficiality of a football game to visit Berlin’s three museums.

BeerBerlin

My Italian friend rented a car because he gambled that on a soccer infused weekend no one would rent a car and parking spaces would be abundant. Well, he was right! Although frankly, in the years I’ve known him, there was a not a city he had not conquered by instrument of illegal parking. He is an Italian expert. I think and fear that sometime in the not too distant future somebody will approach him with a $200K fine in unpaid parking tickets. But that’s another story.

Berlin_Nefertiti

We had to get to these museums to be educated and to offset the barbarian activity that we were here for and that would happen later that day. And lo and behold, in probably one of the most incredible museum cities in the world, where they have barriers erected with signs that tell you 1 hour to get to the entrance, 2 hours to get to the entrance, there was nobody. Yep. Those footie fans were not coming down for the education.  So I got to have a quiet moment with Nefertiti – wow, she is hot.

And furthermore I have a semi-complaint about the Greeks who constantly call for the return of the Parthenon marbles, aka the Elgin Marbles. What is the problem? I just walked into the Pergamon museum and they didn’t just lift a little piece of the Acropolis and take it back to the British museum, they lifted an entire city and put it in the Pergamon and it’s mind-blowing. How did they do it? This was a bigger heist than the great train robbery! These Germans had their act together. And I don’t hear anything from any country saying give me this stuff back. I mean, really, this is an entire city! So next time I go through a walk in the Acropolis museum, guess what? I’m not going to feel bad. We only took a little little bit. The Acropolis itself is still there, in Athens. If we had been Germans….it would’ve been in Berlin by now.

 

Champions League Final 2015 – Berlin

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I’ve been to Berlin three times. Once when it was a divided city, and the last two times over the space of 2 or 3 years. This time it was football (aka soccer) that drove me back; my annual visit to the Champions League Final, between the great Barcelona and the black and white of Juventus.

The city had changed again – not just that there were 70,000 people milling around with football jerseys. This place is actually one of the most cutting-edge cities in the world. It’s youthful, there are clubs and restaurants on every corner. New buildings are popping up, especially in the Eastern sector and the bicycle paths are on par with most Danish and Dutch cities. If you’re feeling athletic, check out BikeMap.net for some cool ride suggestions.

ChampionsFestivalVillage

So here I am, standing in what’s called the Champions League Village, a hastily erected mockup of the event itself, except the Germans had figured out how to put an AstroTurf soccer pitch underneath the Brandenburg Gate. Yes, the same gate that Napoleon did a victory march through in the 1800s. Man these guys are good. In spite of the vast marauds of Spanish and Italian fans wondering around the city with Heinekens held in their hand – yep Heineken is a sponsor – everything worked perfectly. Transportation didn’t skip a beat. You could grab an Uber when you wanted to. Yeah. And the bars stayed open late. If I could think of a better venue for a champions league event, I would probably have to say Copenhagen or Amsterdam. But in the end I actually think the Germans have it. Berlin is an awesome city that has pretty much everything – except, oh yah, they don’t have a soccer team!