{"id":1253,"date":"2018-06-14T17:36:27","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T17:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/?p=1253"},"modified":"2025-07-01T06:55:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T06:55:33","slug":"thursday-june-14-berlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/2018\/06\/14\/thursday-june-14-berlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, June 14 (Berlin)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cray 2 super computer at the German Technical Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Turn table for trains at the German Technical Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Car exhibit at the German Technical Museum–a somewhat confusing attempt to build a symmetrical car…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A rather odd motorcycle–but allegedly very fast!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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a 1950s camping trailer–nickname: “Wanderniere” (wandering kidney)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The staircase for horses from the days when the technical museum was a cold storage facility (around 1900)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Schloss Charlottenburg from across the lake in the Gardens<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

This morning, the forecast was a bit better (yesterday, it had been overcast and rather cool\u2014the first time we really needed jackets), so we got ready for a day with indoor stuff early in the day (when it was still in the lower 60s) and outdoor things in the afternoon (74 and sunny\u2014about perfect). We had breakfast at the hotel around 8 and then took the S-Bahn to the Technische Museum, to get rid of our tech exhibit deficit that we\u2019ve had since the visit to the paper museum that we had to cut short. It was really a lot of fun. We skipped airplanes and boats, but we went to pretty much every other part of the museum, which included:<\/p>\n

1. a couple of separate exhibits on computers and on the development of various communication \u201cnets\u201d from telegrams to today\u2019s internet, with many things we had seen before, but also a Cray 2.<\/p>\n

2. many, many trains (part of the area is a former train station, Anhalter Bahnhof, with a restored turntable and storage area for locomotives that now holds classic examples of old trains and wagons and whatnot.<\/p>\n

3. There were also exhibits on many industries and processes: photography, paper making, suitcase making, jewelry making, etc etc. Nothing was completely new, but there were some interesting moments\u2014especially when we raptly watched a video on how metal pot scrubbers used to be made with a kind of knitting machine.<\/p>\n

4. We did look at a lot of classic and unique cars and a few motorcycles, although my favorite in that exhibit was a small oval 1950s camper, lovingly called the \u201cWanderniere\u201d (wandering kidney) and a very very pristine Karmann Ghia, one of my favorite 60s cars because they were actually made in the city where my mom lives.<\/p>\n

5. Because the museum also integrates a former cold storage building from the 1910s, it features a really unexpected horse staircase<\/p>\n

We spent a total of almost 4 hours at the museum, and then headed back to Charlottenburg to have our Indian leftovers for lunch with Laurie and a rather grumpy Kai, who decided to stay behind when we ventured back out at about 2 pm. It was beautiful as predicted and we walked the 2 kilometers to nearby Schloss Charlottenburg, another Berlin palace. We had walked there two years ago, but now the renovations are complete and it looks pristine from the outside\u2014but we still didn\u2019t want to tour yet another glittery building, so we just walked around in the really beautiful gardens, along the Spree river and along shady avenues. Then we visited one more museum, the Broehan Museum, which exhibits beautiful art nouveau and Art Deco pieces (some a bit over the top, but others just gorgeous in design and concept\u2014there was a \u201clady\u2019s secretary\u201d that was just perfectly designed), but currently also has an exhibit on the very opposite of art nouveau\u2014the 1910s and 1920s Berlin realists and their attempt to raise awareness about the misery and hunger that run rampant in the Berlin of those years. They featured sketches, paintings, photographs, and prints by Kaethe Kollwitz, George Grosz, Otto Dix, and Heinrich Zille that were really impressive (and depressing), although I still have a really distinct preference for Kollwitz, whose human touch sets her apart from what I think as really cold and hostile about Dix and Grosz in particularly. That said, I came for the Art Deco, but ended up liking the realism better\u2014especially Kollwitz and some of the posters and direct appeals that these artists designed and that I wasn\u2019t aware of.<\/p>\n

We stayed until about 4:30, then walked down the Schlossstrasse and eventually took the subway back to the hotel to get Mark\u2019s computer and my iPad before returning to Laurie\u2019s. We worked on our blogs and photos and helped a little with dinner preparations until Laurie and Stella came back from Stella\u2019s theater class. Then we had a lovely pesto dinner with arugula, tomatoes, and mozzarella, and some cake we\u2019d brought home for dessert. We watched a few bits and pieces of Kai\u2018s performance in Big Fish, and then Mark and I took off at about 10 pm to catch the subway back home. It\u2018s nearing midsummer, so it was still light outside and we thoroughly enjoyed the nice cool air and the last bit of daylight outside. Fun days in Berlin\u2014tomorrow, we\u2018ll go back to my mom\u2018s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning, the forecast was a bit better (yesterday, it had been overcast and rather cool\u2014the first time we really needed jackets), so we got ready for a day with indoor stuff early in the day (when it was still in the lower 60s) and outdoor things in the afternoon (74 and sunny\u2014about perfect). We … Continue reading “Thursday, June 14 (Berlin)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-germany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7110,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions\/7110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}