Hmmm - perhaps that title is misleading. It should say 'I'm Off to Amsterdam and Berlin'.
Last year I struggled to use up my vacation time. On June 30th (our year end) I lost 17 days of vacation. Yup, more than three weeks. I was determined to not do the same this year.
The problem is that Paul only has 2 weeks of vacation now that he has his new job at Target. New jobs suck for that. I do not mind using vacation time to just hang out at home but five weeks of that is a tad sedentary. I also don't mind traveling on my own but let's face it - adventures are better with a friend.
Last May I was complaining about this with a colleague while we were stuck in a rather dull meeting. She said 'I'd go with you'. We've traveled together before and had a blast so before you know it we were set for a few weeks in Amsterdam and Berlin.
Had we been smart and not so impulsive we might have done a few things differently - Berlin in January? ACK
Hindsight is a fine thing.
Nonetheless, an adventure is awaiting me in Amsterdam and Berlin and I am excited.
Nancy has been to Amsterdam dozens of times and was excited to show me the city. She declared herself to be 'tour guide'. Mind you her idea of travel is 'wandering aimlessly and soaking up the atmosphere'.
Yes, that is a direct quote!
She also claims to get lost. A lot.
I don't mind that but I also know that if there are things you want to see you had better plan ahead so you know a) opening and closing times/dates, and b) if there are ways to beat the crowds. I started doing some research.
The first thing we booked was this amazing apartment. The owner, Ton, has been brilliant to work with. The only drawback that I can see might be the four flights of stairs to the actual apartment. Mind you, given my Christmas caloric indulgence this may not be a drawback at all.
I did some research and decided which Amsterdam discount card would be the best for us. I figured out the best spot to get it - a museum depicting a 18th century canal house which is about 2 blocks from the apartment and wonders of wonders it remains decorated for Christmas until January 5th! I am looking forward to that.
I discovered a great free walking tour of Amsterdam. We are booked for that on Saturday. Of course, said 'free' tour cost 3 euros to book it online but that is a minor thing.
My research showed me that the Royal Palace on Dam Square is only open on January 5th and 6th. I'd like to see that so now I know which dates we need to head in that direction. Yes, the entrance is free with the discount card.
I read that the line for the Anne Frank House can be long but if you prebook online you can breeze past the crowds. Yes, we are prebooked for 9:20 on Monday. Yup, it is free toget inwith that museum card.
I also booked a wine and cheese tasting class for Monday. Nancy gets ill from the smell of strong cheese and wine so I am doing this on my own. No one needs to deal with something that will make them ill. I do not need to deal with ill traveling companions. :-)
I also discovered that there is a free concert at 12:30 in the acoustically famous Concertgebrouw. It would be nice to sit in the hall and soak up some lovely music for 30 minutes.
Beyond that I an good with wandering aimlessly and taking in the atmosphere. Just so long as I get to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Museum, Jewish Historical Museum and the Stedelijk Museum. If time permits I'd like to go to the trade union museum. It makes sense given that I work for a union!
I'd like to shop, enjoy some amazing Indonesian food, and relax in a cafe or seven.
On the 10th we depart for Berlin. Remember when I mentioned some mistakes we made when booking things? This is the biggest. Had we been wise we would have added a flight to Berlin when we booked our flights - it would have added about $ 50 to the total cost (airline ticket bundling is a mysterious thing). It would have taken about 4 hours with trip to airport, flight, and stuff. Instead we figured we'd deal with it later. Now we are taking a high speed train which will take most of the 10th and cost $100.
Oh well. I LOVE trains in Europe and we decided to go first class so it will be grand.
A facebook friend suggested our Berlin hotel to me. It is in the popular Mitte district and close to the Brandenburg gate and Museum Island. Folks on Tripadvisor rave about it and we got a good deal. All in all, a happy thing.
We haven't made a lot of plans for Berlin.
We have a tentative booking for a walking tour with Context Tours:
This three-hour walking seminar explores the twelve years that still gape like an open wound at the center of Germany’s 20th century history: the years between 1933 and 1945 when Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party (the Nazis) steered Germany into war and terror. In the company of a 20th century historian, we will explore the rise of the Nazis to power, the horrors and tragedies of their regime, and the events and circumstances that led to their fall. We will pay special attention to the monuments designed and envisioned by Hitler’s chief architect Albert Speer that bear active witness to the reign of the Third Reich, trying as we do so to come to terms with this traumatic “past that will not pass away,” and in so doing will link Nazi history to the geography of their capital city, Berlin.
We will begin at the Reichstag, German house of parliament where the fire of February 27, 1933—falsely pinned on the Dutch socialist Marinus van der Lubbe—proved pivotal in gaining Adolf Hitler the dictatorial “power of decree” that he used to rescind the civil and political rights of the Weimar constitution and thus set in motion the events of the next twelve years. We'll linger on this spot because it helps to frame some fundamental questions about Nazi power: From where did it derive, and how did their reign begin?
Our exploration will take us to the Brandenburg Gate from which we will be able to look down the long, straight Strasse des 17. Juni, one of the main boulevards in Albert Speer’s proposed plan for the new monumental center of “World Capital Germania,” as Nazi Berlin was to be renamed. A discussion of this plan and imagined city will lead us to the memorial of the central tragedy of the Nazi regime: Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This controversial and enigmatic monument will provide us with a context to examine the Nazi policy toward Jews and others whom they identified as “inferior races,” a policy most clearly revealed in the Nuremberg Laws that provided the horrific “final solution to the Jewish question” in 1942.
During the remainder of our walk through the former Wilhemstrasse government quarter of Berlin we will pass many other sites, memorials, and works of architecture that will help us confront the realities of Nazi rule including the former site of Hitler’s Chancellery, the (now built-over) location of the Führerbunker, the former Reich Ministry of Aviation (Luftwaffe), and other major offices that orchestrated the war. We'll conclude with the newly opened Topography of Terror exhibition at the site of the former Gestapo and SS headquarters, an exhibition that represents the most self-conscious effort in the city to uncover the Nazi legacy of a particular place. The nature and organization of the exhibition will give us much food for thought. Instead of trying to provide a final statement about the horrors of Germany’s Nazi past, the Topography of Terror museum is committed to an active engagement with that past, contextualizing it by using place to make history vivid, comprehensible, and inextricably connected to the present.
This last is, in many senses, the primary focus of this walk. We are attempting not merely to “historicize” the Third Reich by separating it completely from the present, but rather are trying to grapple with Berlin’s Nazi legacy—and especially with the sites that remain linked to it—in order to understand how this legacy shapes Berlin today.
I think they need 6 to run a tour and at this point they have 2, yes, US, so we may not get to enjoy that one.
We are also booked on the Berlin version of the free walking tour we did in Amsterdam. Strangely this free tour was actually free to book - unlike the Amsterdam version.
We were also able to arrange a tour of the German Bundestag. A bit of research lead me to find free tours and timed entrances to make your life easy. I am looking forward to walking up in the glass dome.
Other than that there are no great plans for Berlin.
I do want to try one of those famed currywursts I have read about . . . a sausage with ketchup and curry powder. It sounds (and looks) disgusting but everyone raves about it so . . .
I also suspect I'll be spending lots of time hanging out on museum island.