Tea time and Tours, Days Five and Six

June 21st:

I don't have a lot to comment about for Sunday because i spent the entirety of the day writing blog posts and catching up on some of the readings that we need to do for the program. I started in my pajamas in my bed and I eventually got ready for the day and went to get food. For the first time I went to find lunch on my own and had a wonderful time just watching the people and interactions happening around me. After that I met up with my friends at a cafe that has free wifi and we spent a few hours there doing work before we got hungry and decided it was time to find dinner. Once dinner was finished we went back to the hostel and I ended the day studying in my pajamas in my bed.

June 22nd:

This morning I had to get up particularly early because we were meeting at 8 am to leave for an underground bunker tour. It was overcast and just barely 60 degrees Farenheit and much earlier than any of us wanted to be up on a Monday morning. After we had taken the S bahn and U bahn to our destination we had a few minutes for those who wanted it to order coffee before the tour began. We met with our tour guide and she started to lead us back into the subway station, which was surprising at first, but then she led us to a door that we had passed by without much thought and explained that the underground tour was actually under the subway station. The area was not intended to be used as a bunker when it was created, but after the first air raid on Berlin there was a mad dash to build more bunkers and shelters, and anything that could be converted to a shelter was. The guide explained to us that a true bunker is meant to be bomb proof and has cement walls 3 meters thick and with heavy supports, the cellars and underground places that people converted to shelters were not bomb proof, but they were better shelter than being above ground. The tour guide also went on to explain how many of the parts of public air raid shelters were mostly there for the mental assurance of the citizens and not that they actually worked. For example, there were signs that said 'air lock', which would protect people from a gas attack, but there really was no system in place that would have protected the people from a weaponized gas.

The first room that we went into was the bathroom, which the tour guide explained had been partially restored as most of the original toilets, plumbing, and stalls had been removed or stolen. There were only earth toilettes present in the room, but there were shadows and indents where plumbing and walls had once been. The tour guide also explained that although the air raides didn't last very long at the beginning of the war, by the end of the war people may stay overnight in these places and the bathrooms were one of the few places of privacy the people would have. We were in what was the women's bathroom, and the guide said we would not see the men's bathroom because we wouldn't all fit since it was so much smaller due to most of the men fighting in the war. Near the end of the war when it was clear Germany would not win, and many women's families had been killed, it was not uncommen for the women to commit suicide in the stalls. I can't even imagine the pyschological trauma that living through the second world war in Germany would be like. but i think being surrounded by the rubble of what was once your city and the uncountable deaths would be enough to test any persons moral integrity.

Next we walked into a room that at first seemed completely ordinary, with only white walls and two doors, although there was red rope preventing anyone from touching or leaning against the wall. This was explained when the guide turned off the lights and we were still able to see becuase the walls were glowing flourescent green. The bombs would cause power outages, which is a significant problem underground, so the Germans painted the door frames, stairs, and some rooms with this glow in the dark paint.

After that room we saw a room with benches where people would sit until the air raides were over and the tour guide discussed how each room had a maximum capacity for number of people who should be on the room. The capacity was determined by the ventilation system in the room and how much oxygen there was when everything was sealed off. People weren't meant to stay in the shelters long, but near the end of the war, the rooms had 3 or 4 times its capacity and people would need to stay in shelters for hours. They would monitor the oxygen level with candles at different elevations in the room, and if the candle near the ceiling went out, people would have to make the decision to stay and suffocate or to leave the shelter where bombs were being dropped.

In the last of the rooms we saw there were belongings from fallen German and Soviet soldiers and the shells of bombs and many other relics from the second world war.

After the underground tour Mira and I went on a walk to find a tower in a park acrossed the street from the tour before we had to make our way back to Humboldt University to meet up again. Of course Mira and I got lost in the enormous park, but it was gorgeous and full of trees and children playing on playgrounds and people walking and running, there were even some practicing martial arts in more secluded areas. Eventually we found our way out of the park and to Humboldt University where we had lunch before going to our next destination.

The next place that we went was a youth museum that is generally meant for younger aged groups, but the purpose of the museum is to address the increasing diversity of German identity and culture and help children discover that we should accept people as they are. It was a unique museum in that you are encouraged to interact with everything. The museum consists of fifteen rooms, and each room is a representation of a different individual who has an immigrant background. We were put into teams and then assigned a room. We were then tasked to figure out each person's identity based on their room, and we would present what we discovered about our person to the rest of the group. After we finished presenting to each other the point was to discover that even if people came from similar backgrounds, they could have completely different identities. For example the room I had was of a young teenage boy who grew up in Germany, and identified as German even though he was born from polish parents and other Germans mistake him for Polish. But, another group a girl who has Polish origins, and though she goes to school in Germany and spends most of her time in Germany, she identifies as Polish and most of her friends in Poland. The whole museum strongly connected back to the theme of our program and examining identities in Germany and the United States.

After the museum we made our way back to the Hostel where we got ready to go to a group dinner at a well known german restaurant. The food was delicious and we ate entirely too much. There was also a salsa dancing lesson on that everyone participated in. I don't think any of us were particularly good, but it was definitely fun!

Once we got back from dancing all i wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep, but instead i did some more reading and i hand washed my clothes in a sink (which is very difficult when you don't have a sink plug!) Finally i was able to go to bed and get a few hours of sleep in before i had to start again the next day.