Museum Island, Berlin, Germany

While in Berlin last week, for the Johannes Oerding concert, we wanted to visit Museuminsel, the Museum Island.  It's a complex of five museums, sitting on 8,6 hectors (21 acres) in the historic part of the city, on Spree Island, located near the Berlin Cathedral and Humboldt Forum.     

The five original museums, originally built from 1830 to 1930, are the Altes Museum, the Neues Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode-Museum, and the Pergamon Museum. 

In 1999, Museuminsel was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 2019, the James Simon Gallery opened which is an art gallery and visitor centre.

The Altes Museum, the oldest on the island, was built in 1830 is known for Greek and Roman art.

The Neues Museum was completed in 1859.  It was renovated in 2009.  

Famous for Egyptian and Etruscan sculptures including the bust of Queen Nefertiti.

The Alte Nationalgalerie was comped in 1876 and hosts 19th-century art.

The Bode-Museum opened in 1904 and is home to late Antique and Byzantine art.

The Pergamon Museum was completed in 1930.  It contains the Greek Pergamon Altar and Ishtar Gate of Babylon.

Here's a short DW video I found out on YouTube about Museum Island.

©Deutsche Welle

We wanted to check out the some of the museums because the area is about to go under significant renovation but everything was sold out.  I believe that everything is supposed to be completed by 2025 to 2026.  

Update December 2025:  Here's a short YouTube video about the Pergamon Museum renovations.

©Deutsche Welle

Johannes Oerding Concert

Back in 2020, for Christmas, I gave concert tickets to Tünde, for the three of us to see Johannes Oerding at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in February 2021.  

However, due to Covid restrictions, the concert kept getting pushed back.

Much like the Pet Shop Boys concert, that I bought tickets for in 2019, but we didn't get to see until 2022. 

The concert last night was great!  We really enjoyed ourselves.  

©Jens Hettwer

The opening act was ELIF, who's real name is Elif Demirezer, a local Turkish-German singer.  She also later performed a duet with him.  

Here's a YouTube video I found of her singing Alles Brennt with him.

©Uli Mü

He also had another Turkish performer join him on stage.  Zeynep Avci, also a Berlin local, competed on season 11 of The Voice of Germany, where Johannes Oerding was a judge. 

Here's them singing Stärker.  

©Uli Mü

A fun weekend but to Berlin and back for a concert was a bit much.  Still worth it and Tünde finally got her 2020 Christmas present.  I guess I lucked out that after 2,5 years, he's still one of her favourite singers.  

Christmas Day 2022

Yesterday was European Christmas, which again is Christmas Eve in the USA, and today was Christmas Day, which some refer to as the first day of Christmas and some refer to as the second day of Christmas since Christmas was last night.  Yeah, I know it can be a bit confusing.

Anyway, today was the day to relax and watch Christmas fairy tales on German TV.  Of course that meant watching the Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel, the German edition of Popelka.

Between fairy tales, Oma put Tünde and I to work making dumplings for dinner.

Christmas 2022

Veselé Vánoce, Fröhliche Weihnachten, and Merry Christmas!

Like usual, we headed over to Oma and Opa's place for coffee and cake before going to church.  This year, services were held both inside and outside.  

We had our traditional Christmas dinner of buletten, sausages, and potato salad.

Tünde's getting older so der Weihnachtsmann didn't make an appearance this year but we still had presents.

I absolutely love my new "Best Guncle Ever" t-shirt.

Another great Christmas with the German family.  I also finished Tünde's advent sock calendar.    

Update: My sister wins the best Christmas present ever.  When I got back to Brno there was a package waiting for me.  She scanned my late grandmother's signature and had it laser printed on a Christmas ornament.

Müggelseesingen

This evening we met up with a few people for dinner at our favourite sushi place on Bölscherstraße.  Afterwards it was on the beach at Müggelsee, where we went ice skating before, for a a Christmas sing-a-long.  

It was fun.  There was a stage with choir singers and there a few mini-bonfires and candles while people drank glühwein and sang Christmas songs.  

Some of the songs I knew but there were several German songs that I'd never heard before.  Fortunately the programmes contained the lyrics to all of the songs.

After a few hours of singing it was back to the flat.  I needed to make the buletten for tomorrow's Christmas dinner.

I still can't believe that Christmas is tomorrow.  

Ku'Damm des Ostens

Germany reunified more than 30 years ago but there are still differences, cultural and economic differences, between between what used to be East Germany and West Germany.  The same goes for Berlin.  I can feel the difference between West Berlin and East Berlin.  

Personally I prefer East Berlin.  And not just because East Berlin has trams and Ampelmännchen.

In West Berlin, the posh street was Kurfürstendamm.  Or Ku'damm to the locals.  Basically the Berlin version of the Champs-Élysées. 

The street was damaged during the war and it wasn't rebuilt until the 1950s.  It is 3,5 km (2 miles) long and it was the heart of West Berlin whereas the heart of East Berlin was Alexanderplatz.

Ku'damm has lots of cafes, high-end shops, and Kaufhaus Des Westens, called "KaDeWe", the Department Store of the West.  It is over 100 years old and is the 2nd largest shopping centre in Europe.

Here's a five-minute video I found on YouTube about Ku'damm.

©DW News

In Friedrichshagen, the main posh street is Bölscherstraße which is nicknamed Ku'damm des Ostens which means  "Ku'damm of the east".

Bölscherstraße is about 1,3 km (0.8 mile) and runs from the S-Bahn station all the way to the Müggelsee.

The street was named after Wilhelm Bölsche who was a local author and poet.  There are more than 100 buildings that are a mix of residential and shops.  

There's quite a bit on this street including my favourite Döner Kebab place, the spaghetti ice cream shop, and even the Union theatre where I had to watch the movie about a girl and a horse. 

At the Friedrichshagen S-Bahn station there are photos of what the street used to look like why back when.

Here's a 3,5 minute video highlighting the street but the text is only in German.

©kulturring.berlin

Atlas Obscura & the David Hasselhoff Museum

A few years ago, Nat introduced me to Atlas Obscura.  It's an American website that was founded in 2009.  It doesn't list the usual sightseeing destinations.  Just unusual and obscure travel must-sees that would only be known to locals.  Heck, some of these, even the locals might not know about.  Anytime I travel someplace, I always looks to see what the local Atlas Obscura sights are.

One of the things on Tünde's list this time was to visit the Deutsches Currrywurst Museum.  The museum opened in 2009 on the 60th anniversary of Currywurst being created.  Currywurst and a wacky museum?  Sounded great.  What we didn't know was that the museum closed permanently back in December 2018.

Here's a two-minute YouTube video I found that at least shows what the museum was like.  I bet that the gift shop would have been fun.

©Deutsches Currywurst Museum

So instead, we went to the David Hasselhoff Museum.  Yes, Berlin has a David Hasselhoff museum.  The museum is very small.  It's basically a downstairs hallway that's located at a hostel.  The museum is free and it's open 24/7.  

There's some memorabilia from his shows Knightrider and Baywatch.

There's the cliché that Germans love David Hasselhoff.  One of the main reasons is that on New Year's Eve in 1989, he sang his song Looking for Freedom at the Berlin Wall not long after it fell, back when there were still two Germanys; West Germany and East Germany.

Here's a four-minute video that I found out on YouTube where he's a guest on the Kelly Clarkson show and talks about why he's so popular in Germany.

©The Kelly Clarkson Show

For anyone who missed it, here's his 1989 New Year's Eve performance.

©Schlager für Alle

Back to Back Berlin Weekends

Last weekend I was in Berlin for the Pet Shop Boys concert with Claudia.  This whole last week I was on a business trip to Frankfurt.  I wasn't planning on being in Berlin this weekend but with Natalie making a surprise visit to see the girls I just had to join in too.  

Once we finally arrived, we went to Claudia's parent's place in Rahnsdorf.  It's been hot in Euroland.  It was 35℃ (95℉) so the swimming pool felt great.

Once pool time was over, I was put to work picking cherries.

Later on we went to to Friedrichshagen and grabbed some döner kebabs for dinner.

This was a whirlwind weekend but I got to see Nat a second time while she's here with the Red Cross and Tünde got a double godparent visit.  But I was completely knackered after the delay getting to Berlin on Friday night.  

I left around 7:30 am because my train from Hauptbahnhof to Brno left at 9:16 am.  I had a seat reservation in 1st class but there was a last minute reconfiguration and there was one less 1st class wagon.  

Of course, the wagon that wasn't there was the one where I had a reservation.  So lots of people were scrambling to find a seat.  Not a big deal. but the train was late and I missed my connection in Prague.  

The next Prague train was completely booked so I had to wait just over three hours for the next available train to get back home.  On Thursday I go to Dresden and Moritzburg.  My fourth trip to Germany in three weeks. 

Pet Shop Boys Concert 2022

We finally got to see the Pet Shop Boys at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin last night.  I bought these tickets back in 2019 and I forgot that I booked the premium seat package.  We tried to enter the area last night and the guy at the door said that we had to go around to the other entrance.  

The other entrance was the premium ticket ticket entry.  Wow, what a difference.  There were restaurants and bars that we were able to visit prior to going inside.  The premium section was nice and the price difference was only €10 per seat.  Well worth it.    

The entire show was awesome!  It was basically all of their greatest hits.  We had awesome seats.  The show was even better than the last time I saw them at the 2013 Berlin music festival.  I don't think I sat down once during the whole show.  

After the concert we headed back to Friedrichshagen because I had to leave before 6 AM to catch the S-Bahn to Hauptbahnhof for my morning train back to Brno.  Tonight I need to finish packing because tomorrow I'm headed back to Frankfurt for the week.

Here are a few video clips that I took with my mobile.  Now I can't wait to see them again.