Sunday, May 24, 2015

The Food of Berlin

So, for all of you who know I'm sort of a foodie, I couldn't help but take pictures of some of my meals while in Berlin.  Therefore, here are some pictures of delicious Berlin cuisine!

Tarte Flambée

Pizza and greek-ish salad

Delicious mango chicken and rice

Guinea hen with risotto and roasted veggies

Mango and raspberry sorbet

Cheap chicken donair!

Cheese covered pretzel

Currywurst with a bun!

Look familiar?

Pasta carbonara with house salad

Delicious Turkish food

First beer in Germany!

Surprisingly large individual Margherita pizza

Chocolate donair with Nutella and strawberries

Spätzle with cheese and roasted onion, with house salad. Yum!

Best donair in Berlin (worth the hour it took to get it!)

Thanks guys

Now that I'm semi-rested and back on Canadain, soil I want to thank the class and our teachers Thomas and Julia for making my first trip the Old World such a great experience. I think I speak for everyone in saying it was incredibly enlightening and was an all around great experience.

Friday, May 22, 2015

Schloss Schönhausen

For those who wanted photos from the Castle!!!








For you Vince!!






Museum Karlshorst

The Museum Karlshorst was first opened in 1995 as a joint collaboration between Germany and Russia to commemorate aspects of WWII, including the historic event of the surrender of the Wehmarcht on May 8, 1945.  This remains the only museum in Germany that provides insight of hostility against the Soviet Union, thus providing a unique insight into the war from different perspectives.  The building itself used to be the former officers' mess of the German Armed Forces' Pioneer School which served in the Soviet Military Administration of Germany. The building was then used as a Soviet surrender museum until 1994, where it was changed to be the museum it is today.

Outside facade of the Karlshorst Museum.

An example of Soviet Union's propaganda.

The museum itself was intriguing in that it provided information from the Soviet Union's perspective on WWII compared to what might be covered at other exhibits; this could be attributed to the building's previous function.  The difference of information being told in this museum might differ quite dramatically from one told from a Canadian perspective, for example that which would focus on the western perspective instead.  What impressed me the most was the type of information displayed by the museum; there would not be many other places that one could read so extensively about Soviet Union's part in the second world war including propaganda and other information.  As well, the museum portrays the sheer brutality of the war in photographs which may not be as common as in other museums, but which plays an important role in acknowledging what actually happened.  It also covered many different aspects of the war, including different propaganda used by the Soviet Union, maps illustrating spatial information, photographs, a diorama describing a war scene and many more.


Map of Soviet Union war camps and approximate number of deaths.


Photograph of a woman and child depicting the starvation that occurred.

My general impression of the museum is that it provides very valuable information that might otherwise not be available under different circumstances, as well as that this information is helpful in understanding the war on a deeper level.


Source:  German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://www.museum-karlshorst.de/en.html

Heydrich and Eichmann

When I first sat down in front of the flowchart of the individuals present at the Wannsee Conference I picked out Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann immediately. It was interesting that the tour guide then mentioned that those were the two most common people to be singled out of the flow chart. Heydrich was the front runner of the Wannsee Conference. He was the man who contacted most of the other individuals present at the conference to have the meeting in the first place. One of those individuals was Eichmann. Eichmann played the role of organizing the deportation of Jews at the Wannsee conference. He escaped to Argentina after the war until 1962 were he was captured and brought to Palestine. In Palestine he was tried and sentenced to death by hanging. Eichmanns capture and trial has become a monumental moment in history. 

Two Weeks of Panoramas

I tried to take a panoramic photograph of each area which I visited.  This was the result.