Taru-Maija, Nadi, and Benjamin waved goodbye to us, and we left Jyvaskyla and headed for Helsinki on one of Finland's wonderful trains...they travel at great speeds (150+ KM/hr) but as silent as the New York Public Library...and they are efficient.
In Helsinki, I was wearing my "Heilala - Finland Austronaut" t-shirt -- and Vesa-Pekka (Finland's astronaut and T-M's brother) met us at the hotel. We shared a dinner and heard of all the things he has done in his 44 years -- including motor cycling, paratroop-ing, scuba diving, and riding horses for a 12-day trip in Mongolia. He is definitely a "man's man". This latest journey is scheduled to take place next year -- he is earning his money to make the trip, and has been chosen as one of the two Finns selected for the "tourist" trip to space: 55 miles above the earth for 2.5 hours....he will make a journey to the spaceport in NM next year -- it is an exciting project. He has the local Finnish brewery, Olvi, as a sponsor -- and is selling t-shirts. Let me know if you want to support this somewhat distant son of Mississippi (brother of one of our Finnish daughters). It's really a nice shirt...He just put his website up in English if you want to read more about him! http://en.
Arose at 3 am (of course, the sun was shining then) to leave the hotel and fly to Amsterdam and then to Berlin. Michael and Barbara were there to meet us, and we went straight away to the flat they had rented for us. IT IS GREAT! We are in a wonderful neighborhood, close to the train, a block from Barbara's home and about a 20 minute walk to Michael's.
We love Berlin! I guess it was so demolished after the war that the city planners could create it the way they wanted, and they did a wonderful job. In what we have seen, aside from the very central part of the city where the administration buildings are, streets are tree-lined with REAL trees -- not crepe myrtles. Our neighborhood has these tree-lined streets, and buildings that are probably no more than five stories high -- so you have a real "human" dimension feel. Every apt/flat has a balcony, but when we sit out on ours, we seem to be the only ones doing so. What I have figured out is that the balcony becomes an
extra "junque room" and people just have their outdoor time at a cafe. I believe Berlin is the best "cafe society" place I have ever been (and I have been to Paris!) Even the small and local neighborhoods have their fair share of sidewalk cafes, and, because the prices are reasonable, many a person eats their dinner out every night. At least our neighbors seem to.
The day we arrived was a rainy day in Berlin, so we settled into the flat, and had a wonderful dinner at Barbara and Oswald's home...it is a high-ceilinged, large roomed apartment in a hundred year plus building, which must have survived the bombings of WWII. We caught up on all the people they knew from Oxford and those from Germany that we had known. As I looked at them, I felt as though time had stood still, but of course, it had not. They are approaching their 50's and we are in our 70's. But the sheer joy of being together was timeless. We laid out plans for the Berlin part of our odyssey.
Breakfast the next morning was at Michael' apartment -- also one with high ceilings, and big windows. German apartments are build with just a square wall -- no closets, but IKEA does a landslide business in providing modular closets, cabinets, and bookcases. If you negate the "putting together" part...these pieces make the rooms look quite professionally decorated. I really like them.
Our first side trip was to the "New Museum" which was built in the late 1800's -- makes you smile, doesn't it? There I finally saw the Nefertiti bust -- she is quite a beautiful woman and DOES NOT show her age a bit. Wish I knew her secret. After that, there was a "coffee stop", in almost a picture perfect cafe. See the pictures.
We spent the Fourth of July with Michael's parents (Willie and Monika). Fate has thrown us together for the fourth time, and we are almost becoming best friends. Every time we are together, they teach me more about our parallel lives and most un-parallel experiences. More on that later in the blog.
Tuesday we walked around the city and took a "hop on hop off" bus. We have come to love these ubiquitous services. When you have a brief time in a city, the 2-4 hours spent on them (or off at whatever interests you) is a good investment of time. We saw the highlights of the city, along with a filming crew from Denmark who were obviously doing the same for production.
Berlin is a fascinating city -- we have been reading its history and it is, as Michael says, a patchwork quilt...quite old (restored) buildings are connected to the most modern of designed structures. In my memory, the city was destroyed in the war, and at Willie and Monika's home we watched a DVD reviewing the destruction and rebuilding of the city. Piles of rubble were cleared by women in dresses, and even some in heels (low, bulky heels admittedly, but heels nevertheless). It is shocking to realize that there are NO men in the pictures -- because they had all been in the war. The women just plodded along, picking up cobblestone sized rocks/pieces of buildings and pitching them to the next lady who pitched them further on...you get the picture.
I guess here is a good enough place to intercede with why we learn from them: They are a mere three/five years older than we (born in 1933) -- a lot when you are in 7th grade, but not much when you are 70 or so...they suffered a childhood scarred by the war...they were on the losing side. Losers often carry the burden of that loss longer on the inside than you can see on the outside.
On our first journey to Germany, they were comfortable enough with us to discuss the Second World War. Willie's father had gone to the military in 1939, returned for one furlough, and never came home again. He died somewhere on the Russian front, sometime before the end of the war. He was a Nazi soldier, and had voted for Hitler. Willie says with a wisdom born of survival, "You do what you must to survive."
During the days of Perostroika, Willie received a letter from the Soviet government in the Ukraine, that his father had died in a prisoner camp in February of 1945. He is buried in a mass grave in the central areas of that country, but records of those so buried were not kept. There is no place to say goodbye.
Monika was from Cochem, on the Mosel River, and her father also died in the latter days of the war. He was a river steward, NOT a Nazi, and even spoke openly against Hitler. She shared with us that at a certain point on her way home from school, she would go through an old arch, and she could see her house. She shuttered if she saw soldiers near...she lived in dreadful fear that they would take her father away. In the early months of 1945, our American planes strafed the river and killed her Dad. He has a life long, perpetually maintained gravesite in Cochem because he was a war fatality. Other grave sites are emptied after a 20 year period, and replaced with new bodies. She can visit her Dad's gravesite, and remember that he told her, "You stand up for what you believe."
These two survivors have differing opinions on just how to be one of those left standing. Pray that they never have to decide on one again.
So while Vaughn and I were safely tucked in by our Dads because they were in "essential industries", these two wonderful people lost their fathers. I know war is Hell. And, I certainly agree that some wars, that one in particular, must be fought. But as my Dad said,"Old men make wars, and young men fight them." And, the children often pay the price, too. I just wonder about the collective psychology of losing your parents AND a war when you are just barely able to read and write.
The war has scarred them in their own ways, but they have had a good life, and they have raised an extraordinary son in Michael. We cherish their friendship.
Later, we visited the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in the center of Berlin, near the Brandenburg Tor -- a site often shown during the days of the Wall. It is a field of great blocks of stone, at varying heights on an undulating landscape. The museum lies underground, and it fits the mood. The emphasis is on the individuals who suffered and were murdered, using their own words, gleaned from messages spirited out through a variety of means. Between these two sites one cannot help but wonder what it is in some leaders that make them think they can control the lives of others.
My hat is off to Berlin. The city has been well designed by the post war city planners...it seems to shout out that it celebrates its history...rebuilding the palaces and 17th and 18th century architecture, but at the same time, putting the new chrome and glass buildings right next to them...past and present...and especially future are side by side.
Pictures later....
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