Berlin: Neue Wache
August 11, 2011 | After being completely destroyed during World War II, Neue Wache (the new Guard House) was rebuilt as a memorial to the victims of war and tyranny in 1960. Pictured below, the latest rededication includes Käthe Kollwitz’s scultpure “Mother with her Dead Son” in the middle of the building.
As I stood there in silence peering through the bars, I felt moved. The bare, cold room housed just the sculpture in the middle of the room with a light shining through the oculus in the ceiling, highlighting the sculpture, as well as exposing it to the harsh Berlin climate. I could feel the loneliness and despair of a mother holding her dead son.
It was a strange feeling. Just a few minutes before, we had been across the street taking a break from all the walking and enjoying coffee and pastries from Opernpalais! But I guess with a history as dark as Berlin’s, it’s only inevitable that we would come across a somber site that would remind of us the events that unfolded in the city less than half a century ago.
Berlin: DZ Bank
August 11, 2011 | I’m WAY behind on updating and I’ve gone on many trips since my last post but I’ve also managed to drop my external hard drive that contains all my photos so I’m just going to skip ahead for now to my Europe trip!
Berlin was the first city that we visited on our 16-day trip in Europe. We stayed at the Circus Hostel– definitely one of the nicest hostels we stayed in on our entire trip! As it was our first time in Berlin, we did a self-guided walking tour and visited the major attractions, such as Brandenburger Tor, Checkpoint Charlie, Holocaust Memorial, and Siegessäule (Victory Column); but armed with a Rick Steve’s guide, we also made it a point to stop inside the DZ Bank to check out the interior:
DZ Bank interior (Frank O. Gehry)
Cool, right?? From the outside, the building looks like any other office building, so it’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. We couldn’t go past the entrance/lobby area but it was a cool stop regardless, located conveniently just next to Brandenburger Tor.
More posts on Berlin attractions to follow!
Embera Village Tour
November 28, 2009 | On the second to last day, I arranged for us to go on an Embera Village Tour with Anne Gordon de Barrigon. I’d read some great reviews about her tours and booked the day tour online. I’m glad that we went on this tour, as it was one of the most memorable things about this trip.
Anne had an interesting story about how she ended up as a tour guide in Panama. She started off as an animal trainer for tv/films– her repertoire includes Legends of the Falls and Practical Magic! One of her movies, End of the Spear, brought her to Panama to film the Embera people portraying Ecuadorian natives. In a nutshell, she ended up getting married to one of the tribesmen (who’s waaay younger than she is, by the way) and they now run the tours together!
After a breezy yet relaxing dugout canoe ride, we visited Embera Puru where the village people greeted us with some music and dancing. The villages are located in the Chagres National Park and interestingly enough, the villagers’ primary income is from tourism.
Anne encouraged us to support the village by purchasing one of their many homemade goods, as pictured below:
The crafts were pretty cool. I ended up buying one of the woven baskets for $25.
Some of the visitors brought gifts for the children. It was fun watching them divvy out the toy/games/coloring books as all the kids gathered around eagerly.
The villagers wore traditional clothing (very little clothing, but I guess with such tropical weather, it’s expected), the women’s chest just covered by festive beaded necklaces, which they normally only wear for special occasions. Talk about culture shock, haha.
More images to follow…
Panama Viejo
November 27, 2009 | We took a morning flight out of Bocas del Toro back to Panama City. After checking in to our hostel (we had a private room with a private bathroom), we took a cab to Panama Viejo to see the ruins of Old Panama City. After going through the museum (there were some English-speaking guides as the museum is completely in Spanish), we continued outside to see the ruins.
Through the remains of an old building, you can see the blur that is my sister walking down the sidewalk. The area outside of the ruins is supposedly a bit sketchy so we didn’t wander outside of the area.
Some of the ruins have had some additions for some structural support. I also snapped a shot of some local kids playing across the street (that’s not creepy, right?).
Sloth-sighting
November 26, 2009 | Yes, I know, I am TERRIBLE about updating this blog but I’m not giving up. In any case, here’s another picture from the J&J Transparante Tour. Trying to zoom in on a sloth in a tree while on a drifting boat was not easy!
Here’s an idea of how far we were (and I’m pretty sure I used some zoom on this too). The sloth-sighting was a little bonus for the tour!
Dolphin Caye
November 26, 2009 | We had pre-scheduled a snorkeling tour with J & J Transparante Tours in the morning to see Dolphin Caye, Crawl Caye, Red Frog Beach, and Hospital Point. Our group consisted of 28 people, all tourists of course. The first stop we made was Dolphin Caye. I was doubtful we’d see any dolphins, but after a little while, we found ‘em! It was rather difficult getting a good shot– this isn’t the best picture I’ve ever taken but it’s the best I got of one of the dolphins out of the water!
Also, I could recrop the photo so the waterline is horizontal but I’m feeling lazy now. Anyway, at one point, some of the dolphins were following behind our boat and jumping in the wake! The tour was $92 total for the 4 of us– very affordable! I actually was very impressed with the tour but I’ll write more about that in following posts.
Bocas del Toro
November 25, 2009 | Just down the street, there’s a great open view of the water. I snapped a few (blurry) shots before dinner as we were losing sunlight. This one was the most clear shot I got–
I like the composition of this shot better though. Shoulda brought my tripod!
Gran Hotel Bahia
November 25, 2009 | Almirante isn’t a particularly beautiful place, but it’s where the water taxi place was to take us to Bocas del Toro. It’s roughly a 30 minute or so ride to Bocas del Toro by water taxi and cost us $4 per person.
Bocas Towne is on Isla Colon, the largest island in the Bocas del Toro archipelago, located in the Caribbean. When we arrived, it was immediately apparent that the climate was much warmer and typical of the Caribbean. I got pretty sweaty in the 10-15 minute walk to our hotel, Gran Hotel Bahia.
The hotel looks pretty cool from the outside but my parents were less impressed with the inside. It’s an older place and feels like it. I didn’t mind so much but *shrugs* ya know, parents. We paid $116 per night for 2 nights for the 4 of us. At least we had AC. Bocas del Toro was very touristy and good for surfers.
Fortuna Dam
November 25, 2009 | Esteban made a stop at Fortuna Dam, where we paid $1 to use the restrooms and bought some pineapple from a nearby vendor. We learned from our driver that the dam is the sole source of electricity for all of Panama.
It was really nice having our own driver actually. He stopped or slowed down whenever we asked him to, which was nice for me– I could stop and take pictures!
Breakfast in Boquete
November 25, 2009 | Mornings in Boquete felt amazing. Cool weather, sunshine. We went to the grocery store the night before and picked up some stuff for breakfast. We had fruit, bread, eggs, cereal and yogurt.
We had a nice big breakfast to prepare ourselves for the travels of the day! My dad arranged for our taxi driver from yesterday, Esteban, to take us to Almirante for $120– not bad for a 4-5 hour drive! Esteban even threw in a stop in David so my dad could find some sugar cane juice (yum!).
