This was quite a high tech place with electronic viewers which reacted when pointed at the dinosaurs and first put muscles and internal organs on the beast and then built it up to an animated dispay of the beast in action. I was fascinated by an electronic map of the world showing firstly the development of the human race from the great apes and then the spread of mankind across the globe.
I think, my generation was always taught that there was Cro-Mangon man and Neaderthal and that the former wiped out the latter as they were more intelligent. Many years have passed since my formal education and I was more aware of the sub species, largely thanks to the BBC so I was not surprised to see Homo erectus or Homo Sapiens on the list of humanoids but, was very surprised to see how many branches of humanoids lived side by side for many years and even survived in isolated pockets when the rest had become extinct. Of course, as a bloke, I thought it quite amusing that the human race only really started soreading across the globe with the ‘coming of Homo erectus’.
Another point of interest was the mineral section where they had several large nuggets of gold. Unfortunately they also had a security guard sitting next to the display case and I suspect from the size of the ore that it was not your bog standard smash and grab glass. Once again we went our own ways and met up in the lobby a couple of hours later. It was worth a look round but, not too sure I would make it a regular stop unless we arrived in a monsoon season.
By the time we were ready to go the rain had again and we were all set for a trip to Bernauer Strasser to have alook at the Berlin Wall museum and another section of the wall. I had plans to seek out my own piece of wall for my collection. The last time I visited this site was when I was at the university and it was, as usual, a rushed affair with little time to explore. Like everything else in berlin it has been since turned into more of a tourist attraction and indeed they were even relaying part of the wall to extend the existing section. I suppose if your only claim to fame is having had your town divided by the wall then the only way to pull in the tourists is to enhance it.
I quite liked this section as it includes the viewing platform the West Germans built to annoy the East German authorities. When the wall was first raised and little more than a barbed wire fence the divided community used to meet up in the church for the Sunday service. The Stasi then had the wall built in front of the entrance and the tower was raised in sight of the church so the Westerners could still join in with the service. This lead to the church being demolished but, the tower remained and is now fitted out with yet more historical displays of events on Bernauer Strasse.
As we walked towards the Nordbahnhof S-bahn station we passed a circus and were greeted by grazing camels. More to the point, there were six or seven sections of the wall that had been moved during the reunification as they had been planted straight over graves where the old church had stood and I hoped there might be a small piece of concrete that had come lose over the years. Now I know you can buy pieces of the wall in the tourist shops but, I have long had a suspicion that after all this time for them all to be genuine the wall must have stretched all the way round the wall and not just the city centre so I was after my own chunk. Sure enough on the third section there was some weathering and I got my small piece of the wall witnessed by Oliver Jordan himself.
The Nordbahnhof also had it’s part to play in the division of the city. It was one of the stations that had ben right on the dividing line and for some time people had ran through from the East to West platform and escaped to freedom. Of course it was then closed but, as it was on a main S-bahn line the trains still continued and slowed to a crawl but, were never permitted to stop and the term “ghost station” was termed as all that could be seen were East German guards lurking in the shadows. Even then some of the more enterprising locals found ways of getting onto the trains or unused sections of the station to cross over to the west. It was well worth a visit and there are many displays giving details of the events leading to the closure of the station and it’s part in the Berlin Wall.
We still had quite a bit of time to kill as we had a late flight out of the city and so we went back into Alexanderplatz and found the huge shopping centre where the main attraction appeared to be the cinema complex that was awaiting Angelina Jolie for a premier of her new movie that was so thrilling I never even noticed the title (SALT). We were more interested in last minute purchases of beer and Applekorn and anything else that took our fancy.
Final shopping over it was back to Rotdorn to collect the cases and take a leisurely ride back to Schoenefeld It was an uneventful trip on the train but, just as we were thinking we had pretty much nailed all the sights we passed a station that caught the attention of both of us; Mexico Platz. Ah, well there is always next time.
