Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

It's late summer in the capital of Germany. Days are getting cooler, crisp air and bright colors. We finally lost the heavy, muggy heat of the last month. First chestnuts are dropping, but the chestnut trees look sad, their leaves a crumpled brown. They’re infested with the larvae of the horse-chestnut leaf miner, and by this time of the year there’s not much green left.

I enjoy riding my bike through town, smelling all the layers of air and letting hundreds of faces and little scenes zip by. I love summers in Berlin: people actually smile, populate the streets and cafes, and there are so many bikes that it’s total anarchy on the roads.

I think, for now, I have sort of come to peace with my hometown. Many years ago, some woman, engaged with me in the standard US- “where are you from” small talk, yelled: “Yeah, of course, you HAVE to hate your hometown. “ I really did not like Berlin back then, but I wasn’t sure that had to apply to everyone and their hometowns.

So I was gone for 20 years, and I changed. I lived, and raised children, worked my butt off (but never had what they call a career), and experienced different cities and environments. I changed some more. And now that I am back, most people here with kids are now way younger than me. It feels weird, and a little sad, I didn’t get to raise my children in my native culture.

But I haven’t changed as much as my hometown did in these same years. So there’s one thing I like about getting old: History becomes a lived-in period, rather than a concept of the past. You see change, good and bad, watch developments, and you begin to distinguish the things that don’t change.

Things that have changed in Berlin:

(I left in 1994, but these changes occurred roughly since the wall came down until today, and are described from a West-Berlin perspective)

1. There is countryside around town. And it is amazing, has lots of destinations, plenty of lakes and old big rivers, beautiful old towns (all newly restored, yet appearing somewhat post-apocalyptic, since no one is ever out in the streets), and a fairly well built-out road system. When I grew up, there was one area within the Wall that was an agricultural field, with a little bit of a sense of open space. That was it. Now you drive 20 minutes any direction and you are in rural Brandenburg. It has not ceased to amaze me. (of course this is totally old news to anyone who’s been here the last 20 years). 
2. Berlin has become an international, diverse city. Back then, West-Berlin was a pretty homogenous, provincial little place, its people wearing this snooty, overblown self-perception of being a unique subculture. Now there is not much difference to London, Paris, Prague or Copenhagen: Lots of people from all over the world, residents and tourists. In between, you can spot the occasional old disgruntled Berliner, not quite grasping what the fuck happened.
3. There now is genuine economic development, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. When I grew up here, West-Berlin was sustained by economic subsidies, to keep it alive while being geographically isolated. Today, there is much real wealth, a strong middle class, a thriving IT start-up scene, and some signs of social innovation, neighborhood projects, alternative economic models, the arts…. even some humor: The building that houses the association of German foundations, located at the former checkpoint Charlie, reads in big letters: ‘You are now entering the Nonprofit Sector’.
4. There are SUVs and leaf blowers. Anyone who buys an SUV in Berlin is by definition a complete idiot. Streets are way to narrow, there’s no parking, and gas is around 4 Euros/Gallon. Leaf blowers are idiotic too, anywhere.
5. About 50% of people employed today in the service industry attended a professional development training at some point that included a PPT slide titled: Be Nice to Your Customer. The other 50% are still treating you like a nuisance. When I grew up, all waiters were nasty. Still today, about 90% of wait staff in Berlin completely forget about you after they have delivered your food, and you have to wave our arms around and holler to get their attention in order to pay the check.

Things that haven’t changed:

1. Berliner Schnauze: This is the term that describes the big mouth of the Berliner, always quick and ready to educate you, make sure you look stupid for asking a question, and to appear completely unhelpful. Everyone has dozens of stories on this. It also inevitably happens when you get back to town from somewhere more friendly, as if they know to catch you at your most off-guard and vulnerable. I got back from London a few days ago, and asked a security guard at the airport: ‘Where does the bus into town take off from?’ He goes, sarcastically: “ From the bus station. ” Long pause, him enjoying the moment. Then the directions follow.….Ha. Ha. Ha.
2. There is an extension of this, when Schnauze turns into passive aggressive behavior. Like one recent Sunday morning, when one of my neighbors pulled his car down the driveway next to the house, to load it up for his vacation. When he was done, somebody had locked the gate, which never gets locked, with a special key. To make the point that you shouldn’t bring your vehicle on the property. Funny and sweet though, when all the other neighbors came down in their pajamas and robes, all working together to unlock the thing.
3. The sidewalk pave stones. These are a visual of my childhood, and it's comforting that they continue to be there. Although the public works department could do a better job at preserving the 150 year old color schemes in our neighborhood.
   
4.  Most of downtown West-Berlin has been fixed up now too (after the East part of town was finished), but a few pockets of post war West-Berlin ugliness remain, including Hardenbergplatz, the big square between the Zoo train station and the Zoo.
5. Winters? The jury is still out on those.

A few days later, as I finish writing this post, it has gotten significantly colder. I walked the dogs around Schlachtensee, and now I feel tired, just from the extra work my body has to do to stay warm. I hope we get a few more weeks of summer before it gets nasty, and we move into our second winter here. The harsh, long gray Berlin winters – they were one of the main reasons I left.

Or, hey, maybe it won’t get nasty….Last fall was beautiful here, and last winter was really not bad at all. So I am hoping for the perks of global warming. My newfound hometown peace could get significantly disrupted by six months of wet gray subzero horror, combined with grumpy Berliners in SUVs. Stay tuned.

A Walk into the Past - Fichtenberg Part I

"..being curious...it's one of the best things about life, don't you think?" comments my dear friend from Silver City, who is a curious person herself. I owe her a curiosity trip to find her roots in Sicily one of these days. Meanwhile, I am rediscovering my own old stomping grounds.

I went to high school on the Fichtenberg, Spruce Hill, walking or biking up from "regular" Steglitz where I lived age 15-18.  Regular Steglitz, as in, the other side of the main street, aka Schlosstrasse, where it's more densely settled. Here at the foot of the Fichtenberg, the village of Steglitz grew into the largest community in Prussia before it was incorporated as a district into Berlin in 1920. In the 1980s, I biked to school here every day, hung out at the park, and breathed the clean air of the hill. And never wasted a single thought on how and why this hood was so different from the rest of the area. I guess I wasn't curious (about local history that is, I was sure curious about other things then....)

I am curious now. And so appreciative of our little garden, the quiet neighborhood, the tall trees, the hedgehogs and the fresh forest air. So after moving back, for a few months now I have been walking, taking pictures, and reading about the Fichtenberg. This is definitely a place with lots to discover for the local history nerd. I'll share a little bit of what I found.

Steglitz has been around since the 1300s. Located on the highway between Potsdam and Berlin it quickly grew in importance during the years of the Prussian empire. They didn't start intentionally settling the hill above it until the early 1870ies. Before that, the hill was a park, with intentionally planted pine trees (not spruce = Fichte. So first, it was know as Kieferberg, rather than Fichtenberg), part of the Schloss property (not really a castle, more like a nice country hangout) built by Count Carl-Friedrich Beyme, and later owned by Marshall Friedrich Wrangel, today known as the Wrangel-Schlösschen.  The owners also tried to grow wine here, fruit trees and later mulberry trees for silk production.

Since this is the only elevation for miles around, you had a breathtaking far and wide view across the fields of Dahlem from the hill. As if that wasn't enough, at the top of the hill, right outside where our house is today, somebody in the late 1700s had built one of those fake ruins, a Belvedere with a tower. When things started to get serious, it was dismantled in 1865 and the bricks given to local developers.

So in 1872 the Domänenfiskus (this was sort of the property management department of the Prussian State) subdivided the hill into 89 lots and started selling. The lots were small, so the buyers, since they could afford it, bought several adjoining lots at once and erected representative villas. 13 years later, there were 24 villas surrounded by huge parks. Yes, parks... with fountains, ponds, stables, green houses, and additional buildings housing carriages, cars and staff. The first big, impressive villas were built for scientists, educators, high ranking public employees, artists, military men, and a little later, up-and coming industrial tycoons. They were truly the "High Society", not just of Steglitz, but of nearby Berlin, creating their little high-end suburbia here. Berlin was only a short train ride away since Steglitz had become a stop on the Potsdam-Berlin route in 1839. More about a few of the interesting characters who lived here later.

a view of the hill in 1903

First, the streets had the same names as in Prussian villages everywhere. Wilhelmplatz, Schillerstrasse, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse, Friedrichstrasse. When Steglitz was swallowed by Berlin, along with Lichterfelde, Lankwitz and Südende, people had to come up with new names, so there wouldn't be 20 Wilhelmstrassen. So today many of the streets here and in other parts of Steglitz are named after important local residents - Friedrich Schmidt-Ott, Carl-Heinrich Becker, Paul Henckels.

Let's take a little walk. This map section was created by using OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors.

The map shows the hill, bordered by Grunewaldstrasse on the northeast, Schlosstrasse on the south and the botanical gardens on the southeast sides . Our house is right by Paul-Henckels Platz, on Schmidt-Ott-Str. 5a, where I put the arrow. That spot is very close to the top if the hill, marked by the number 68 (meters, that is). If you increase the zoom on your browser, you can see the details better.

We'll walk down Carl-Heinrich-Becker Weg, across Henckels-Platz.

Paul Henckels was an actor and director, as well as a co-founder of the post-war version of the Schlosspark-Theater, on Wrangelstrasse. It's located in the buildings of the old Wrangelschlösschen. It is still one of the most active little theaters in Berlin, providing lighter entertainment these days. Henckels didn't live on the hill. Carl Heinrich Becker, the Prussian Minister of Culture did, but not on the street named after him (go figure), so 'll tell you more about him when we come by his place later.

A big eyecatcher on our right is this beauty:

The Villa Anna was built by Architekt Otto Techow for himself and his family in 1884. Techow is also famous for the Water Tower (around the corner on Schmidt-Ott-Strasse) he built a few years later.

It was later refurbished to house the offices of the Institute of Meteorology, where today students maintain the Free University's weather monitoring sequence day and night.

The Henckels square is somewhat unkempt these days, apparently public park funds and personnel are not sufficient.

And also the Tree of Heaven on our property is sending shoots everywhere. I hated those stinky invasive trees in New Mexico and I hate them here.

Walking down further, we notice a spacey-looking building on the right. It was built by the Free University and houses more of the Meteorological Institute and the Institute for Space Science. There were protests from residents when this was built, because it does not fit in architecturally. I don't mind the mix of architecture, that's what Berlin is like everywhere - heterogenous and messy.

The rest of Carl-Heinrich-Becker-Weg illustrates architectural messiness perfectly. We see everything in between the fairy tale Villa Anna and the space building: 19th century high end rentals, classic, clean Bauhaus style, 50ies atrocities and a few hints at romantic 1800s Villas which are no longer there, or have been altered to a point of being unrecognizable in their grand old beauty.

Erich Pommer lived here, on C-H Becker Weg 16-18. The house is long gone, replaced by 1970s little boxes. He was a film producer, responsible for many of the expressionist silent movies of the 1920s, such as "Metropolis" and "Faust". He produced "Der Blaue Engel" with Marlene Dietrich in 1930. After 1933 he got the hell out of here and continued his career in Hollywood. He is credited with rebuilding the German film industry from ashes after 1946.

As you walk, guide your eyes to the ground: the typical Berlin pave stones actually have a mosaic pattern here, with a dark stripe and curved openings where each driveway used to be. Today, we can see that after the pavement was torn up for pipe work or such, the city crews didn't make the effort of recreating the stripe, but instead scattered the black stones about. Bummer.

Dietrich Schäfer was a tenant, along with his partner and six kids, in Nr. 27-29, the last house on the left before the street dead-ends into the park. The 1896 villa has been drastically altered and built onto. Today it houses a residential facility for people with severe mental illness. I didn't dare take a picture, because the residents alway hang out on the front porch. Schäfer was a historian with strong anti-semitic views and in favor of total war. He died in 1929, but the Nazis loved his writings, and because of this he is a controversial figure. Becker-Weg actually used to be Schäfer-Weg when I went to school here. A group of students from my high school back then started to advocate for changing the name of the street, and the initiative finally succeeded in 1992.

Becker-Weg leads to what we used to call the Fichtenberg as kids - which is the park.

At the entrance of the park, if you move the weeds and autumn leaves a bit with your foot, you'll see a weird square stone plate.

It covers the opening to a bunker system, which the Nazis, or actually I should say, Nazi prisoners, built into the mountain in 1944. In the late 1970ies, several sections of the tunnels caved in and had to be filled up and covered.  The bunker was built for the employees of a large administrative SS office on Schlosstrasse. I don't think it was ever used.

Next you enter a large flat area bordered by a curved wall, with benches to sit and enjoy the view. Except there is no view anymore. The trees are too tall today. This is what it used to look like.

And today:

If the trees weren't there at the other side of the lawn, you would look across the same area, then the wheat fields of Dahlem, today the Botanical Gardens.

The rest of the park covers the south slope of the hill - softly descending lawns surrounded by paths slowly overgrowing with blackberries and weeds. On the way down we meet this gentleman:

Friedrich Paulsen

Paulsen was an influential educator, philosopher and pedagogue. He is considered the inventor of the modern German high school, the gymnasium, at which modern languages and the natural sciences are given the same importance as the ancient languages.  He lived on Lepsiusstrasse, half way down the hill until his death in 1908. Streets and schools in Berlin and elsewhere are named after him. His philosophical works were translated into many languages and were widely read in the US. He is buried at the St. Matthäus Cemetery over in Schöneberg, along with the Brothers Grimm, and a few, dear, recently passed members of my family.

Two playgrounds flank the park, and next to one of them in the bushes, I found what I think might be the original Bäkequelle, the spring of the now buried river Bäke,  discussed here, housed in by a brick enclosure.

Circling around the park and back up the hill, we find the memorial stone of prolific writer and journalist Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, after who the park was named.

Ruth and her partner, the conductor Leo Borchard, were important figures in the anti-Nazi resistance movement. Their group, called Onkel Emil, helped many persecuted people get out of the country. They operated it out of their home in Steglitz. The district of Steglitz, by the way, was an early and solid bullwark of the Nazi movement. Ruth Andreas-Friedrich later published her diaries from these years, which today are considered one of the most important time witness reports of the period. I have been waiting for  a copy to become available at the library for two months now....


We'll walk back up to the platform and turn to our right onto Zeunepromenade. This little foot path is the border between Steglitz and Dahlem (you can see the red dotted line on our map). On the left is the fence to the Botanical Gardens, and we see the back side of the big green house.

On the right, and in both directions around the corner, we can still see the remains of the original 1890 iron and brick fence of the Carl Schlickeysen property.

I love that name - it's like someone made it up to fit a Gründerzeit German industrial tycoon. Which is what Schlickeysen was.  He worked his way up from modest circumstances, and later perfected and successfully marketed the steam brick press, taking brick making from a hand craft to an industry.  I can only imagine how the old elite of professors and government officials on the hill felt about this rough new kid in the hood, and about his parties and the braggy property. His big villa and park, as the one of his next door neighbor Weber, are long gone though, replaced by dense 1950's condos. Only the fence and its base of stamped bricks, probably from his factory, remind us of the glorious 1890s, when Berlin, the capital of the new German empire was growing exponentially, and you could make millions with bricks. Today they are covered in graffiti.

At the end of the promenade, in a minute we will turn right onto Arno-Holz-Str. This street is not as architecturally messy - it still features more of the old turn of the century grandeur than Carl-Heinrich Becker-Weg, as well as some surprises...

You'll find out about the people who lived here, among them Carl-Heinrich Becker and Friedrich Schmidt-Ott. We'll walk down Schmidt-Ott-Strasse towards Lepsiusstrasse, and you'll hear about a present-day actor who saved his historic home, a 1930s actress who died very young, and of course the dying Franz Kafka, and a bunch of early anthropologists, and why one always runs into blind people on the hill - for the last 100 years, and, and..... All of this in Part II of our walk, which will appear here in October. Thanks for sticking with us!

Depth

Since I disconnected from facebook, I got lots of nice emails, and a postcard, and I am answering each email, as well as a few skype and phone calls. I don’t miss FB – and I am feeling my digital self slowly fading away, putting up the occasional little fight - like a stubborn ghost who hasn’t quite realized that she is dead.

So according to Thees Winkler, blogging is the future (at least for this week), and facebook is so 2008. The blog is indeed a better, deeper medium for me – I am interested in putting out meaningful, high quality content that will entertain but also will make people think. Or even act. And I am not interested in putting it out every single day. Gotta have some time for thinking, seeing, listening, talking and walking around. You won’t find digests or links to many other blogs here, because I do not spend all that much time reading them. Blogging is not my life. Otherwise I wouldn’t have a life to blog about.

After quitting facebook the blog did not take too big of a hit in terms of visits. Actually, the “Goodbye facebook” post was the second most visited in the short life of the blog. Many people subscribed, and those on google+ get a share. But I imagine I won’t be able to keep the numbers growing without sending emails – which I don’t want to do. So when I get around to it, I will set up a facebook page for this blog, for marketing purposes. Enough social media talk now. One of the annoying things about the internet is how much it talks about itself.

Meanwhile, the real self in Berlin: 

I continue to smile pretty much at everyone who makes eye contact on the street. Most smile recipients obviously think I am demented. But yesterday, an old man sitting in the park on the way to the U-Bahn thanked me for smiling at him. Making a dent!

I have been reading local history books I checked out at the library, mostly about the history of Steglitz, the district we live in, and its people. A good friend astutely noted that this is my way of making this my home. My big discovery this week is a slim volume published in 2000 about the houses and people of our specific neighborhood, the Fichtenberg. The author, an actor by the name of Andreas Grothusen, grew up and still lives on Schmidt-Ott-Str. 6, right next door. The book accompanies you on a walk through the small hood, telling the history of each villa, and the people who built them and lived here. And it tells the how the neighborhood was forever changed - first by war, then by profit-oriented development and today by neglect.

Schmidt-Ott- Str. 5a, the house we live in, today is a fairly faceless big box, housing ten parties, with a back yard shrunk by the later addition of an even uglier second house, 5b. Looking at the main house, you’d have no idea about its age or architectural period. Grothusen’s book reproduces a painting of what it looked like in 1882 – a dreamy, small Neo-Renaissance villa with a little tower, situated in a park-like garden with tall trees, nestled in a neighborhood of the rich, educated and cultured. My neighbor is furious about what was done to our house 100 years later- a floor was added, swallowing the tower, the house was built onto at the back (that's were our apartment is), a big pine was felled, and 5b was built.

The vestibule of the Villa in the 1880s featured the first big commission work of young artist Max Klinger, who was later considered a very influential trailblazer of Surrealism, Naturalism, Symbolism, Jugendstil- in other words, modern art. His work done for our house was reassembled in a 2007 exhibition at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Some of it can be seen today at the Altes Museum in Berlin. Here are some links to the paintings. They feature awesome naked people and gods and horses playing in water.

Max Klinger, Meerfries der Albers Villa, Berlin Nationalgalerie

I wouldn’t know any of this without my neighbor’s book! I might ask my him if I can post a picture of the picture of the painting of the house from his book here. Shortly I will dedicate a separate post (with my original pictures) to the amazing history of this very special neighborhood, after I stumble around some more, book in hand. My history research reminded me that books give so much more depth of information than the internet (although I do have to thank the Wikipedia entry on the Fichtenberg for the reference my neighbor’s book. )

If you had adventures in local history,  or are inspired to venture out for depth now - please share in the comments.

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Benny: Do we get NPR here? I miss NPR. (There is actually an NPR station in Berlin. It has a bunch more programs than KRWG –as I write this I am listening to On Point, NPR's great talk show hosted by Tom Ashbrook, covering how the US tries to still look good after the Russians, of all people, saved us from “having to” go to war right away.)

Benny: I shiver whenever Germans speak English. (Thankfully, his school released him from participating in English lessons.)

In Search of Water Closets and a Forgotten River

Weird manifestations of expat-ism: How many more times are we going to step in a dark bathroom and blindly grope around the wall for the light switch? It really does make more sense to have the switch outside – if you are used to it. Its sort of the whole German thing of planning ahead. Downside: you sit on the pot and someone turns the light off on you from the hallway.

Berlin is located in an Urstromtal (I loved that earthy word in elementary school!), an ancient gigantic stream valley, created by draining glacier water at the end of the last ice age. Today it's a vast area of rivers, lakes and swamps; the soil is mostly sand. Not until the Prussians got their act together in the late 1700s, was much of it turned into dry land that could be settled and used for agriculture.

But the city’s wet past is still very close to the surface, as it turns out. The groundwater level is only a few meters under ground level. When Potsdamer Platz was re-built in the 1990s, divers had to do much of the foundation work. Now recently, whole neighborhoods in and around Berlin have been experiencing increasingly wet cellars. This year, many basements are just under water – and not just after a big rain. This includes around 50 public buildings, among them the Berlin Rathhaus, the city hall, causing millions of Euros in damage. What’s going on? The ground water level is rising, and dramatically, for two reasons: One, after reunification, all of the state-owned industry around Berlin was closed down, reducing water use. Two, efficient home appliances have reduced residential water use to pre 1989 levels. Berlin is faced with an interesting dilemma. Use more water to lower the groundwater level? Close whole neighborhoods? Pump groundwater out? (This is already done.) Help homeowners build up their basement walls to withstand the water? Build a pipeline to New Mexico?

Berlin is a watery place, with 52 square km of water surface, 180 km of water ways and more bridges than Venice. As part of “managing water” and creating water ways to accommodate the industrial revolution, the 38 km Teltowkanal was completed in 1906. It connects the main two watersheds, Havel and Spree with each other to the south of Berlin. The canal builders re-used some of the natural stream beds of existing rivers and creeks, including the Telte. The Telte was later known as the Bäke, and the Bäke happens to originate under the Fichtenberg, which is the “mountain” (68 m) we live on. Across the street from our house, the historic water tower (now used as a meteorological station by the Free University) probably drew its water right from the spring. 

The Bäke, before it was swallowed by the Teltowkanal was the main river in the south of Berlin, flowing all the way to Potsdam, where it joined the Havel waters, creating wetlands, swamps and providing water for agriculture of the early settlers of the villages (including our own Steglitz) which are now part of southern Berlin.

I know its water still bubbles out of the earth right under our house. So I took a little bike ride in search of this forgotten river. Riding south, across downtown Steglitz, where the river has been channeled underground, I followed its path through green spaces and weekend garden colonies.  Then I found a short piece of Bäke still at the surface, before it joins the canal. It goes on for about 1 km, through a beautiful large park. Found my San Vicente Creek Ersatz!

what's left of the creek

Bäkepark

where the Bäke joins the Teltowkanal

Next we are going to explore the southern Bäke Valley, 8 km down the canal, where the river once more flows its natural course for a short distance, through a little nature preserve, alongside a vineyard, the Machnower Lake, a historic mill and a little castle. Stay tuned.

I'll close this with another potty related observation: In Berlin restaurants, going to the bathroom becomes a test of endurance: You go down the stairs to the basement. You go through the door that says WC, and enter a small hallway. You choose your gender and go through the respective door, to enter another small hallway with no apparent purpose. You go through another door, entering the room with the hand washing facilities. Your bladder really wants it now. After looking around you find another door, leading to the room with the stalls. Exhausted you stumble into a stall. That’s five doors. Add to that finding the light switch every time…..

History

Ireland’s history has certainly been tumultuous, violent and complicated.  And learning about it made us think about how history is conceived, perceived and how historical knowledge is best transferred.  

In our family we are all breathing, telling about and questioning history all the time. I am currently enjoying Tony Judt’s “Memory Chalet”, while Rory is reading Zinn’s “People’s History of the US”. Charlie and I studied the history of Southern Italian migration as we uncovered the stories of his grandparents. 

Ten years ago my sister Katinka wrote her diploma thesis about the utilization of time witnesses in German history perception (paraphrasing the title). Today she uses her craft of documentary filmmaking to record the oral histories and lives of people who were affected by the Holocaust. 

In Berlin, walking around town you’ll discover “Stolpersteine”, little brass plaques in the ground that remind you of the name of a person who lived at the address and who was killed by the Nazis. 

The Holocaust memorial in downtown Berlin is much more abstract: a huge field of stone slabs designed to make you feel uneasy and lost. The Obama family tried the effect the other day.

Back to Ireland. In Dublin, we went to Dublinia - a museum “to lose yourself in Viking and Medieval Dublin”. It is located where old and new Dublin meet, close to a site known as Wood Quay, which was where the Vikings first settled the town in 841. In the early 1970ies, the city’s government decided to build new civic offices right there. Once they had cleared the site to ground level, they discovered the origins of the Viking town.  

Yet the government never realized the archeological wealth and importance of the site, and despite years of protests from Dubliners who wanted to protect their Viking heritage, in 1978 excavations were stopped, the whole site bulldozed and the new buildings erected. Today the “Save Wood Quay” campaign itself has become part of Dublin’s history and the subject of documentaries. Even though it failed to preserve the Viking site, it has helped raise awareness of historical preservation.

Back to the Dublinia museum - I guess museum experts would call the style “interactive multimedia.” You could touch stuff, things talked, moved, lit up or made noises. Including a Viking going noisily to the bathroom. The Vikings used moss to wipe their butts, in case you were wondering.

 Museums have come a long way from the traditional glass vitrines with rows and rows of arrowheads. Today they want you to feel like you are right there and to get a sense of what life was like. Yet, it comes across a little too “bemueht”. Curators (or are they now designers?) work too hard to hammer all your senses constantly, and strain (like the shitting Viking) too much to help you “lose yourself”. I am just glad the medieval exhibit didn’t have an olfactory element to it. The coughing mannequin dying from black death was enough.

Then in Drogehda, we visited the little museum at the foot of the Millmount tower. If you had walked through the place on your own, it would have been a somewhat random collection of local artifacts donated to the museum from private collections. But we walked the exhibition and the tower accompanied by three different narrating guides. They brought Drogheda and its past alive, even to me who had not studied much of Irish history to date and who was overwhelmed by all the dates and names.

They told fascinating stories of the life of factory workers, revolutionaries, Henry the VIII, Cromwell’s siege of 1649, Irish freedom fighters, a hand ball player and a boxer migrating to Canada (the boxer’s Olympian outfit, unwashed after the fight as per his request, is displayed). They explained 1800’s guild banners’ symbolism, and how a Boyne River boat was built from sticks and leather, and what happened in 1922 when Irish Republicans and Irish Treaty supporters fought it out in Drogheda and destroyed part of the Millmount tower in the process.  

The Millmount guides were like that great teacher some of us were fortunate to have, very knowledgeable and passionate about their subject, able to make it personal, interesting and close to the heart. Now I’ll always remember Drogheda and its turbulent history.

The word history means “knowledge from inquiry”. I think telling stories is still the best way to transmit history. Our kids often prompt Charlie… “Tell the story when the Hippie House got shot at!”, or any of his numerous other stories they have heard many times. Driving through Berlin last week, a place were 20^th century history is in your face all the time, Ruby asked me: What was Berlin like when you were a kid? I’ll have some stories to tell….