Oldenburg and Berlin

From Enschede a little detour to Oldenburg was justified, to make physical contact with William Hathaway, a former Vietnam special forces combat veteran turned peacenik, who has written a few articles for the Isocracy Network over the years. Greeting us at the train station, we had a late lunch (courtesy of a cancelled train from the Netherlands) and were directed to the small but thoroughly pleasant central city region and sizeable Schlossgarten, whilst an evening walk revealed a pleasing diversity of housing (even with the numerous "Hundehütten"). But it was only a flying visit, and the following morning it was back on the train to Berlin, with a brief stopover at Hanover.

First we take Manhatten, then we take... Well, perhaps this is a scouting mission. Staying at the convenient (it's part of the train station) and comfortable Intercityhotel Ostbahnhof the first day consisted visiting the antiques market (read "trash and treasure") market that was literally next door, and then crossing the river into the Kreuzberg region to follow the direction of the old Berlin Wall, including a visit to St Thomas' church. At least in this section, the wall has been converted into some pleasant parkland - which it must be said that the old west side of the city could certainly do with more of. Making our way to the obvious exception of the significant Tiergarten, it can be observed a lot of old west Berlin is functional architecture, treeless streets, and large plazas. It also just so happened to the afternoon of the World Cup, so there was "a few" people engaging in festivities at the Brandenburg Gate.

The following day included a trip to Karl-Marx Allee, which has some fine examples of DDR architecture, and a visit to the nearby and quite impressive Computer Game Museum, which included - as one would hope - a great deal of interactive components. Afterwards was a trip to the appropriately named Museum Island, including the nearby DDR Museum near Karl Liebknecht Straße. It raised the curious issue of Ostalgie. Whilst it is obvious that there is no love whatsoever for the more authoritarian and dictatorial political aspects of the old DDR, there is certainly a great deal of support for the more socialistic aspects. Certainly, it cannot go unnoticed that the old east Berlin areas have a much greater diversity of interesting architecture, more foliage, and a more human-level culture. After the museum, a short trip across the river led to truly impressive and ornate Neo-Renaissance Berlin Cathedral. The climb to the rooftop is quite a journey, but worth the panorama that results. Determined to pack even more into the day, the local university was hosting a panel discussion of some of the world's top social philosophers discussing ideology - and of course, I had to participate, and had a brief chat to Axel Honneth afterwards.