Thursday, March 19, 2009

Berlin: Movies in English and Potsdamer Platz.

Wednesday evening, Brittney had originally planned for all of us to go to a Pink concert at the arena where Casey plays, but "the guy" who works with the team wasn't able to get tickets for us after all, and Casey ended up having practice that night. So we didn't go to the concert. Since we had a babysitter scheduled for that night, Britt, Katie and I took advantage of the free evening. Katie and I went across the street to pick up sushi to go and brought it back to Britt. We then went to see a movie at The Sony Center, where they show movies in "OV", original version, meaning in English. It has a variety of restaurants, movie theaters, an IMAX theater, shops, offices on the upper floors, and Legoland underground. (Yes, that's a lego-giraffe!)

Casey met us there after practice and we walked around a bit. My camera battery died, so this picture is from Wikipedia. But it looked just like this the night we were there.

The Sony Center is located at the Potsdamer Platz, which is about one kilometer south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. Potsdamer Platz is rich with historical significance for Germans. According to Wikipedia, the square (platz) was physically divided in two by the East German and West German walls. There were very few buildings left, and underground the U-Bahn section through Potsdamer Platz had closed entirely; although the S-Bahn line itself remained open, it suffered from a quirk of geography in that it briefly passed through East German territory en route from one part of West Berlin to another. Consequently Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn station became the most infamous of several geisterbahnhofe (ghost stations), sealed off from the outside world, patrolled by armed guards and through which trains ran straight on without stopping.

This is what's left today.

(All pictures found on Google Image search, with the exception of the lego-giraffe.)

1 comment:

Nancy said...

Man oh man Ellie has such beautiful eyes!