inconspicuous border

13512 we woke up today in Berlin, and checked out of the hostel, and the bus took us over to the Museum Island area, which was cool, i love museums, and considering we had already hit the Brandenburg gate, i and the girls i was with yesterday chose to make our way through the German Historical Museum. This museum was really cool, as i have not been through it before. the museum had a meager early history section from 0-1000AD. some roman stuff, mosaics, and armor bits. the museum certainly got more interesting as we progressed. the 1100s through the 1700s isnt really my interest, but the rise of Austro-hungary, and the city states of Italy and all them had their fingers in the German pie at various points. and there was the Napolonic stuff, they actually had Napoleons hat from the battle of Waterloo.

so that was pretty bad ass. they had stuff from the unification of germany too. here is a bit of early X-ray equipment, im sure my moms will like this one.

then the WWI stuff started popping up, so here is a flood of pics, including Kaiser Wilhelm's uniform and revolver

here is some body armor (AND you wonder why the Germans manage to do well in 2 world wars within 30 years of each other?)

after that museum we walked around the Pergamon museum, saw the Ishtar gates again, and all the other things pilfered by the germans over the years. again ive been here, and while they have impressive stuff, their collection isnt all that extensive. after this we headed out for Dresden, we walked around the old area, i mean the city was bombed to shit during the war, but they managed to fix up a number of the buildings. we saw the opera house, and the Dresden Castle, which is more of a palace. both were designed by a guy by the name of Gottfried Semper, who went on to be kinda a revolutionary guy. as in he agitated against the goverment, not his architecture. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Semper ) we walked through a big Protestant church that was also rebuilt after the bombing, that left me unimpressed, i dont know if it is my mild affection for the Catholic Church, or the fact that this church was only finished 5 years ago or what. but it didnt inspire awe like catholic cathedrals of similar size tend to do. this place just seemed to lack the character of alot of the other churches ive been to. we then drove back to Prague, only noticing we were back in the Czech Republic because all the signs and adds changed languages. mk, so the part that is pertinent to my grade. i can see that Berlin, and Dresden are very much newer than Prague. i recognize they were bombed almost out of existence during the war, but due to their relative newness, they lack the character of Prague. that is in regards to the physical city itself. the intangible, the "feel" of the cities are very different. again religion comes into it the catholicness of Prague vs the Protestantness of Berlin and Dresden makes the architecture different (even the old-newly-rebult stuff). i hate to describe Germans and being very German, but they are, compared to Prague. i can see the differences of the Austro-Hungarian Prague and the German Berlin/Dresden, again it ties in religion and architecture, but i dont fully know how to articulate the differences without those very obvious divergences. maybe i should sleep on it.