Citius, Altius, Fortius

After my "holiday" ended the question of What to Do Next felt more perplexing than ever, and I was preparing to become depressed and to pick myself out of the depression again, but fortunately we have visitors in the form of a family friend (and our former piano teacher) S., her husband M., and their two children R. and S. Now that I am less shy I like having visitors at our apartment, and find that "the more the merrier" is quite true. They are staying in Gi.'s room, Gi. being off on a bike tour straight across Germany. The last time he checked in was on the morning after the first day and night, at which point he had reached Dessau. Two days have passed since then, but since we aren't the frequent phoning type and he particularly is not wildly addicted to communication, this isn't worrisome. What I want to know when it's over is whether it was more adventurous or more uncomfortable; for one thing he didn't sleep very well the first night.

This morning, at any rate, our guests and I (the guide, as far as limited knowledge and volubility permitted) took the M48 bus straight to the Marienkirche station and then wandered around the Alexanderplatz. I'd never been in the Marienkirche before and thought it worthwhile. The mournful bareness of the whitewashed walls, glimpses of homely brick, and the dampening effect of the low ribbed arches at the entrance were moving, and I liked the Baroque grave plaques and the unframed paintings. Besides I have a fascination for the little preacher loges that have winding staircases leading up to them, and for fluted pillars. The organ was unfortunately under wraps, but from a poster I gathered that it's a gleaming artillery of gilt. As far as I could tell the fault of this church is that it is poorly thought out; the proportions are peculiar, and the windows very high-set and not especially large, even though the structure itself would seem stable enough to sustain apertures of greater width and breadth.

What I also liked at Alexanderplatz, besides the linden and other leafy trees (the roses are too hot pink for my snobby tastes), and the façade of the Rotes Rathaus, was the Neptunbrunnen. The webbed feet of the sea-centaurs are amusingly creepy, but what I especially liked is that elements like the rock and the serpent are so convincingly executed; they are not idealized out of all verisimilitude but have a gritty lifelike texture.

We went on along through the park with the statues of Marx and Engels who somehow looked as much like bearded shoulder-pads as humanoid figures can look, and the shapes of twisty headless male forms hewn out of a block of pale grey stone, then lingered at the Spreeufer. The posterior of the Berliner Dom is actually rather nice, or at least I like that it is retired and shady, and that balustered stairs ran down to a modest walkway along the waters. After crossing the bridge we decided to enter the Dom, which cost 5 Euros per person but was free for the two children. It may not be good taste on my part, but aside from the stained glass (whose colour palette reminds me of strained turnips and carrots for some reason), I like the profusion of ornament inside the cupola: Italianate marble, white statues, balconies, gilt, Corinthian-order pilasters, etc. And what I especially liked are the sarcophagi of Friedrich III, Sophie Charlotte, etc., which were simply very weighty, sombre, and impressive.

Then we wandered along Unter den Linden, and I was quite excited to see the big tent for Fashion Week set up at Bebelplatz. We rested in the courtyard of the Preussische Staatsbibliothek, of which I am very fond, and I can't tell whether the architecture itself is much good or whether it's the vines that give it a mysterious, retired, and aged air. But the fountain basin is wholly bare, presumably because the statuary in it is undergoing repair, and what remains reminds me that fountain rims are often incredibly ugly.

As far as tourists (besides ourselves) went, I generally see them as an indiscriminate herd, but this time I picked up better on the variety. One amusing encounter was with a possibly Italian man, clad in suit and of relatively short stature, who nearly collided with us and made a graceful bowing motion as he hastened on. At any rate, we lunched at a Subway, and then went on to the Brandenburger Tor, where two brave and presumably financially needy souls stood to attention with American flags in a living-statue-esque photo opportunity.

Then we dove into the U-Bahn at Potsdamer Platz (after passing the segments of Berlin Wall; looking at the side of one of them I thought how nice it was to see pebbles in the concrete, only to find upon closer examination that these "pebbles" were wads of chewing gum on the concrete) and took the U2 up to Olympia-Stadion, which had free admission today. Here I may as well confess that I am not at all eager to see historical sites that contain or are surrounded by vast, unshaded fields or concrete surfaces, or are otherwise open to the sun, or are difficult to reach by foot; when I see a photo or an engraving of sites like the Palace of Sanssouci and its terraces, Place de la Concorde, Buckingham Palace, or in this case the Olympia-Stadion, I must admit that this, instead of some elevated aesthetic or historical reflection, is often a foremost consideration. But, though today was a hot and humid day and the half-kilometre walk from the U-Bahn to the stadium is unquestionably exposed, I was glad to have seen it after all.

S. the younger and R. were extremely interested in the stadium, since it reminds them of the Colosseum, and for some reason had enough energy left to roam far and wide and up and down the seats inside, where M. at times joined them. S. the elder and I remained seated and looked around from that vantage point; she was pleased to be where the final of the 2006 World Cup took place, and I was especially absorbed by the attempt to imagine the scene during the 1936 Olympics, which was easy because the "Gesamtkunstwerk" of the facilities has been so thoroughly maintained. Even though I am not fond of the architectural period, modern stadia are not the most beautiful edifices anyway, and in this case I was pleased by its slight appearance — the subdued grey building material instead of blinding white, and its apparent lack of height when seen from the outside. In the inside it is also refreshingly unposh. The seats are dark metal set in smooth and bare concrete steps, the athletes' entrance is an imposing maw at the far end of the field, two gigantic analog clocks in which dashes represent the hours rise on either side of the opening where the Olympic flame presumably burnt, and the canopy today formed a simple but elegant trellised ring around the serene cloud-dotted sky. It is easy to underestimate the seating capacity until one enters the arena and sees how far the seats dip into the ground.

Today there was a modicum of extra excitement because a stadium employee was handing out ca. 4-ft. tall balloons in blue, red, and yellow that were left over from some event. A crowd of teenagers was lolling about at the edge of the field, and whenever a fresh batch of balloons arrived, some of them would trickle up toward the exit with glowing faces. It was funny and touching to see how little it took to make them happy.

Anyway, that was the last stop for the day; we passed out the gates as a blue balloon soared into the clouds over the iconic twin towers between which the Olympic rings are suspended, then took the U-Bahn back to Schöneberg and walked the last bit to the apartment in a stewing atmosphere (N.B.: I was wearing a sweater. *cough*). Fortunately rinsing the face and arms and changing into a fresh T-shirt is an excellent cure for a disconsolate state of perspiration.

After that we had dinner: döner kebap, lahmacun, green beans, potatoes, lettuce salad, and quark with red currants. Then R. played three pieces on the cello for us, and Papa and I played Saint-Saëns's Swan, a piece from Händel, and Beethoven's variations on the theme from Judas Maccabeus. Now there's a thunderstorm going on, the children are (presumably) sleeping, and everyone except me (I'm at the laptop in my room) is in the corner room talking.