Berlin Day 3: From the 16th Century to the Bundesliga

Today we went to Spandau, a community on the western edge of Greater Berlin. We first visited the Spandau Citadel, a fortress built in the 16th century.

It is an enormous structure built for defense featuring a moat, tower, wall, and all the other fixtures you could expect from Renaissance-era architecture. Outside in a courtyard, there was a gallery of centuries old statues of knights and noblemen. The inside of the fortress contained a museum that displayed artifacts from the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, such as tapestries, tools, and armor. There were also more modern objects-a motorcycle, cars, artillery, and boats.

 The museum was full of fascinating oddities, all highlighting the the greater Spandau region, but one of the best highlights of the area is the natural beauty surrounding the fort. The water was so clean and flowers, trees, and bushes flourished everywhere. We found a particularly special alcove of trees. They were enormous and ancient! We spent some time climbing them, and the Peduto twins had a hilarious pull-up contest; unfortunately there were no winners. After our adventures in nature, we headed back to the main area of the fortress and saw a wedding party taking photos.

 

This goes to show that places such as Spandau Citadel are not just for us history buffs, but can be enjoyed by everyone.

​Next we went on a tour of the inside and outside of Olympic Stadium, home to the 1936 Nazi Summer Olympics in Berlin and presently home to the Bundesliga team Hertha. 

One of the first things that the tour guide told us was that the Nazis claimed that the one tree within the stadium's grounds was a 200-year-old German oak tree to show their national pride.

In reality the tree was only 50 years old and was from southern Europe; therefore it has been nick-named "the liar's tree". We then visited various rooms throughout the complex before being allowed to go down on the field itself. Later on during the tour we discussed Japanese marathon runner Son Kitei who won the gold medal and broke the Olympic record in the 1936 Olympics. Son was born in Korea, but competed for Japan because Korea was under Japanese occupation. The stone used in the construction of the stadium gives it a powerful and seemingly permanent presence.

​Along with all the educational aspects of our trip, several of us (including two of our professors) had quite the adventure when we got split up from the main group. While we indulged in some AMAZING eis (ice cream), we witnessed two of our esteemed professors not mentioning any names (cough, cough  Dr. Rutherford and Weimer) stroll by us without even a glance walking in the opposite direction [editor's note: the ice cream is really good]. We started to head back to the meeting place when we ran into two other trip leaders who told us to wait with them because the meeting place had changed. We waited for quite some time when we decided to start walking to the S-bahn station in hopes of meeting the remainder of the group there. We sat on a completely empty train in eerie silence, and then the train started to go backward and came to a complete stop in the middle station with no way to exit. It was a very alarming situation that made us a little nervous. The train eventually started and we arrived back to the station where we found Dr. Rutherford leading the group of WJU students. We pounded on the windows to get his attention, and received a very exasperated look. Lesson learned: always follow Dr. Rutherford.