Berlin - Last Day

Greetings,

I am posting this earlier than the last two days; those have been posted at 4 AM, but we have an early departure for Warsaw, Poland, in the morning, so I thought of catching up now.

Our day began with a short presentation and Q and A session from two former East Berlin and one West Berlin faculty members from an area Berlin university. Both East Berliners were born, raised and educated in East Berlin. One former East Berliner and the West Berliner taught literature, actually Russian literature, while the other East Berliner taught philosophy. What a wonderful learning opportunity for everyone today to have a presentation that dealt with all the Cold War and post-Cold War issues.

Following this session, the Park University group broke from the other group and visited area museums: The first museum was the Neues (New) Museum which houses the Egyptian Museum and Payrus Collection; the Museum of Prehistory and Early History; and the collection of Classical Antiquities. The museum was absolutely wondeful and the artifacts were some of the world's oldest.

The second museum visited by all of us was the Pergamonmuseum which also holds collections from Classical Anitquities and the Ancient Near East Museum of Islamic Art. Again, an absolutely wonderful museum. They hold segments of the wall from Bably. and other rare artifacts from the Islamic world.

Mr. Brady Hanssen and I then visited a third museum which was the German Museum of History. This ONE museum and under ONE roof would match all of the Smithsonian Museums', the National Archives and the Library of Congress for artifacts. One of the best museums I have seen in my world travels. We saw the actual military uniforms of Kaiser's Wilhelm I and II, and Otto von Bismarck, and the cover and sword of Napoleon! The armour displays were outstanding as were the portraits of Europe's kings and queens. The World War II/Nazis exhibit was very professional, but did not avoid the German history of that period. We also visited Humbolt University (where they are very proud of "uniting teaching and research for the undergraduate") and the Brandenburg Gate again.

My next posting will be from Poland! We have a six hour train ride through Germany and then into Poland. We all hope the weather will be clear so we can observe and enjoy the countryside.