Wintry Wanderings

Our first two post-birth European excursions happened this past winter--first, we went to Edinburgh during Christmas season to see a friend who had been in the area for her studies, and then we spent a few days in Berlin for Soren’s work in late January. Our experiences could not have been more different.

Edinburgh

Hello, Scotland! -4-month-old Aksel

Everything that the light touches is...Scotland!

Edinburgh is a city for romantics--as you walk down the streets of Old Town you feel that you're being hugged by the aged buildings, and you begin to truly understand Gothic architecture for the first time. The gray structures tower against the overcast backdrop and suddenly the whole world is a picture-perfect black and white, and you are walking the steps of history with your haggis and whiskey, a tartan scarf shielding you from the biting winds that catch you at the crossings.

Old Town is stunning. 

What will you find at the other end?

New Town is also beautiful.

Charm comes in many hues. 

Any travel bug would find it impossible not to fall in love with this city, and the Christmas lights and festivities add a twinkle to the eye of this softly wrinkled place with all of the warmth, charm, and comestibles you could desire.

So many mysteries!

Cheerful Contrast

Warmth indoors!

Christmas Market and Festivities

Comestibles--and the wonderful Yasmeen!

Festival of Lights!

Berlin

Contemplating Berlin...and eating the drapes. -6-month-old Aksel

Aksel at the Aquarium, and a fish that is bigger than him!

Berlin, however, is understandably more stark. With the softening glow of Christmas gone, the winter has taken root, and Berlin is revealed to be a city ever paying for the crimes of the last century. Numerous memorials and charmless buildings remind us that 70% of the city was leveled during the Second World War, and subsequently rebuilt during the unimaginative (or too imaginative?) modern era. On occasion, you stumble upon a museum, a state building, a statue--hints of its former glory--and you are struck by how much was lost. The human losses during WWII were devastating, but my American eyes have spent little time comprehending the physical realities of the aftermath--a continent tattered and scarred, a burden of guilt that will be carried by the German people indefinitely. We pass by rows of temporary housing, and I see the commitment of a nation to move past its shameful history, and the creaking and groaning that it has been feeling as a result.

The Berlin Wall

Holocaust Memorial

One of many memorials left to ensure that Berlin never forgets its past.

The Scars of War

I

don't

understand.

Brandenburg Gate

Some of Berlin's former charm remains.

Berlin Victory Column in the Tiergarten

Tiergarten

Tiergarten

I take a stroll through the Tiergarten, breathing in the pine smell, throwing a snowball, studying the majestic monument at its heart, and I mourn that such beauty can be tainted by such evil. This is no place for romantics--it shows the world as it truly is: beautiful, broken, desperate for redemption.

Berlin