No wall, one city

The zoo is a quiet spot in the middle of a fairly loud city. During my last time in the city, the Wall was almost completely removed. The Checkpoint Charlie Museum is the place to best get a feel of what used to be. The bombed church (cathedral?) in the city center and the neo-modern replacement are excellent reminders of destruction and reconstruction.

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As I first got ready to go to Berlin, I was filled with anxiety over Neo-Nazis and possible anti-American sentiment. After one night, I felt very comfortable in Berlin. Don't worry about the past, the city is safe for all, so long as you have your regular guard, nothing more.

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Like most German cities, Berlin has an extensive public transportation system. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn systems got us pretty much everywhere we went, although buses seemed abundant as well.

On my last trip, this was one of the few places where a chunk of the wall still stood. On my first trip, the checkpoint still existed itself, but I believe was gone by second visit a year later.

As for the museum itself, it's an eerie mix of history, art, and philosophy. There are the necessary explorations as to what the Wall was and what it signified. There are propaganda posters left from the days of the Wall, as well as pictures of the graffiti and art that had been put on the Wall over the years.

One room specializes in the attempts -- both successful and failed -- to get over the Wall. In this section, there are fake car trunks, makeshift hang-gliders, and altered luggage that could bring to mind the likes of James Bond.

Before Universal Studios, before Disney-MGM, there was Babelsberg Studios. This is where Fritz Lang worked at the start of the 1900s. Metropolis and Nosferatu were shot here, as were a number of other movies through the years. Unlike Universal and MGM, though, this place is still a film studio first, amusement park second.

As a working studio, only a limited section is open to the visiting public. It's not pretty, and not "fun" in the thrill ride sense of those other studios, but Babelsberg is more interesting and is quite enjoyable.

For the common visitor, there is a movie showing some of those off-limit areas such as the prop and costume departments. The movie is available in English, but I'm not sure if they show it only at specific times or just to requesting groups. From the movie, a guide takes people on a tour of mock-up studios used to show both the history of the studio and the "insides" of making movies. The historical displays include one dedicated to Nosferatu (precursor to Bela Lugosi's Dracula), a show of Maria the robot coming to life (from Metropolis) and a mock-up of those rooms used to film people walking on the ceiling.

The outside lots offer various differnt scenes people can walk into and around--a gingerbread house, a rope bridge over a pit (think Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom but with a small pit about 1/1,000 the size of the canyon in that movie), and a fort.

Like those other places though, this place also has a stunt show. This one isn't based on any movie per se, but the way the vehicles and characters look, it is reminicant of the Road Warrior movies. "The Final Countdown" blares through the speakers throughout the show. . .what is it with Germatic states and this song? It's a cheesy show, but worth the five minutes.

Sometimes they seem to open the sets up to the tours. During my first semester, we were allowed onto the forest set of The Neverending Story 3.

To get to Babelsberg, you can take the S-Bahn towards Potsdam. It's a little out of the way, but if you have a day to kill and you are a movie buff, it can be a fun time.