Berlin - Day 3

How much I love good museums. And how I love them even more when they know how to create a lot of drama around an object, when they know how to create expectations and when in the end they know how to live up to the expectations they´ve created. The museum is the recently refurbished Neues Museum and the ‘star’ is Queen Nefertiti. She stands alone in a dark green round room with a dome, beautifully lit, the rest of the room quiet dark. Crowd control in the museum means that visitors are naturally spread around its different floors and rooms. So there are never too many people at a time in ‘the queen´s room’ and, given that this is the only place in the whole building where photography is not allowed, everybody is here to really look at her, to adore her.

On the other hand, how much I hate museums that make me feel I am supposed to know everything and, if I don´t, it´s because I am a big idiot. Contemporary art museums usually fall in this category. I usually come out the same as when I went in, just a bit more tired. Definitely more upset. This was the case of Hamburger Bahnhof. And could someone explain to me why in almost every museum in this place guards are barking instructions to foreign visitors in perfect german?

It didn´t stop raining today. It got colder too. But on this cold rainy day I discovered a different Berlin, more colourful, more animated. After all, it´s not just an ex-eastern-block city on a permanent bank holiday. I discovered 'my' Berlin in Prenzlauer Allee and the streets around it. And I had a very special dinner in Restauration 1900. A great way to enjoy my last night here.