Berlin Day 5

Winding up our stay in Berlin, there were a few places we wanted to re-visit...so Wednesday, after breakfast


we were off to see the Jewish Museum.

I must admit, this was not the first place I would have gone to visit, but I am so very glad I did. It has an incredible amount of displays, and the architecture of the building itself is a wonderment.

Constant angles lead you to explore various hallways.


The garden is purposely arranged to make you uncomfortable with its off center planters (yes, the humans are standing straight up).








Once outside, we saw more and more smartcars...I especially like this paint job!!!



And this parking job



Walking to lunch we discovered the most interesting objects...


Looking down from the sidewalk...we spy a brass brain on the street!


I wish I knew more about this!!!!***



LUNCH!


After lunch, we headed back to the Memorial to the Dead Jews of Europe to tour their museum below the blocks



saw more smartcars


and then 4 of us went in search of a special shoe for Alix.

3 hours, and lots and LOTS of walking up and down Ku'damm, we FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY found the turquoise-low-tread-high-top-canvas-Converses she had been craving since seeing them first in Copenhagen. Her reaction says it all.



*** I finally found out what the brain "thingy" is!!!

The 3 SEC Bronze Brain

The Einstein Tower (German: Einsteinturm) is an astrophysical observatory in the Albert Einstein Science Park in Potsdam, Germany

A few meters in front of the stairs to the Einstein Tower and set into the pavement of the forecourt is a fist-sized art object, a bronze reproduction of a human brain highly reduced in size, its shiny surface a sign of wear, inscribed with the four characters, 3 SEC. It was created by the Berlin artist Volker März, who placed it here and in an identical form in front of the Neurological Institute of the Charité in Berlin. The small sculpture refers to a scientific thesis of Ernst Pöppel according to which “the experience of continuity is based on an illusion. Continuity arises through the networking of contents, which in each case are represented in a time window of three seconds. We reconstruct temporal continuity based on what is represented in the individual islands of consciousness.” (translation) Taking up this idea, März titled his work “the 3 SEC Bronze Brain – Admonition to the Now – Monument to the continuous present.” (translation).