Diane Wood Artist

 June 21, 2009

 

Dear Family and Friends, 

I attended a wedding April 18 at the Boulder Quaker Meeting Hall.  It had snowed and changed to rain when I arrived at the meeting hall, but spirits soared and the place was aglow with happiness.  Lisa and Gale were radiant and sat at the head of the meeting hall and all in attendance sat in a semi-circle. A spokesperson for the event told us that at Quaker weddings, no clergy or justice of the peace marries the couple.  Only God can marry a couple.  The ceremony began with the couple quietly sitting just beaming.  Then when they felt it was time, they came forward to stand and say their vows.  They then return to be seated.  Any one present may stand, be recognized and say what is in their hearts and minds.  Gale’s father had memorized the “Desiderata” and gave it with passion and meaning.  At the end of the service everyone signs the marriage certificate as witness to the marriage. 

It was very interesting and moving.  I was very happy to have been invited.  They have been friends of ours for a number of years.  

The finale – two of the residents were very proud of their artwork and signed it and want to frame it.

It was very rewarding to have brought creativity, meaning, learning and happiness in their lives.  It really felt good.

 

 

Our Longmont Artwalks are now called ArtLink.  At the May ArtLink I was the featured artist at the Sunrose Café.  I was able to hang 34 paintings on lovely old brick walls.  Friday, May 15 I set up my easel and was painting one of my chicken series which I will title “Downtown Strutters Ball”.  The Mayor of Longmont came in and asked if I had a permit for painting chickens.  (Longmont has recently been giving a limited number of permits for people to raise chickens with no roosters allowed.)  We had a good laugh about this and talked a bit.  These ArtLinks bring thousands to downtown Main Street and it is good family fun.

Ken had an international meeting for eyeglasses, sunglasses and ophthalmic standards in Berlin.  We had thought at first that the cost of the trip for me would be too expensive given the economic times, but air fare costs came down several hundred dollars and Ken said he would like be to accompany him.  I was very happy to do so. 

We arrived at the airport May 23 in plenty of time.  Found out something very interesting regarding baggage for international flights.  You are allowed two bags and up to 100 lbs for luggage.  We each had our one bag and were under the 50 lb per bag limit.

 

Going thru security for me because of my steel hip brings in the female inspector who wands me, frisks me, etc.  It takes a good 5 to 7 minutes.  Yeah!  I really am a dangerous one.

 

Our flight connected in Newark and we literally got off one plane and walked onto the flight from Newark to Berlin.  Because of this short span of time, our luggage never was placed on the flight to Berlin and we had to wait until the next day for clothing and incidentals.  Ken was especially unhappy as he had to attend meetings in his travel clothes and had to shave with a straight razor – not enjoying that at all.

 

Ken had Sunday off (we arrived Sunday morning) so we showered, put on our same travel clothes and headed out to see the city.  Berlin is large, clean and friendly.

 

Just in case you are not interested in reading about the history of Berlin, the WWII and Cold War, I will bold the ending.  It was most interesting for me because I was a little girl during WWII.  Things I heard about, read about and news clips seen at the movies stayed in my memory.

 

We walked to the bombed out church Wilhem Gedachtniskirche.  After the war the Germans were undecided as to whether they should tear it down and rebuild it.  They did not know what to do.  They finally left the portion that was left untouched and built a modern church beside it.  It is quite an impressive sight to see.  

We walked down the famous Under den Linden to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate).  Napoleon entered Berlin thru the Brandenburger Tor in1806.  He loved the Quadriga (the sculpture of the horse) on top of this structure and had it removed and shipped to Paris.  In 1814 the Quadriga was brought back to Berlin restoring it to the Brandenburg Gate with one symbolic addition:  an Iron Cross and Prussian eagle added to the staff in Victoria’s hand.

 

From here we walked directly to the Tiergarden.  A lovely park which is  enormous.  It was here that the Berlin Airlift took place.  The United States shipped food and supplies, helped by the British in flying in these items, thus keeping the West Berlin Germans alive.

 

There are many waterways in the Tiergarden, lovely gardens – a place to enjoy, rest, meditate or exercise by either running or biking or just walking.

 

We took a break and stopped for a Pilsner beer.  Really good especially after having walked several miles.

 

We then decided to take the Banhof (train).  Had to first find the platform and luckily a fellow was there and assisted us in the purchase of a ticket and explained how to activate it.  He also sold one to us.  Don’t know where he got the ticket, but he was hanging out to make a little money.

 

Back at our Hotel someone had activated an alarm.  We received a telephone call advising us to stay in our rooms.  Well we weren’t going anywhere until dinner so we just rested a bit.

 

We found a Greek restaurant just a block up from our hotel.  Food was good and reasonably priced.  We had to wait quite a time for our second round of beer and wine so the owner gave us complimentary liquor at the end of the meal.  Very nice of him, but a little too much to drink.  We only had a short walk back to our hotel.

 

Well, the luggage arrived Monday and Ken was happy to be able to have some clean clothes to wear and his electric shaver. 

 

I asked the concierge to book a tour on a double decker bus to see the city while Ken was working.  This tour was with Severin and Kuhn. 

 

The tour took us to the Schloss Charlottenburg.  A lovely large summer retreat for Queen Sophie-Charlotte.    To the Olympic Stadiuim and into East Berlin.  Mitte is in East Berlin.  I will go into more detail when I tell you about the walking tour with Barnaby.

 

We did go thru Mitte on this bus tour.  What was interesting was that as soon as you left West Berlin, (even though Mitte is being rebuilt) it is drab and grey.

 

At the end of the bus tour we had to find alternative routes to return to the home base.  The dairy farmers were having a demonstration with hundreds of green and yellow John Deere tractors.  In speaking with our German friends, Klaus and Helga, we found out that the government had just reduced their wages so that they were working for practically nothing.  I happened to be able to take a photo of the line of tractors.  The shot was interesting and had the large Siegessaule monument built in 1871 – 73 at the end of the line of tractors.  The Siegessaule was moved by Hitler to this location to form a centerpiece for the Ease-West axis connecting Western Berlin with the palaces and ministries of Mitte.  On top of the column is a guilded Goddess of Victory by Friedrich Drake.

 

We had dinner with opthomalogists Tom White and his wife Nancy, Bob Rosenberg and wife Ruth and Dr. Bayreuther (do not remember his first name), who is an opthomalogist specializing in corrective care of children.  One of the highlights besides the animated conversation was Spargle, white asparagus.  The specialty of Europe.  You order this whenever you can as it is so very very good.

 

Tuesday – A bus trip to Potsdam.  Potsdam is a lovely city.  It would have been better if one could have walked the streets, but with the tour guide, many sites were pointed out which I otherwise would not have known about.  Sites where the KGB headquarters were located, KGB jail and Russian Barracks were during the cold war.

 

We were able to tour the summer residence of Frederick the Great, SANSSOUCI.  By the king’s standard, it was not a large residence, but certainly quite large.  One of Frederick’s friends was Voltaire.  Voltaire spent 2 to 3 years at this palace.  His room was very ornate with yellow walls and relief flowers.  One interesting items about the King Fredericks was that the father picked his son’s wife for him.  Well Frederick II was not very enthralled with the wife his father picked for him and when the father died, Frederick II sent his wife to live far far away.  By the way this Frederick never had children.  His children were his dogs and he is now buried on the grounds of the summer palace next to his dogs.  This area was recommended to visit by a Berliner who I spoke to while we travelled from New York to Berlin.  It was also located in the East Berlin sector and the Soviets occupied it.  The Potsdam Treaty was also signed here.  Many historic places were pointed out to us.

 

Tonight is a dinner given by Essilor at the Fish House for about 30 people.  It was a delightful evening with a lot of conversation with many different people from various countries.

 

Wednesday, May 27  -  Today I will be taking an English speaking walking tour with Insider Tours.  They were featured on the History Channel.  Three other wives (friends) also signed up for the tour.  (I encouraged that they do.)

 

Barnaby, a fellow from Wales was our tour guide.  He has lived in Berlin for 5 years and does not speak German.  He returned to Great Britain but did not like it and came back to Berlin as he said “this was the only place on the planet where he wished to live”.  Well, Barnaby told us that this was his real name, he said do you think I would call myself by this name?

 

Our tour guide is very tall and very animated.  He had trouble keeping his pants up as he was thin and did not have hips.  He sure did know his history. 

 

The walk began with his apologizing for Great Britain bombing the                        cathedral but this was the only time he would apologize. 

 

He took us to East Berlin where he told us all the history began and happened.  Brought us past the enormous front faced building where Hitler gave many of his speeches.  As we walked along, Barnaby was searching for a good sized stick.  I was wondering why he wanted the stick. It was to draw a map of Berlin and talk about the division of East and West Berlin.  Most interesting was the fact that 1/3 of the population of East Berlin migrated to West Berlin before the Berlin Wall was built.

 

We visited the Grand Square – Gendarmenmarkt.  On each side of the square was a large church.  The interesting thing about these churches was that one was built by Catholics who built the church for Lutherans.  On the opposite side of the square was a church built by the Lutherans for the Catholics. 

 

We were brought to the memorial where the Nazi book burning took place.  20,000 books were burned.  Directly across the street was the university where Albert Einstein taught.

 

Interestingly today, when a building is undergoing renovation, it is covered with material and design indicating windows, stories and how the architecture would look when finished.

 

We walked past a building which was Goering’s Air Defense Ministry.  The allies tried to bomb this building, as it was where all the German air attacks were planned, but they kept missing the building.  Today it stands and is the Treasury building for Germany.  It went unscathed during World War II.  We walked past the ruins of Himmler’s SS and Gestapo headquarters.

 

Another building was called the Railroad Station, though it was not near any railroad tracks.  The SS planned the evacuation of Jews out of Berlin to concentration camps from this building.

 

We were brought to a small plot of land which was Hitler’s Bunker.  For the last 2 ½ weeks of his life, he only ate chocolate cake.  He and Eva Braun were married in this bunker.  This is where she took her life after first killing their dog with cyanide.  On Hitler’s birthday (which he celebrated in the bunker) the fighting ceased.  The Germans thought it wonderful that the Furher stopped the fighting.  But that was short lived as the Soviets began marching into Berlin.  It was then that Hitler shot and killed himself.  We were shown the area where this took place, a short distance from the bunker.

 

Stalin told the Russian army that when they entered Berlin the women of Berlin were theirs.

 

Mrs. Goering had six children who were living outside Berlin in the country and were safe from the fighting.  She poisoned the all with cyanide as she could not think of anyone who wasn’t pure Aryan to bring them up.  What a warped mind.

 

Checkpoint Charlie was very moving to me.  The guard station is not the original and we were told that the men dressed as guards were “stippers” who charged for someone taking a photo with them.

 

Part of the Berlin Wall still exists and artists from various countries have come to Berlin to paint their thoughts and expressions on this wall.

 

The Berlin Wall was two separate walls with a narrow road between.  If someone managed to get over the first wall (with barbed wire at the top), they never knew when a patrol vehicle would roar down the road (there was no schedule maintained it was all randomly done).  If they managed to cross the road, they got to soft sand where their footsteps could be easily traced.  They had to scale the second wall with the barbed wire, etc.  Many people died trying to escape.

 

We visited the Holocaust Memorial which is a controversial grid of concrete blocks.  Barnaby asked that we collect our thoughts as we walked through this memorial.  First of all, it is an amazing structure of all the grids which at the deepest section tower over your head.  It is reminiscent of maize.  You were asked not to climb these grids, but children were running and jumping from one to another.  My thoughts as walking thru this memorial were  - “ a profound feeling of mindless wasted humanity for no other reason than religion, or not being pure Aryan, or Nazi.  At first I thought the children jumping from grid pillar to pillar and running all around were desecrating this place of memory and why it was erected, but then I thought perhaps this was proper in that we can further our lives and generations from learning of the past.”

 

I must say that for all the tumultuous past that Germany has had, the past is not being hid.  The German people are a proud people and are rebuilding their nation.

 

On Thursday four of us met for a day at KA DE  WE (the largest department store in continental Europe).  The most extraordinary feature about KaDeWe is their food hall on the sixth floor.  It is set up cafeteria style with kiosks and chefs that prepare specialized dishes – German, Thai, Chinese, Italian, etc.  The colorful display of salads, desserts, vegetables is fantastic.  The dining hall overlooks Berlin and you may dine with a great view of the city.

 

The fifth floor is an exquisite supermarket with beautifully arranged vegetables, cheeses, nuts, coffee, desserts, and if you are a  chocolate lover, an over abundance of chocolate in the shape of traditional chocolates, bars of chocolate, bears, VW’s, eggs, etc.

 

Friday was the last day before returning to the states and I decided to taxi to the Reichstag, the home of the German parliament.  In 1933 it was burned and used as an excuse to suspend basic freedoms.  It was rebuilt after WWII with a new dome designed to be open to visitors.  The dome offers fine views of the city.  At the centre is a funnel of mirrors, angled to shed light on the workings  of the parliament below.  A lift takes you to the roof, but you must arrive early as lines queue quickly.

 

After walking up the ramp to the top of the dome and viewing the city, I decided to walk back to the hotel.  Well, being such a great path finder, I ended up in Mitte (east Berlin) and did quite a bit of extra walking.  Occasionally I would stop with my map pulled out and approach passerbys with sprechen sie English?  The people I spoke to were very helpful and polite.  Some spoke excellent English.  I was grateful when I finally recognized the area which I was familiar with.

 

Friday we arrived at the airport early with time enough to grab some breakfast.  While seated at a table, we struck up a conversation with a couple who happened to be journalists going to Afghanistan to cover the news for a local TV station.  The woman was originally from Mongolia.

 

I have wonderful memories of Berlin.  It is a neat cosmopolitan city to visit with much history. 

 

This is the ending account of Berlin.

 

  This guy was at least 6 ft. long.  You can find their shedded skins in our sidewalk gardens.  I found a second skin which was a bit shorter (well this was minus the shriveled up head portion).  Will try to attach a photo.  One good thing about bull snakes is that they keep the rattlesnakes away.  Bull snakes are aggressive and could bite you, but they are not venomous.  When I see them in the sidewalk garden in front of the house, I direct myself to another part of the yard and gardens.

 

In early June the Boulder Art Association and Longmont Artist Guild collaborated to hold an art show at the Boulder Fairgrounds.  75 artists entered the show with oil, watercolor, pencil, pastel, sculpture, etc. artwork.  I helped put on the show with responsibilities of ordering ribbons, contacting the juror, arranging for musicians and after the judge’s choices, placing the ribbons on the winning art.

 

Rhythm on the River took place July 11 at Roger’s Grove.  This is the biggest event that the city of Longmont puts on.  It grows larger each year.  This also is a family event with entertainment, food, games, water stations (information on water supplies, etc.) and the Art Tent, which I organized. 

 

Artists who sign up to show their work in the Art Tent must have their artwork all unloaded by 6:30 am.  The tent is open for view from 8 am to 5 pm.  It is an early day, but lots of fun and lots of conversation.

 

An exciting event before leaving for the ROR tent – I went out to feed the birds at 4:45 am and succeeded in filling the first feeder.  I was 20 ft from the second feeder when I spied a dark animal with a white strip on its back.  Well, I made a quick turn about.  Never have been this close to a skunk before.  Thankfully, I did not get sprayed.  I left Ken a note asking that he feed the birds for me.

 

That’s about all for now.  Hope you are all doing well.

 

Love,

Diane and Ken