Berlin is famous for many things, one of which is its collection of museums. According to the Berlin tourism website, there are over 170 of them. This includes Museumsinsel, a UNESCO World Heritage listed collection of five immense museums on an island in the middle of the Spree River in central Berlin - the Pergamon, the Bode Museum, the Old and New Museums, and the National Gallery (my personal favourite). The others around Berlin include the Stasi Museum, the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (more on that in a minute), the Sugar Museum, the Clock Museum, the Musical Instrument Museum, various suburban museums, the Museum of Things, and the Museum of Outrageous Things.
[Here's the "more on that in a minute" about Haus am Checkpoint Charlie: avoid it. At all costs. I've been there twice with different visitors and also worked there for an entire five hour trial shift after which I promptly handed in my name tag and quit on the spot, mostly because of the draconian customer service and employee relations policies. From a visitor's perspective though: aside from the ridiculous entrance fees (€9.50 - more expensive than any other museum in Berlin), there's no rhyme or reason to the layout within individual rooms or in general, the audio guides only cover half the exhibits, and the website is rubbish. As I said, skip it. Or better, go to Checkpoint Charlie and instead of going inside the museum, take photos of the replica checkpoint house with the actors in German, Russian and American military garb, and check out the free displays outside. Then go to the free and much better Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer near Nordbahnhof.]
Anyway, of the remaining museums, I've been to a few, but there are many more that I have contemplated visiting for, well, to be honest, years, and recently it's dawned on me that I won't be in Berlin forever, hence my window of opportunity to see all of these wonderful museums is limited. Don't get me wrong: Melbourne has some brilliant museums, and the National Gallery of Victoria and Scienceworks are two of my favourites. But on the museum front, Melbourne can't compete with Berlin. On top of that, a friend of mine recently got himself a year pass to Berlin's state museums, and since I still have my student ID, which reduces the price by 50%, I've made the same cultural investment. (Bonus: it includes all of the temporary exhibitions and an audio guide in English for the lot!)
Which leads me to the point of this post. I have all of these cultural institutions at my doorstep, all of which will provide me with various cultural experiences, which in turn may or may not provide creative inspiration. We'll see how that turns out. But over the course of the next year, I will visit each and every one of Berlin's 18 state-run museums, and several of the others (yes, I will go to the Sugar Museum, the Museum of Clocks, and the Museum of Outrageous Things), and I will write about each and every one. The goal is one a week for a year.
Go go gadget culture! :)
I am hereby annoyed at myself.
So, this whole "regular post" thing keeps getting derailed, and it's starting to really annoy me. There are various reasons, only some of which could reasonably be referred to as excuses, but as previously mentioned, it annoys me. The ideas are there, the time is there; it's just that somehow the twain never seem to meet. Therefore, I hereby renew my resolve to write. Can't guarantee the quality, or for that matter, the quantity or regularity, but the intention is there.
We'll see how this goes. :)
We'll see how this goes. :)
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