Museums, posh places and Ratimal

This week has been a fairly cultural week. I have been roasting all through the weekend because we've had such gut Wetter. Yesterday it reached 29ºC so some of us went for a grill at Templehof Park (a huge park that used to be an airport).

Anyway I will start from the beginning… I am feeling logical today. On Thursday me and Polly went to the Altes Museum for a draw. There isn't as much there as some of the other museums, but it was only €4 entry for students. It's mainly ancient Greek and Roman artefacts. I feel really sad for saying this, but the coin collection was really interesting….. they huge coins from 200 BC and earlier. It was really interesting to see the symbols and icons they found important enough to put on them. The ancient helmets were also interesting to see.

On Saturday it was the 'Lange Nacht der Opern und Theater'. An event where for one night you can go to any of 57 different venues and choose from 150 different shows - we paid around €12. Each show was about 20mins long, so it was a taster of each. It was great to see so many of the big theatre and opera venues. We started off at Theater O.N., it was very small and the crazy puppet show I picked out turned out to be a children's show (it was called Hänschen Klein - Small Chicken). It was really strange and I quite enjoyed it though! Definitely the most unusual show of the night. An old man dressed up as a little girl, playing with messed up toys and taking on the demented persona of a mother and father at the same time. One of the main things I remember hearing shouted over and over again is 'RATIMAL!' - one of the main characters. If I was a child watching it I would have been scared, because that show was messed up!!

We then headed down to Unter den Linden to a posh little place called the 'Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin' for a show called Gertrud. Unfortunately it was a very bad show full of screaming women and we joined a lot of the audience in leaving early! The building was really nice to visit though.

Then we headed down to Kantstraße (near Zoologischer Garten) and went to the Stage Theater des Westens. We saw a preview of VAMPIRE! It was a really impressive building and the sets were amazing.

Finnnnally we went to 'Konzerthaus Berlin' to see an orchestra play a piece by Handel. It was a great way to spend our weekend. Some of the others also went to an Opera on Unter den Linden and said it was really good. I'd recommend Lange Nacht der Opern und Theater if your here next time it's on. Although a word of warning… don't rely on the shuttle busses they provide because they get really full and are quite inefficient. It's better to figure out the train routes yourself and get there that way.