Today was... not so fun. After having actual class for 4 hours, we had to go on our "Wednesday" excursion...in the rain. We schlepped ourselves over to Olympiastadion, the site of the Berlin 1936 Olympics. It was pretty much just a time for the Nazis to show off their strength, and for Jesse Owens to win everything that has to do with running (fast).
We did our tour in German, and basically went over the history of the stadium, materials, who sits where, looked at the locker rooms, etc. It was actually surprisingly interesting to see the buildings-- we had seen them for 2 hours watching the movie "Olympia" for a different class. "Olympia" is considered of Leni Riefenstahl's more propagandist films, but she's always calimed that it was more about the beauty of the human body, and whatnot. And that's rather true- she didn't cut Jesse Owens out of her video, despite the fact that Hitler didn't approve of him (refused to shake his hand after he won). Anyway, there was this 15 minute long diving sequence in the film, and we were able to say, today... "hey that's that diving board we had to watch for 15 minutes of our lives"
All of the outside was done with sandstone, to make it look more like the Coliseum, or something to that effect. Now it's used as a training center, concerts, and lots and lots of soccer games. It looks freaking awesome, I have to say, and we got to try out the VIP chairs... comfy!
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No idea what those people on the bottom are- halfway through the tour, they heaved them up into the air... I'm assuming mascots of some kind.
The aforementioned pool
The roof, which I found awesome
Jesse Owens
View from the front
The aforementioned pool
The roof, which I found awesome
Jesse Owens
View from the frontAfterwards, I just went home and did work. Have to prepare for not being here this weekend.... sigh.
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