Back in the G.D.R.

The name of the game in Berlin is chaos. I can't even begin to list the eclectic mix of experiences I've had so far. Walking tour of the city (in the freezing cold, I might add), with a Canadian expat, talking politics with friends over wine at a hole-in-the-wall bar on Mehringdam, meadering around Mitte with Kate and Jill on a sunny afternoon (that neighborhood is fascinating- in the GDR time it was a concrete wasteland, right after unification it was a squatter's paradise, now it's trendy as can be, with expensive shops, funky cafes, outrageous dance clubs and smoky pubs). Today, and every Thursday, most of the museums in Berlin are free from 6-10pm, so we hit up the GDR Museum and the Altes Museum. The GDR museum was like stepping on to the set of "Goodbye, Lenin." They had a complete replica of a GDR-era apartment (complete with books on sexuality and a corresponding explanation of the GDR's progressive sexual policy- abortion legal and paid for at any point in a pregnancy, free birth control for all women over 15. Although they did include a line about the fact that although the GDR proclaimed women and men were equal, the social division of labor was still pretty traditional- men pursued their careers while women were expected both to work and maintain the household. Have things really changed that much today?). The museum also had a closet full of GDR-era clothes, displays of magazines and television shows, and photos from the family vacations to nudist colonies out in the country. I know they wanted to up the kitsch factor the bring in the tourists, but I couldn't help but detect a wiff of nostalgia in the whole affair. The only negative element of the regime they really highlighted was the lack of choice when it came to newspapers- which I thought was interesting given my research topic. But other than that, I kind of walked away thinking, "well that wouldn't have been so bad." I suppose everything in the museum was pretty surface, though. And they did make note of the fact that farmers and engineers in the GDR earned an almost identical salary. But overall, the picture was a bit one-sided.