Off to the Olympiastadion!

Today we visited Berlin's historic Olympic Stadium. Located in the neighborhood of Charlottenburg, the stadium is just under 6 miles from the city center. Completed in 1936, the stadium itself has a somewhat dark history, but today plays host to many of the nation's most exciting events. We had three terrific tour guides who taught us about the history, symbolism, and art behind the stadium and Olympic Park, so let's dive in!

We started off with 2 trains from the CIEE center in Kreuzberg to the West side of the city. The kids have become experts at navigating the U-Bahn and had some fun on the way there with a little cat's cradle. A stranger even chose to join in!

When we arrived at the stadium, we were greeted by two enormous towers, which held up the Olympic Rings. These towers are 2 of the 6 which surround the stadium and represent 6 historical German tribes; the Prussians and Bavarians in the front, and the Saxons, Frisians, Swabians, and Franconians in the back. As we began our walk, we learned that the stadium itself only occupies about 9% of the Olympic Park, despite being Germany's largest stadium by area. Once we entered, we were able to have a seat and look over the field, where tomorrow's opening ceremony for the Special Olympic World Games was being prepared. The sheer size of the place caught us by surprise, since so much of it is below ground-level.

Our next stop was the luxury boxes, where we were finally treated like the VIPs we are. Some of the best views in the whole place don't come cheap. In order to sit there for a game, you have to rent it out for the whole year, which will cost you about 68,000€ ($74,000)! The kids all agreed it was well worth the price, we'll all just have to pick up a few extra hours next week. Next we left the main stadium to view the swimming/diving pools. Many of our students are swimmers, so they got to imagine themselves winning gold here - in what is today used as a public pool. The seats surrounding the pool are currently closed due to disrepair, which means no major events can be held there until the city has enough money to rebuild them. Nonetheless, imaginations may still run wild. 

The next part of the tour led us to the press conference room. This room has been very active over the last few months, as the club who uses the stadium (Hertha Berliner SC), was recently demoted to the second division. Many of our kids decided to take the podium and face the heat much like the coaches and players have been lately. Luckily, they held their poise before the cameras and left the amateur journalists in our group with plenty of headlines!

From here we saw the wall of champions, which honors the gold medalists from the 1936 Olympic Games. Adolf Hitler hoped the games would display the "superiority" of the German people, but athletes from all parts of the world won gold in different events. The most notable of these was American, Jesse Owens, who took home 4 golds in track and field events, much to the disgust of Hitler. His name now remains etched in the wall of one of the Nazis' grandest pieces of fascist architechture, serving as a reminder that the idea of a "master race" was nothing more than the brain-child of a sociopathic dictator. 

At the end of the tour, we took some time to reflect on all the things we had learned today. Our kids were quite fascinated overall by the palace of sport, which out-sizes most NFL stadiums. We were able to make many connections to the things we've learned in class over the week, as well as what we'd learned about the past and present of German sports. From here, we headed back to the U-Bahn to wrap up our day with friends, before returning to our homestays!