06.25.2012 Olympiastadion

 going for gold.

I never really thought much about the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. It's sort of far off on the side of the Bahn map and it didn't pop up on my "Quick! Come visit me!" radar. Plus, with the O2 Centre, who comes here anyway? I didn't even know the Olympics happened in Berlin. So how did we end up here? It was in the Wallpaper* city guide, and of course, it included a really nice picture. Enough to persuade me to go and take a a look and add more photos to my collection. 

The Olympiastadion has a nice history to it. Obviously tainted by WW2, this was one of the few buildings that was still in good form after the event. The building was for the Summer Olympics of 1936 and propaganda. Knowing this, I was expecting to find an old, decrepit, and massively built stadium. Nope. This thing is like, brand new. It's been rebuilt entirely on top of it's original location, although they tried to keep the materials, style and whatnot consistent.

We went in with only thirty minutes until closing time. "Yeahh, it's just a stadium, won't take us long," as we bought our entrance tickets.

1. Olympic gate,                                                                   2. Ground level entrance

The bulk of the stadium is underground. The whole thing has four underground levels and the upper level and sky box seating sits above ground. According the detail site plan of the stadium, there is a police post and prison cells, and a chapel under there too. 

1. "What an exciting game!" says Spectator A,                                       2. "It's a full house tonight," says Spectator B.

I don't know how she got there. But I want to try it too. Unfortunately it is virtually impossible to (subtlety) jump into the pitch.

Swimming practice

1. Diving board,                                                                                                      2. Access

1. "You can eat these! I swear!"                                                                                  2. Hmmmm

This is the Maifield. It's a giant lawn for May Day celebrations and gymnastic demonstrations. Today it's used for cricket. The tall tower in the middle is the Bell Tower. It was closed when we got there, but usually you can go up the tower and get a really good view of the city all the way to Potsdam. Actually, it was the only part of the Olympiastadion that was fully destroyed from the war. It used to hold archives, and the Soviets burned it like a chimney. Subsequently, the bell fell from the tower and cracked so it has no sound any more and was reused as target practice in 1956 for a while until now it just stands as a memorial.

1. Winners,                                                                        2. Firebowl                                                                                      3. The bell

We left through the same gates, meeting the same super friendly security guard at the door. He looked at us with surprise seeing that we were leaving so soon. With poor English, he asked us what we thought of the Stadium, and proceeded to introduce to us all the interesting things to note in the Olympiastadion area. We smiled and nodded and were like "Yeah! We totally saw all those things, thank you!" And left... 

When we got home, I finally looked at the pamphlet that came with our entrance tickets. Unfolding the map, it turns out that we only saw 1/4 of the entire site. There were the gymnastic fields, horse race tracks, hockey stadium, the forest theatre and etc. that we missed out on. Gah what a shame! Now we finally know why the security guard looked so surprised to see us exiting so soon.

1. champion cheese                                                         2. There's a person shaped hole in my photo.