{"id":1737,"date":"2010-04-21T17:33:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T17:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=1737"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:40:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:40:51","slug":"volkspark","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2005\/spring05\/features\/uncovering-berlin\/volkspark\/","title":{"rendered":"Friedrichshain Volkspark"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Friedrichshain Volkspark\u00a0<em>\u2014 by Melissa Simones &#8217;06<\/em><\/h3>\n<p>I lived in Friedrichshain, an eastern district of Berlin that at first seemed sterile and uninviting. My street, Karl-Marx-Allee, was composed of gigantic apartment blocks constructed during communist times, and they stretched for miles.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/spring05\/features\/berlin\/Simones2055.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" width=\"400\" height=\"276\" align=\"middle\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I grew up in Auburn and in Greene, Maine, and have never experienced big-city life for more than a week or so. The Bates campus is four and a half miles from my home and family, and I\u2019ve lived around the woods most of my life. Living in Berlin could not have been more different for me.<\/p>\n<p>But soon after arriving, while strolling around my neighborhood, I discovered a place of comfort and interest: the Friedrichshain <em>Volkspark<\/em> (People\u2019s Park). It was an inviting park where vibrant Berliners enjoyed themselves. Children played, people exercised, and a caf\u00e9 sat near a pond.\u00a0 Various monuments dotted the park.<\/p>\n<p>I felt relaxed and comfortable strolling around the green and spacious grounds, and its 160-year history intrigued me. The park symbolizes Berlin\u2019s past, present, and future, from Prussian times to the Cold War, from Nazis to communists. <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/spring05\/features\/berlin\/Simones-2025web.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"195\" height=\"134\" align=\"right\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Friedrichshain <em>Volkspark<\/em> became a haven for me, a connection to nature and a connection to myself in the midst of a large city in a far-off continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friedrichshain Volkspark\u00a0\u2014 by Melissa Simones &#8217;06 I lived in Friedrichshain, an eastern&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":1728,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-1737","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11475,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1737\/revisions\/11475"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}