story and photos by Kayte Deioma
My foot tentatively follows the unfamiliar cane, testing the ground to feel where the dirt path gives way to lawn. I brush against a tall bush and reach out to touch the waxy leaves with my fingers. Birds chirp somewhere nearby and the scent of earth and grass reach my nose. In a suddenly dark world, I find myself in what feels, smells and sounds like a garden or a park.
Hyper-aware that my cane keeps bumping into other people, I follow my guide’s voice until I am through the park. The sound of traffic rushing by on a busy street makes me stop. My cane finds the curb, bumping into a car and a bicycle before I reach the solid pole holding the traffic signal, which, my instructor assures me, will indicate when it is safe to cross.
I am learning to navigate a sightless world at Dialog im Dunkeln (Dialogue in the Dark) in Hamburg, Germany, where blind guides lead sighted visitors through invisible, yet multi-textured environments inside a converted coffee storeroom in the Speicherstadt (Warehouse District). The exhibit is designed to increase awareness among the mainstream population of the challenges of disability, while at the same time demonstrating that for the disabled, the world is not “less,” just different.
My visually deprived comrades on this journey are a group of American students on a German study program and my friend Birgit, who lives in Hamburg. Since we are all equally impaired, no one objects too much as we bump into each other feeling our way along an exterior wall and window into our next destination.
The aroma of cloves and cinnamon fill my nostrils as I enter. My fingers explore piles of burlap sacks filled with what? Coffee beans? Peppercorns? Birgit calls me over to some kind of raised pedestal, where my hands find bowls of powder. This is where the cinnamon smell is coming from. We are in a spice warehouse.
The student group has booked the short tour, so it is just Birgit and I who continue with our guide, Brita, out into the cool air, across a wobbly bridge onto a waiting boat. We can hear the water lapping and smell the sea air as we feel our way to a bench at the side of the boat.
I reach my cane over the side and splash it around to assure myself there is really water there. I know we are still inside the warehouse, but the sense of being out on the water is incredibly real.
The wind picks up and I am splashed by the spray as the engine starts, the boat rocks and we take off on our excursion. Brita tells us about the ships we are passing in port. She also describes the Ferris Wheel, tents and hoards of people gathered for the Harbor Festival, which I had seen for myself out in the real world earlier in the day, but now perceive only from her word pictures.
We disembark to a brief interlude of musical immersion, and then adjourn to the bar, where we have our coins ready to buy soft drinks from the blind bartender. I trust that he counts the coins correctly. My fingers are not familiar enough to make out the denominations of the Euros.
Seated at a low table, over bottles of Fanta that taste like Sprite (has someone played a joke on the bartender, or on us?), we have a chance to talk with Brita about her blindness and functioning in the world without sight. This opportunity to openly discuss what some would consider a sensitive subject is just one more dimension to our immersive experience, and does create a real dialogue in and about the dark.
Dialog im Dunkeln originated in Hamburg in 1988. Since then, they have created permanent or temporary exhibits in over 130 cities in 20 countries, providing more than 5000 jobs for the blind.
Dialogue in the Dark also offers special programs including “Dinner in the Dark,” “Blind Passenger” and on-location leadership training workshops “In the Dark.”
Reservations are required. Visit http://www.dialogimdunkeln.de/prehome_en.htm for more information.
Dialog im Dunkeln
Alter Wandrahm 4
20457 Hamburg
Booking line: 00 49 (0) 700 44 33 2000
“If you build it, they will come” said a ghostly voice in the movie Field of Dreams. I can picture this same voice whispering to Frederick Braun when he came up with the idea to build the world’s biggest model train display. He convinced his more practical twin, Gerrit, that the project was feasible, and they set about putting together the funding and the team to make it happen. Now visitors are lining up to see the fantasy world they have created at Miniatur Wundurland.
Since 2001, this ever-expanding project has occupied a warehouse in the Speicherstadt district in Hamburg, Germany. Starting with 975 square feet of tableaus representing areas of southern Germany and the Austrian Alps, the exhibit has more than tripled in size to over 3700 square feet with the addition of Hamburg, Scandinavia, and America, and the latest creation, a multi-story model of Switzerland.
Loving detail has gone into recreating Hamburg, from the Town Hall to Landungsbrucken and St. Michael’s Church to the red light district of the Reeperbahn, to the thousands of mini fans packing the AOL Arena for an HSV soccer game. Ships and tour boats navigate real water in the harbor, while dozens of trains make their way through the Hamburg Main Train Station and subways stop at Baumwall, where a crowd has gathered for a techno music parade. Elephants cavort in the Hagenbeck Zoo; fire crews respond to a building fire; bikers race across the Kohlbrand Bridge; trucks load their wares in the Speicherstadt, tourists line up to get into the Dungeon, and daily life goes on in suburbs. Hollywood’s best model makers couldn’t have done any better.
America is about 1/3 the size of Hamburg. Las Vegas is well represented with landmark buildings like the MGM Grand, Luxor and Paris Las Vegas that light up when night falls, which is every 15 minutes at Miniatur Wunderland. In addition to the many cars and trucks moving through the streets and the monorail on the Strip, you get a view of the passenger and cargo trains making their way across the desert and through the Vegas railroad station, that most real life visitors would never see.
Adjacent to Las Vegas, Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon are in close proximity to each other with mining towns, Indian pueblos and Area 51 in between, all connected by trestle railroad bridges and a freeway system full of semis and tanker trucks. Amtrak delivers passengers to nearby Miami Beach, with its Art Deco architecture and palm trees. Cape Canaveral, the Everglades and Key West fill in the rest of Florida.
Switzerland, which opened in November 2007 is the first multi-level exhibit, covering over 800 square feet. The Matterhorn rises from the third to the fourth floor of the building through an opening in the ceiling. You can follow the trains up the mountain via a stairway or look down on the scene from the railing above. Other things going on in the Swiss scene include a renaissance fair with knights competing in a joust near the foot of Castello di Montebello, workers making chocolate bars at the Lindt & Sprungli factory, and 20,000 fans camped out at a DJ Bobo concert, complete with requisite port-a-potties.
There is so much incredible detail to the models at Miniatur Wunderland that you could spend all day and not see everything. If you take just long enough to see the daylight and nighttime version of each set, you need a minimum of two hours, even for a superficial view. If you have kids along, you should allow plenty of time for them to push 
Behind the Scenes Tours let you see the inner workings of the systems and go behind the models to see where the trains go when they enter the tunnels. The tour goes through some pretty tight spaces, so size restrictions apply.