Tear Down This Wall!
On August 13th, 1961 a wall was erected down the middle of the city of Berlin. The world was divided by a cold war and the Berlin wall was the most hated symbol of that divide. Reviled, graffitied, spit upon. We thought the wall would stand forever, and now that it's gone we don't know who we are anymore.
This past weekend I took a trip to Berlin. This time I had a travel buddy, Bethany! We got in late Friday night and immediately got lost. We figured out (through intense mental focus and deidcation) that we had to take the bus to center city, and then we had nothing... The city was doing construction on the metro line that went to our hostel, so we ended up wandering around the center city for about an hour. We passed the same damn Burger King over and over again, until I had to ask the police which way to go. Not my greatest navigation moment, and even worse would follow. More deatils to come.
The next morning we got up early to tour the city. Here, Bethany filled me in on a bit of information about the Berlin Wall and about the city itself. One blatantly obvious feature of the city is the line of bricks driving straight through. This actually signifies where the Wall used to stand. They laid down a line, two bricks wide, across the entire city where the Berlin Wall ran. We were actually standing where the wall used to be and it was spectacular. It was only torn down in 1989... 26 years ago. And I am now 21 years old.
And another tidbit about Berlin. The city was divided into two sections. In the Eastern section, the Soviets decided to change the crosswalk symbols from the old version to their own design. When the wall fell, the crosswalk symbols were kept around. Now, there are streets where one side literally has a different crosswalk symbol than the other because of the Berlin Wall.
We started out walking to Checkpoint Charlie, the main entrance point from Soviet East Berlin to the American sector of West Berlin. There were listed the names of everyone killed attempting to flee the divide. Pictures of stowaways and bordercrossers littered the gallery. Afterwards, we went towards the north side, and walked into the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. This memorial was spectacular and so powerful. It is made of thousands of concrete slabs of uneven heights. When you approach, the ground slopes below you and you can go into a linear concrete forset of slabs that towers above you.
We left the concrete forest to get to the Brandenburg Gate, where Raegan gave his famous "Tear Down This Wall" speech, and where the wall was finally torn down. It is a huge and very impressive structure that is greatly involved in the history of Berlin and the Wall.
We did need to get over to the east end of the city, and that meant taking the train. Bethany and I walked over to a nearby station and figured out the way to get to the Berlin Cathedral. It turned out that the train was in the station and leaving RIGHT NOW. We quickly got on board and Bethany whispered "Don't we need tickets..." I ignored it and started to wait out the two-stop ride. Then, I look up and everyone is rummaging through their pockets. I've seen this before on the trains in Copenhagen, and so did Bethany. Ticket collector. Everyone was getting out their tickets and passes, and we had none. I turned around and started shuffling through the crowd to the other end of the train. I notice Bethany stops following me and as I look up again, I run directly into a second collector. Turns out that he started at the opposite end of the train and Bethany had noticed him before I did.
So he asked for our tickets, and we checked our pockets as if we had forgotten them. I am an not the greatest actor. The men told us to get out at the next station as they asked for ID. I gave them my Danish citizenship card, which really threw him for a loop. Anyway, he said that NORMALLY they would have to take down our names, and NORMALLY they would ahve to send it to the state police, and NORMALLY it would be an internation issue... BUT they were wiling to take a fine and not record the incident. So we bribed the German police and went along our somewhat-less merry way.
From there we went to see the Berlin Cathedral and the Pergamon museum for ancient Roman, Greek, and Turkish artifacts. Then we left for our Berlin Beer tour! Booyah! The tour met outside of the Burger King that we saw the first night (which I will have a deep, burning hatred for all time) and we got to meet a few americans living/vacationing in Europe and a Swede. Some of the Americans were Pitt students studying in Italy and it was great to see some young friends! The Swede was the Swedish equivalent of George Clooney. We refer to him as the Silver Fox. It was a 3-hour tour (our tour guide was not named Gilligan), and we got a historical view of the city and its microbrewery scene.
After getting some solid beers and a nice educaiton about types of German beers, we went to the TV tower. The tower is the highest point in all of the EU, and we got to go right to the top at night. What a beautiful view.
That same night, we got a recommendation from Bethany's friend to go to a club called Mein Haus, which was apparently "the essence of Berlin." How could we not go? It was a club/bar/cafe that was the best of all worlds. Nice scene, cool music, great drinks.
The next day we went to the Reichstag which, for me, was one of the most iconic scenes of World War II. We reserved tickets to the glass dome, which was a wonderful viewpoint. We got up to the top of the dome early and got to walk around with very few others around. After the dome, we toured the city looking for markets and classic Berlin foods. It was a relaxed day filled with shopping and chocolate. We also went out to see the East Side Gallery, which is a long stretch of the old Berlin wall decorated with art and graffiti. We saw some classic scenes and it was such a great representation ofthe people at the time. We finally boarded a plane for home as I crammed for a psychopharmacology exam the next day.
Above: 'My God! Help me to survive' Below: 'Among this deadly love'
The most powerful piece, in my opinion.
