It's been 12 years since I met the German exchange student who came to my high school during my junior year. Twelve years ago we became friends and I told her that someday I would come to Germany to visit her. We lost contact after high school until about 4 or 5 years ago, when we reconnected over Facebook. Again, I told her that someday I would come to Germany but it never seemed to happen, so finally I decided not to tell her that again until I had actually bought the plane ticket to come over. So last year, I was finally able to tell her that I would be coming to Germany, the ticket was bought and we should meet up. Just a few days ago, I saw her oustide the U Bahn station and we have been her guests while we are in Berlin. It has been so good to reconnect with my friend - and I find it interesting that, of all the people I went to high school with, she is the one with whom I have the most in common. We've been reminiscing about people and teachers and comparing American traditions with German ones and it's just been great.
We wandered Berlin a bit on our own while Maria was working. We toured the East Side Gallery and Alexanderplatz and ended up finding the plaza where Hitler burned the books from the college (caught someone saything that's what it was) and the museums. We found some neat churches and everywhere we look there is still more construction going on. Then we went out with Maria and Bjorn to see the government buildings, they have their constitution written on glass outside one of them, and it was fun to see them reading it. We also climbed the victory tower to see a great panorama of Berlin and the Teirgarden... many, many steps up a narrow staircase... my butt is going to look great after this trip... just sayin'. We also got to have typical Berlin street food - currywurst and fries.
Maria and Bjorn live in an old GDR building in what was once East Berlin. It's been interesting hearing about the reunification and how it worked with East and West Berlin because of course, West Berlin was totally surrounded by East Germany, so they had to train, drive and fly in supplies to the city. We found out the reason why "checkpoint Charlie" is named that - there were 3 checkpoints to get into the city, one on each road and one on the wall to East Berlin. They were named checkpoint Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. We saw where the bricks that are the memorial to the wall follow where the wall once stood, as well as the Brandenburg Gate - the official gate to the West from the East. We also saw the Holocaust memorial that is built right acrosss the street from the American Embassy. So all in all it was a very productive day in Berlin! It's basically the oldest new capital in Europe! The construction and modern buildings around remind you of the devistation that they had to deal with after WW 2, and we were told that some of the "hills" around Berlin are not natural hills. They were made with all the rubble from the remains of the city after WW 2.
It's true that history is written by the winners, and quite often in America it's impossible for us to grasp the true scope of the rebuilding that would need to be done. We hear that we paid countries to help with the reconstruction but quite often in history you don't think about the people who had to pick up the pieces and try to go on. Or the people who lived in the city under constant strain of the prospect of being bombed. We hear about the Cold War, but we can't really comprehend the level of paranoia and fear that people were living under. And that ended fairly recently. We see the pictures of the wall coming down, but we can't imagine the lenths that some people went through trying to escape East Berlin for the West (getting caught in razor wire, building secret compartments in cars, trying to hot-air balloon over and my favorite, building a one-man submarine). And now Berlin has to figure out what to do with the fact that they have two to three of the kinds of buildings that most cities only have one of. For example, they have three theaters, which is two more than they need, but what do they do with them? I can see how this would be a constant political thing which many people have opinions on.
So I guess to sum up my impressions of Berlin, it's a great city to visit, you'll definitly get a different perspective on the war and the years after the war. There is also a zeal that most Germans have when referring to Nazi Germany - they very much intend that what happened in the past is NOT to be repeated.
As for connecting with my friend... well, it's priceless. It's been a wonderful visit and I really don't want it to end. I fully intend on not letting another 12 years go by before we see each other again.
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