9. All in all it's just another brick in the wall
Trip Start
Jun 17, ????
1
11
36
Trip End
Ongoing
Berlin,
Germany
Tuesday, August 23, 1988
It was a mighty long time before I got back to Germany again, but finally, in 2003 I went to Berlin itself. I have visited a number of cities - in Europe and beyond - and Berlin stands out to me (and Mr Monksan) as one of the best. Growing up during the cold war, I had simply accepted the division of Berlin and the "Iron Curtain" separating Eastern Europe at face value. That was the way it was. Visiting Berlin and especially the museum at Checkpoint Charlie, the realities of it all really hit me. I imagined what it would be like to come home and find London split in half
A play in the Mediaeval market - Koln
. To find my country physically divided and having friends and family on the other side. Its just unthinkable and yet that is what the Berliners suffered. At Checkpoint Charlie museum you can see news clips of the wall coming down and the celebrations across Eastern Europe as they were reunited. That was wonderful and so moving to see. I'm sure Berlin has continued to change since my visit. I felt that I was seeing it in transit, half transformed, but still with ugly blots on the Eastern side. The parts of the East that had been renovated were superb. I loved Potsdamer Platz and not just because there was a cafe selling frozen margaritas. Of course, not all the old is awful and we had a most wonderful evening at the Deutsche Staatsoper (Opera house). The building itself was just beautiful and it had great accoustics. Although it was slightly weird to listen to an opera being sung in Italian with sub-titles in German. Actually its more than weird how much you can understand from mixing and matching two languages when you don't really know much of either or them. Thank FSM there was a libretto in English.We spent a day in the Kufurstendam area, the Ku'dam itself being full of market stalls, a number of which were already selling beer at 10.00am. I don't quite know how this happens, but I frequently manage to coincide my visit with some kind of street festival or celebration or event of some sort, completely by accident. (Like last weekend I went to Bordeaux
Another gluhwein? Don't mind if I do. Koln.
. When I saw all the red carpets I thought that the French either knew it was my birthday or had heard something about my pals' drinking capabilities. But no, it turns out that the world renowned Vinexpo was on). Anyway, the Germans did us proud with their special event, which kept my husband and his friend going until the Haus der 100 biers opened for lunch.I was also impressed by how nice German people are. You only had to stand about with a map looking like the idiot tourist that you are and someone will go out of their way to offer you help. The general friendliness did backfire on us at one point, though. We were in a museum, taking the lift back to ground floor. At the last moment a woman tried to jump in, almost got squashed by the doors, but then made it. She turned round and said something to us in German and laughed. We didn't know what she had said, but could guess that it was in some way related to her recent near-crushing, so we smiled and laughed politely and didn't bother trying to explain. (Evidently at this point, we didn't look too touristy). But then, she cracked another joke. We laughed heartily. What else could be do? - we'd missed the window to explain "Wir nicht spreche Deutsch" or some other mangling of the language. Would the lift never reach it's destination? Apparently not before she'd treated us to one more German gag. There was a slight hysterical note to our laughter at this point. Finally, we reached the ground
Koln Street
. Out she popped, all of us smiling a polite "goodbye". Then someone said "Good luck chaps" and we really did have hysterics. (If you don't think that's funny, you haven't watched the right war film). We were treated to more German bonhomie in Cologne / Koln last Christmas - just Mr MS & me on that trip. We were at a rather marvellous breakfast bar and as soon as we put a map on the table a lady sitting nearby leaned over and offered to tell us about the highlights of Koln. Koln is beautiful, and has more than just it's enormous Cathedral to commend it. We were there for the winter markets, which I loved to bits and not just because you could buy gluhwein on every corner. I especially loved the mediaeval market, it was such good fun with the stall holders in costume and some mediaeval (German) theatre going on too.
We also noticed how much nicer German wine is than the stuff we're used to. Clearly the Germans are not stupid: they drink the good stuff and then let the English to pay good money to import Liebfraumilch and the like. Seriously, people do still drink it.
So Germany gets a big thumbs up and I hope to see more of it.
