Berlin ::: Day 2 ::: Berlin Wall

My first full day in Berlin has been rainy and cold. I took the subway to Potsdam because it seemed like a central enough place to a lot of historical sites. Once I exited the subway, though, I was drawn alien abduction-style to the mothership when I saw a shopping mall. The rain was picking up, which is how I justified choosing commerce over culture.

I'm sick to death of the few clothes I brought with me, but nonetheless, I showed a considerable amount of restraint. I walked out with a new t-shirt and travel sized bottles of shampoo and such. Sadly, the Germans must not use travel sized portions of conditioner, though.

I have to think carefully about how much trouble I am willing to endure when making new purchases. For example, I might have to wear every article of clothing with me, if I feel I can't live without a life-sized replica of the Manneken Pis. By the end of my trip I'll look like Joey in that episode of Friends when he decided to wear all of Chandler's clothing to get back at him for hiding his underwear. And I'm not willing to go there... yet.

After shopping, I decided to experience some history. I walked down to Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie is one of a few border crossings between East and West. At the intersection of Zimmerstraße and Friedrichstraße there are panels that illustrate the journey from the building of the wall to it's eventual demolishing, and it memorializes the many people who lost their lives trying to cross from East to West.

From there, I walked to Topography of Terror. This is where the headquarters for the Gestapo, Reich Security, and SS High Command were located and oversaw their National Socialist program of persecution and annihilation in the '30s and '40s. They're now creating a documentation center on this plot of land that documents the history of this site. It's currently an open-air exhibition and has a section of the original wall still standing.

I then followed the cobblestone path of the Berlin Wall as best I could to the East Side Gallery. Here, the largest section of the wall still stands, where artists from all over the world have painted sections of it to celebrate the demolishing of the wall.

This is probably the same revelation that everyone who visits Berlin experiences, but I'll say it anyway. I was blown away by how recent the struggle over the Berlin Wall took place. It came down just 20 years ago. Within my lifetime, people were like prisoners here and were being shot for attempting to cross from East to West. And now I'm here, visiting this city, without a care in the world. No wonder my new German friends are so politically aware. How can they not be. This country has had some shit to figure out in recent decades.

So with that, my day of Berlin Wall history is complete, and I returned to my hostel with a good case of the sniffles from being out in the rain all day.