CHECKPOINT CHARLIE
Most of you probably know that this was the American checkpoint barrier between East and West Berlin during the time that the Wall was up. Interestingly enough "Charlie" comes from the phonetic alphabet and means that this was the third of the checkpoints (meaning there was a Checkpoint Alpha and Checkpoint Bravo too). That was a new fun fact for the day. Going to this museum was weird in a way for me and I think for others of our group as well. The whole area was just crawling w/ American tourists. Even though we are technically American tourists as well, we have been here long enough to feel like we're apart of the city - albeit a very small part of the city. We really haven't run into too many Americans, so just being around that many at once in the middle of Berlin was just a strange thing today. (maybe its a "you just had to be there" kind of thing) Anyway, the museum was very informative with tons of pictures. When I look at historic pictures especially of big events like these, I try to picture myself behind the camera or in the scene to try to understand what it was really like to be there. The explanations that supplemented all of these images made it easier to do that, so that was really interesting. I guess since the happenings of the Berlin Wall are relatively recent, its not old enough to learn about in great detail in our general history classes. I just never realized how horrible all of this really was. People risking their lives to get to the other side; people risking their lives to help other people get across to the other side. People would hide in car engine spaces, the passenger seat of a car, suitcases, tunnels, etc to get across to West Berlin. There were several videos of people escaping - successfully and unsuccessfully. This all not only made me understand the horror and hardship of life in Berlin during this time, but also the courage these people had to escape past the Soviet regime. It makes you wonder how hard life must have been for these people to go to such extreme measures in order to escape. I believe it even took a certain amount of courage to not escape and to just keep living the way they were being forced to in the East.
BERLIN WALL
As you walk through Berlin, you notice every once in a while two rows of cobblestone running through the street. If you see this, you are looking at where the Wall once stood. We've run into this several times throughout the trip, however, today we got to see a segment of the actual wall standing in its original place. They have created a memorial park almost around this part where some of the wall has been replaced w/ rusted conduits the same height of the wall. We were able to climb a tower of sorts across the street to look over into "No Man's Land". This was the area between the actual wall and another barrier. The only thing in between these two walls were vicious dogs and maybe soldiers .... to kill anyone who tried to escape. We also went into a church right next door - "Church of Reconciliation". The original church actually survived the war, but was torn down because it got in the way of No Man's Land. Now it stands as a nice little chapel constructed of wood and concrete. We went in and stumbled upon a group gathered around singing. The tune sounded familiar but I obviously couldn't make out the German lyrics.
CULTURE
After class we went to an area of town that we were told was "cutting edge". We just walked around and looked in a few shops. There were lots of little trendy clothing shops and just random other stores. This was also a part of town where we were probably the only tourists around, so that was nice. Its always fun to walk around and watch the locals going about their daily lives.
This week a few cravings for America have hit. I think you can tell a lot about where you are by what you miss from home. I'll just list a few.
- green vegetables and salad (its all meat and potatoes here), Dr. Pepper, Sonic size drinks with sonic amounts of ice, English tv and restaurant chatter.
As I come to realize that I'm starting to miss those things, I also realize things that I've done/do here that I don't do back home. Some of these things I think have to do w/ the language barrier and the need for simplification. For instance, eating tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, and the like are things I never eat at home, but here I have not found so terrible. I've also been drinking coke when at home I would drink sprite over coke when dr. pepper isn't available. There are more things that I won't bore you with, but I just think its funny the things you'll let yourself do in a situation like this when in the comforts of home, you would do completely differently.
Our weekend crew is headed to Prague this weekend! We leave at 6:30 tomorrow morning.... hopefully not having to sprint across town to the hauptbahnhof. We went ahead and booked a hotel, so now we won't have to search once we get there. This will be a change of pace as far as our weekends go because we're headed to another big city instead of quaint rural town Europa. We're all really excited to see what this city has in store.
Sorry again for not posting tons of pictures... this doesn't mean I'm not taking tons though! I haven't had time to actually go through all my pictures yet, and I'd like to filter through and just make an album of nice edited photos. This is becoming a hobby of mine,and the more I get into it the pickier about it I get... imagine that. Well, I'll be updating after the weekend! After that just two more days! How time flies...
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