Berlin: 20 Years After the Fall of the Wall
No Comments »
November 21st, 2009
A couple of weeks ago Emily and I went to Berlin for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wall fell on November 9th, 1989; I was only 8 years old at the time so I don’t really remember much from when it happened. This trip to Berlin was very interesting and educational for me. I felt like a bit of an ignorant American when I first got there, but I learned a lot about the history of Berlin and the significance of all of it. Hopefully, I am now a slightly less ignorant American.
This was my first time visiting Berlin (Emily had been here once earlier this year). On first impression, I really like the city. It has a very artsy / creative / alternative vibe which I really enjoyed. I think it might have reminded me of San Francisco in some ways. I was somewhat surprised by how big of a city Berlin is (probably felt even bigger coming from Zürich), but it was easy to get around with the U-Bahn and our budding German skills. While we were there, we played tourist and saw most of the famous sites of the city including the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, Deutscher Reichstag (German Parliament), Berlin Cathedral, TV Tower, and the Holocaust memorial.
We met up with a few of our friends from Zürich while we were in Berlin too. It was actually our friend Mieke who gave us the idea to come to Berlin in the first place. We also went out to dinner one night with Katrin and Toby, who gave us the insider tips on Berlin. Finally, we were lucky enough to stay with our friend Nikolai and his girlfriend, who are both Russian. I know this might sound a bit cheesy, but I do think there is something symbolic about two Americans staying with two Russians for the celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nikolai and Marina were really amazing hosts, and I hope that they make it to Zürich sometime soon so we can return the favor.
The big celebration for the fall of the wall (20 Jahre Mauerfall) was on Monday night, November 9th. They had set up 1000 giant dominos along 1.5 km of where the wall used to stand. This actually made it somewhat difficult to get around the city at times (although obviously nothing compared to what it used to be like 20+ years ago, so I can’t complain). The ceremony took place at the Brandenburg Gate, but there were huge video monitors set up along the domino wall. We ended up watching from a spot between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate that night. It was raining most of the time, which made it difficult to see past all the umbrellas. There were speeches from the leaders of Germany, Russia, France, Great Britain, and the USA (Hillary Clinton, plus Obama via satellite). There were also some musical performances including Bon Jovi, which seemed a bit strange to me. But after dragging it out as long as possible, they finally knocked over all of the dominoes and symbolically knocked down the wall for a second time. They even had some fireworks to finish it off. It was a neat experience and I’m glad that I went.
Random fact – You can tell you when you are in East Berlin by the pedestrian crossing lights at intersections. The “Ampelmann” is very distinct and much different than any other city I have ever visited.
