After the Wall

I’m watching the celebrations in Berlin for the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the wall on tv and I thought I’d write about my experience. I was in Berlin two weekends ago with a group of friends. It was a nine hour drive crossing the Czech Republic (with an unintentional detour in Poland). We arrived late on Friday night and on Saturday morning we did a four hour walking tour of Berlin. Walking through the Brandenburg Gate, the Death Strip, and Checkpoint Charlie, among other symbolic sites of the Cold War, really was a lot to take in at once. Later that night we went to the East Side Gallery, a remaining strip of the wall. It took my breath away when as I saw it in the distance. I thought of what it represents as I walked along the retouched murals that cover it. Its history is quite overwhelming and a bit hard for me to completely understand since I never lived where and when it stood. We also visited the Soviet Memorial on Monday before leaving. It was a reminder that I'm more connected to the wall than I realize, because my grandparents and parents all lived in the Soviet Union and remember the day the wall fell. It was a great feeling to be in a city that contains so much of world history – history that is still recent and relevant to my life. For the first time I truly felt connected to the past, and not just alive in the present. It was a first time in Berlin for many of us and I think we were all changed in our own way after a weekend in the city.