11 pm in
Berlin—sitting in our room at the Hotel Palace Berlin and listening to
the celebrations in the streets outside—cars honking and people cheering. Spain
just won the UEFA soccer cup; they beat Italy 4-0. The other night it was the
Italians cheering in the streets after having beaten Germany. Now midnight, and
the celebrations continue…….
Dinner
tonight was pasta at a restaurant called Noah’s, where our friendly waiter,
after noticing that I had finished a particularly spicy penne all’ arrabbiata
dish, commented that I had done a ‘good job’ since I had finished it despite
its numbing effects on my lips and tongue. It was very good, even though it was
probably the hottest version of this dish that I have ever consumed. Sat
outdoors and just breathed in the scent of the linden trees, and enjoyed the
warmth of the summer evening.
Spent some
time sorting through all my photos of Berlin and Leipzig (about eight hundred
or so). What would we do without digital cameras these days? I cannot even
remember what it was like to use film, although I do remember some trips in the
1990s when I took a few hundred photos using film. Many of my photos of Berlin
this week came out really well, especially photos of the East Side Gallery—a
1.3 km long section of the Berlin Wall that consists of 105 paintings by
artists from all over the world; it is located on Mühlenstraße in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
district. It has to be experienced—the paintings are incredible. I’ll be
posting some photos from this exhibit shortly.
Reflecting
on our stay here in Berlin. We’ve done the Berlin Wall walking tour; what
struck me was how this part of history was also a part of my generation—we grew
up hearing about the Berlin Wall and reading newspaper articles about the
misery associated with its existence, and then experiencing the fall of the
wall in 1989. Visiting the Chapel of Reconciliation was particularly moving;
this chapel was built on the site of the old Church of Reconciliation
(Versöhnungskirche) on Bernauer Straße in the Mitte district of Berlin. The
chapel had a black-and-white photo exhibition until the end of June (we caught
it just in time) called Mauerkinder (translation ‘Wall Children’) by Thomas
Hoepker, which was emotionally-wrenching to see, mostly because the children,
photographed during the early 1960s, seemed so unaware of what horrors were
going on around them--innocents in a world that had become hell.
Thinking
about the sparrows that are in abundance in this city; like sparrows
everywhere, they are nearly tame, and will take a piece of bread right out of
your fingers. We watched a number of them help themselves to one young man’s French
fries while we sat eating our hamburgers at Burger King. Then there was the caged
crow at the Berlin Zoo, who ‘talked’ to me while we stood there and watched
him, and who followed me in his cage as I walked away, cawing loudly. It’s tough
to see birds and animals in cages; I have mixed feelings about zoos, more so
now that I am older. You wish for them what you would wish for yourself—the freedom
to live an unfettered life. I know it’s not always possible, and yet, it’s
still a wish. A wish for animals and birds, and a wish for mankind too,
especially for those individuals who suffer at the hands of dictators and totalitarian regimes.
