It's great that the bus tours have live commentary but I really wish ours were actually alive. He mumbles quite badly in a monotone voice. He drops in and out of German without a breath so we have trouble understanding when he's speaking English and when he's not. It doesn't have anything to do with Mum talking over him every time he speaks in English, mostly to ask "I can't understand him... is he speaking in English?"
The bus stops at Bahnhof Potsdamer Platz for a while and he explains some history. Our ears prick up as soon as he mentions 'the wall'. It used to cut through this area but it's not really visible now. We wonder whether to get off and pfaff around while the bus is stopped. The bus starts again and that answers that question. We really wanted to see the Berlin wall.We turn the corner and the bus pulls over at the next unmarked stop. It's a very official bus route. The guide provides some more information about the building alongside us and then takes off again. Lo and behold, immediately as we start moving, he points down the side of the bus at THE WALL! The people in front of us ask if we can get off but the guide says, "that was the stop back there. Ah, ok, you can get off at these traffic lights here." We get off to look at the Berlin Wall. Even if it isn't that great, we'll at least have a different guide on the next bus that we catch.
The wall is made of what looks to be concrete. It is quite long and fairly high. It has graffiti on one side and it's crumbly on the other with some holes and a section missing. Some of the rusted steel reinforcement rods that hold the concrete together have twisted outwards. The top of it is covered by a circular cap to make it difficult to scale. Beside the wall is a timeline of events and people's individual stories from during the war and when the wall was built until it was pulled down. Many people are here, both German and foreigners, to read the stories. We all stop to quietly read each story in turn and take a break every now and then. It is quite overwhelming. The personal stories provide an insight into the war and how people were tricked into divulging information to save their families yet their families are killed anyway.
It's time to take a break for lunch. We walk a block up the road to Checkpoint Charlie and grab a photo with the 'American soldier' (read: pay €2 for a photo with a guy in a uniform). He has a row of soldier hats that you can wear in the photo and he asks if I'd like to wear one. Sure! What do they represent? He just grabs the end one and puts it on my head. I ask him which country it is. He says, "Russia." I'm glad it's 2011 now.
Again, local cuisine: Italian. The Italian restaurant at Checkpoint Charlie is one I'd definitely recommend. It has delicious home-cooked food and at very reasonable prices, like €5 for a big bowl of Spaghetti Bolognese with real - not ground/minced - beef. We eat to gather our strength to go back to the wall and continue through the exhibition about the war.
The exhibition is amazingly well put together. There are texts to read, photos to see, original video footage of Hitler, old clippings of newspapers, and other media. It is heavy reading. I read a story about a 14-year old girl who is being shipped off to a camp. There is a button beside the text that I push and the corresponding video plays. Three quarters of the way through, the 14-year old girl from the story appears in the video. She innocently looks at me through the camera's eye, like she doesn't know where she's about to go. I feel very uneasy and sad. Another video shows Jews being shot dead. On a wall there are articles detailing how Himmler eradicates homosexuals. An old advertisement sits beside it that persuades people into agreeing that euthanasing almost 300,000 crippled or mentally unwell patients is good practice so as not to waste precious food and resources. We can't read everything. It is disturbing. We leave after forty minutes.
The next tour bus takes a little while to come around and it gives our heads time to clear. Excellent, we have a different guide! She is alive and is much easier to understand than the previous man, although the speaker volume could be a little higher. We're told when a 'postcard shot' will be coming up and the bus stops to give us time to take the photos. After reaching the end, we're down on the footpath trying to figure out where the train station is. Our guide has grabbed her bicycle and comes up beside us at the traffic lights. We have a great conversation with her and then confess that we can't find the train station. She points us in the right direction. She is so lovely and I really wish I could ask her for a photo with us but I forget to ask. I'm too concerned about getting home. Spew.
The train takes us back to the east to Hackescher Market and the area lives up to its name. There is a market with food, clothing, rings, watches, books, wallets, and fresh juice at the train station. I grab a few items like pickled peppers with stuffed cream cheese and also some eggplant dip - yum! We head back to the hotel for a light dinner. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm not going to have time to use the jacuzzi. We leave Europe tomorrow to go to the USA. First stop: New York!Pics of the day
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