A walk though Berlin or The continuing struggle

This morning we got an early start at 7:00am and had breakfast downstairs in our youth hostel. This place is pretty fun because there are a lot of energetic young kids traveling here. I wish I had done this sort of thing when I was younger. I doubt I would be complaining quite as much about how my feet hurt. After breakfast we had to walk over a mile with our large bags full of laundry from the last 5 days. That took a little longer then we expected so we got a late start on the sight seeing.

We have a 48 hour metro pass that lets us use any of the forms of public transportation in the city. We took two subways up to an area at the west end of a large park which I think is called Tiergarten. As we started walking west we discovered that we happened to be walking though Berlin on the same day they were having a 42 km marathon. This was pretty neat to see in its own right, but proved difficult to get from place to place.

We walked all the way down the Straße des 17 Juni past a bunch of statues of dead guys. We took pictures of them. After about two miles we turned north and saw the Germany government buildings. These buildings use a lot of glass windows in them, more then other government building I’ve seen. I read somewhere that they did this after WWII to symbolizes transparency in government, as a contrast to the secrecy that once did so much harm to their people. They have even retrofitted the old Reichstag building with a clear glass dome that the people can walk around and see right into the parliament chamber. I like this idea very much.

Then we came to the Brandenburg Gate. The marathon that was going on passed right though the center arch. That was really cool to see these runners passing though it. It was smaller then I though it would be though. Once we got to the east side we were on the famous Unter den Linden which used to be on the East Berlin side. I was trying to imagine what it much have been like back in the cold war when this was a divided city. How could our governments do such a horrible thing to these people? Wall suck, always have, always will.

As we continued further down Unter den Linden we were approaching Alexander Platz and the Fernsehturm TV Tower. You could tell how during the cold war each side tried to represent their respective ideologies with architecture. The East was very minimalist and functional, with lots of square concrete buildings and a tall angular tower looking down on the West. On the other side they had all the signs of capitalism with flashy streets lined with expensive shops. Since the wall has come down though, I don’t know that the people are much better off. Now they have McDonalds and Starbucks on every block. You call this an improvement?

At one end of Alexander Platz there is a very small and modest monument. It is of a sitting Karl Marx and standing Friedrich Engels. I knew about this statue and was anxious to see it, being very curious about the subject matter they wrote about, but something there surprised me. Around the stature of the two men were eight steel obelisks with about 10 or so small picture on them on both sides. When I looked at the pictures I quickly realized that these were not famous leaders or military generals, but everyday nameless workers, farmers, protesters, artist, mothers, fathers, children, and so on. These were real working class heroes, to quote John Lennon, and they are indeed something to be. I realized that this was a monument to us all and the struggle goes on….

After a quick bite to eat at the train station we headed over to the East Side Gallery. This is the largest remaining section of the Berlin Wall. It has since been used as a giant canvas for artists to express themselves. I apologize that I have no pictures for you yet, and words will just not do it justice, so I will stop using them now.