Berliner Mauer/ The Berlin Wall

BERLIN

Cities, states, countries build walls to keep people (i.e., attackers or unwanted immigrants) out:

The Great Wall of China, the fence between the US and the Mexican border, the wall in north Jerusalem between the Jews and the Palestinians. . .  These are walls for protection and defense; walls of exclusion.

Cities, states, countries also build walls to keep people in: prisoners.

The Berlin Wall is such a wall, erected in 1961 to imprison the people of the German Democratic Republic (the GDR) behind the “iron curtain” of the Soviet bloc.

On Tuesday, we visited the Berlin Wall Memorial on Benauer Strasse, which is a preserved section of wall plus two interpretive centers and a viewing tower.  We watched two documentaries that explained how and why the wall was built.  We learned that by 1961 East Germany had lost 1/6 of its population due to residents fleeing to the West.  Overnight on August 13 of that year 40,000 soldiers, policemen and militia from the GDR began to replace the rather flimsy barriers with a concrete wall 3 meters high.  All streets to West Berlin were blocked off.  In actuality there were two walls, the fence on the border, and then a “sperrgebiet,” or forbidden zone, with watchtowers, tank barriers, automatically shooting rifles, a carpet of steel spikes on the ground (known by many as “Stalin’s lawn”) and hidden land mines, which became known as the “death zone” as guards were instructed to shoot to kill anyone trying to cross it.  Officially, between 1961 and 1989, 136 people were killed attempting to cross the wall, but hundreds more died trying to escape the border in other ways. Some escaped successfully.

The happy ending to this story is that the Wall came down on November 9, 1989 during massive protests by the East German people.  Berlin and the new unified German government continue to remind citizens and visitors of the Wall’s history, however.  A more famous (and tackier we’re told) memorial is at Checkpoint Charlie, the site of the Allied military post and the American standoff with the USSR.   Throughout the city there are pieces of standing wall and markers where the wall existed along with placards commemorating those who lost their lives trying to escape.  You can also buy little bits of the wall at tourist shops.

People express their ideas and wishes on walls as well: the Democracy Wall in Beijing 1978-9, the Berlin Wall 1990-2011:

One Berlin Wall “memorial” is actually an outdoor art installation.  Called the “Eastside Gallery,” it is a 1.3 kilometer stretch of existing wall painted by different international artists initially in 1991.  The paintings here cover many topics—they are exuberant, symbolic, mostly hopeful.  (See the examples in the photos I’ve uploaded.)

The opening lines of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” keep coming to mind: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall. . .”

Beth

Plug It In!

BERLIN
When we lived in Beijing in 2000 our house had outlets with five different plug-patterns.  In the kitchen, for example there were three outlets next to each other – one requiring a unique three-prong pattern, two of them positioned at oblique angles; one with three large British-style prongs; and a third with a European configuration of two round prongs.  Naturally the plug for the light, or mixer or toaster would not match any of the outlets.  This fact drove me crazy.  “Why can’t there be some standardization?”  I muttered under my breath week after week until I finally found a dusty electronic supply store that sold dozens of varieties of adapters converting every conceivable plug pattern to every conceivable outlet pattern.  As a bonus it sold converters that would (sort of) step up our 110 60 Hz electrical appliances to 220 50 Hz.  Needless to say, when all was in place our house was a Rube Goldberg contraption of converters, multiple adapters, and cords leading to and from each electrical device.

It was with this picture in mind that Lily and I found ourselves at the five story department store at Hermannplatz U-Bahn (subway) station on our second day in Berlin.  Back in our Berlin apartment we had US cords (for the computers, ipods and ipad) and UK cords (for phone chargers) and German recessed, grounded outlets.  Beth, with her usual long distance foresight had anticipated this problem from the US months ago and we had in our luggage an assortment of adapters including a US three-prong to two-prong one.  Unfortunately, plugging the US three to two prong adapter into Beth’s German adapter and into the wall outlet gave only a tantalizing burst of power, only to die.  My theory was the Beth's German adapter was missing the grounding required by the German outlet.  Bottom line…crisis! We couldn’t charge all of our treasured electrical equipment.

Lily and I found the right department store after visits to several less well endowed shops and with the helpful translation skills of our friend, Sasha.  We had even found the electrical department in the store and the shelf dedicated to adapters.  Our problem:  Every converter was designed to convert the German plug into other nations’ outlets – made for traveling Germans, not visiting Americans living in the UK.

After carefully and with dwindling hope inspecting each of the dozen or more adapters we resorted to asking for help.  With my college German and fluent hand motions and his adequate English the electronics sales person rummaged through a bin we had already inspected and, voila! He pulled out an adapter that had six-hole outlet pattern on one face and the coveted grounded German plug on the other!  Lily and I had not been so excited since our German multi layered cakes were served at the restaurant earlier in the day!  We bought two – the last two in the whole five story department store.

Back in our apartment we performed several incantations.  We inserted the adapter in the outlet.  We inserted a US three prong plug in the adapter.  The power light flickered on. It worked!  We then tried the UK phone charger cord.  It worked.  Phew!  We are back in business.

Now to figure out how to connect to the internet.  We agreed to leave that for tomorrow.


Peter

Curry Wurst and other German Delicasies

BERLIN
Each day when we are hard at work exploring Berlin, we always needed to stop for lunch. As our week progresses though, we find the food possibilities are multiplying, making it increasingly hard to decide where to go. In this post I will describe our different options and how they relate to German culture. Number one: curry wurst. Berlin is not Berlin without a curry wurst shop on every corner, there is even a curry wurst museum and movie about the invention. Our first exposure to this popular lunch was across from the German history museum. My dad and I walked up to the man and watched him make our order. First he took a bratwurst from the sizzling pan and put it on a fancy contraption which cut it into several large chunks. Next, he put them in a small paper dish and smothered them in sweet catchup. Lastly, he sprinkled the sausage with a yellow, Indian curry powder. The result was scrumptious! Whether they are served with pommes (fries), a bread roll, or just plain, they are definitely worth  going our of your way to a small, umbrellaed stand to try the amazing Berliner delight. 

Number two: cakes and coffee. Unlike the British with their afternoon tea (in other words, a small cup of tea with three tiers of pastries, scones, and sandwiches) the Germans don't have to pretend that they can make it to dinner with just a cup of tea.  They truthfully call their break cake time. our family completely agrees with this statement so on most days around 4 in the afternoon we sit down in a little shop for cake. Every shop we've gone to so far has been amazing! We have tried far too many cakes to count and they have all been really tasty. Some of our highlights have been apfelstrudel, a square of chocolate with ginger inside, mocha cream cake, lemon tart, and dark chocolate cake. 

Number three: waffles. Although one may think of Belgium when waffles are mentioned, near the flea market in Berlin we found the most amazing, off-the- beaten track waffle place in the world (as far as we know). As we stepped inside, the cute mismatched couches and chairs clustered around low tables caught our eyes. But the uniqueness of this place was in its savory waffles. The batter was unsweetened and contained bits of carrot and zucchini, making it colorful but a bit unusual. On top of one waffle we had tomato and mozzarella and on the other, smoked salmon, lettuce and dill sauce.  Talk about everything on a waffle! Now we can say that we have discovered some of the highlights of German cuisine and will probably try to make curry wurst at home some time.

Abby

Hardy Country

WEYMOUTH, DORSET
Two weekends ago we spent two wonderful days exploring Weymouth, Dorset, and its environs as we were visiting Celia’s mom, Liz Skipton. A very generous hostess, she escorted (drove us) around the coast, the charming seaside town of Weymouth, and then into the county seat Dorchester, which I hadn’t realized was so nearby. Lucy Russell and I visited Dorchester in 2003 when we were on our literary and gardens tour of southwest England.

I was glad to have a chance to explore the area again where Thomas Hardy lived and wrote again. Hardy called this area “Wessex” and in his novels and later poems he memorializes its farmlands and villages. I imagine it hasn’t changed all that much in 150 years. The countryside is still rather untouched by modernity and when we visited the little churchyard where Hardy’s heart is buried next to his wife’s grave and many other Hardys of earlier generations, it felt as if we were frozen in time somehow. I could almost hear Hardy’s brother and father playing their viola and violin inside the sanctuary. Next we visited the cottage where Hardy grew up, bumping our heads against the low door frames. It is still surrounded by woods and farmland.

Max Gate is the house that Hardy designed, and where he lived with his wife for some four decades. There we had cream tea in the drawing room and I met the caretaker who lives on the premises, a young woman from Arkansas who is writing her dissertation on Hardy’s folklore. She’s become the local expert on Hardy she says, and hardly has time to do research as she’s called on to give lectures about the still famous and popular author. If you’re interested at all in getting a flavor of late 19^th century rural England, Hardy is a great novelist to turn to. I think of him as the Dickens of the West Country—and I recommend his early novel Far From the Madding Crowd as well as the tragic The Mayor of Casterbridge, which features the town of Dorchester itself.

Beth