Tag: The Kiss

After arrival yesterday we didn’t have much time to rest because we had to meet our Berlin guide, Daniel. The guides on this trip have all been incredible and Daniel might be on the top of the heap. He is fluent in German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. I asked for the tour to be done in Portuguese to add some variety to the trip but Patrice insisted on English. Daniel knows everything. He keeps insisting he doesn’t but he does. This man talked to us about everything. At one point we were talking about Dirk Nowiski (“He played for the Dallas Mavericks”) and next, we asked about the ages of Puccini and Verdi he said, “I think Verdi was about a generation older”. I looked it up and yes indeed Verdi was born in 1813 and Puccini in 1858 (okay maybe that is a trace more than a generation but clearly a lot better than I could do (“Uh, I think they were born sometime between 1500 and 1900, but I am not sure”). Anyway, how many people do you know who can talk about Dirk Nowitski AND Giuseppe Verdi? Point proven? The man knows everything. And, he is incredibly nice, as all of our guides have been,

Yesterday afternoon was a very sobering experience and nothing I feel comfortable making jokes about. The millions of people who died during WWII at the hands of the Nazis is not something I would ever try to make light of. There are a variety of memorials around the city in honor of the Jews who died under Hitler’s direction. We also saw a modest but very lovely memorial in honor of the Sinti and Romani people who died at the hands of the Nazis. We were also told that gays were also the targets of these murderers.

We learned a lot about life in East Berlin (where our hotel is located) under Russian rule prior to the removal of the wall. We visited the Brandenburg Gate which I am embarrassed to tell you I learned was in the East sector of Berlin (I always thought it was in the West).

I also learned (not sure how I could have not realized this before) that the wall was not just a relatively linear structure near the famous Checkpoint Charlie but rather completely circled the city of West Berlin. How could I be so dumb? Of course it had to encircle the city otherwise what would be the point? We learned that during the era of the Berlin wall (1961-1989) about 500,000 Germans fled the East. We finished our tour at Checkpoint Charlie. This was a huge disappointment. It was sort of a carnival atmosphere with all sorts of cheesy souvenir stands and a re-creation of Checkpoint Charlie (the original was removed on June 22, 1990). I found the area rather disturbing when you think of the many people who died trying to escape East Berlin.

Today we again toured a number of places where parts of the wall still stand. One area (“the Painted Wall”) has a large portion of the wall that has been painted by a variety of artists. There is some very beautiful artwork along this portion of the wall including this painting re-creating the photograph of the kiss between Russian leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German leader Erich Honecker on October 7, 1979.

Here is the original photo upon which the painting is based.

Personally, I like this version better.

At the suggestion of our daughter, Erica, we ate a Döner Kebab. We were told this is an authentic Turkish cuisine that was first made in Germany (did I really say that?). It was as good as it looks or maybe even better (see below).

After a lovely day of touring, we returned to our hotel to rest. Before I got into bed I saw this on the nightstand and said to myself, “Yes, you are in Germany”.

Anyone who knows me, knows there is no way I did this. I don’t even own fasteners.

I have one more adventure I want to share but it has to wait until tomorrow. It is too special to just be an add-on at the end of the blog so I will leave it until tomorrow. Thank you so much to Daniel for making it happen.

We are off to dinner but I need to get back to the hotel soon. I need to find something to stump Daniel. He couldn’t know everything! Could he?

Gute Nacht