Thinking of Berlin Today

I’m thinking of Berlin today—grateful that I was able to visit this dynamic, work-in-progress city. I spent four days getting lost, navigating hordes of tourists and all the while appreciating how much history sits in this place–especially as a consequence of Hitler's insane rule. Today it’s about celebrating thirty years since the Berlin Wall fell.

The apartment where I stayed was a five-minute walk to a memorial of the Berlin Wall. I appreciated learning about how it divided families, destroyed lives and insisted on using violent power to control. Thirty years isn’t all that long ago and walls still threaten to divide families, destroy lives and violently control people. Why?

I'm reading Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz in honour of Berlin’s reunification and to understand a bit more about the city's history. The novel's been compared to Joyce’s Ulysses and I’m sure struggling with it. But I’m more than halfway through and it’s getting a tad easier. The Babylon Berlin series on Netflix was a much more entertaining way for me to appreciate Berlin during the Weimar Republic years in the 1920s. 

Congratulations to a city that manages to keep history, art and people flourishing. 

I might post another time about the Nazi era historical spots I visited because . . . yes! I managed to retrieve my trip photos thanks to some patient computer geeks.