The Wall

I awoke Monday morning and left Hamburg not knowing what the day would hold for me other than that I would be taking a train to Berlin. I had a slight miscue with the journey, in that the train was late arriving in Hamburg, and with that being such an unusual event I actually left the platform before it arrived, thinking I had somehow missed it. In any case, I was rescheduled on the ICE (high-speed) train and arrived in Berlin shortly after noon.

I only had one site in Berlin that I really wanted to see: The remains of the Berlin Wall. I was able to locate it without any real trouble, and I have to admit it was a much more emotional experience than I anticipated. To see something which scarcely 20 years ago physically divided loved ones, a divide which resulted in deaths of the innocents, is amazing. The wall is now completely gone, save for a rather short segment a few hundred feet long which was left up as a monument. The original path of the wall is traced out by a row of bricks embedded in the roadway, and about a quarter of a mile away from the reminaining wall "Checkpoint Charlie" has been rebuilt, with more commercialism than I care to acknowledge. The guard shack has been rebuilt, but the "You are leaving the American sector" sign is apparently the original one. Fake soldiers stand holding flags at the checkpoint while expecting to get a euro for their picture, and another soldier on the side will stamp your passport for a couple of euros.

I was in the US Air Force at the tail end of the Cold War, so I do in some small part feel that I was some small player in the final outcome. I'm by no means delusional, I fully well accept and understand that the wall would have come down and the Soviet Union would have crumbled without me, yet I do take a pride in knowing that I was able to lend a hand to the effort. As for my duties, I was an airborne cryptologic linguist, flying in RC-135's and EC-130's. Much of what I did was (and presumably still is) classified, so suffice it to say that I was trained in Russian at the Defense Language Institute before going on to fly "missions." The official, unclassified job statement was:

"We record, transcribe, translate, analyze and report upon assigned communication frequencies. These duties may be [were] performed while airborne"

It was, without a doubt, the proudest thing I have done in my life. Though I never intended to make the military a career, it is incredible to think that I was able to spend four years of my life doing something which really had such an impact on the world. At times it really did feel like something out of a Tom Clancy book.

I mentioned a story awhile back about a young couple who died while attempting to flee from East Berlin to the West, but I could neither remember nor locate any further details. Much to my surprise, the escape appears to have been mentioned at the site with these words:

• 10 Feb. 1974 US Soldiers fail in their efforts to help two people (24 and 32 years old) who are trying to flee at 9.30 p.m.

I'm going to do some homework and see if this is the same couple I was thinking of...It sounds like them, thought I haven't been able to confirm that yet.

Candidly, with all of this emotion, the young lover story, the cold war, the personal memories brought back to me, I admit that my eyes welled up with tears.

After seeing the wall, I went back to the train station, and on a lark I bought an overnight ticket for Köln (Cologne). It's strange, but for some reason I didn't want to do the "normal" thing of finding a hotel and overnighting in Berlin, but instead the idea of drawing this into a long day and then sleeping on the train overnight sounded exciting. This is going to be unique, in that I have never tried a sleeper before...it sounds very James Bondish. So, it's about 6:00 PM and I have a little over six hours to kill before the train leaves Berlin, with an arrival at about 6:30 in the morning in Köln. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep and feel relaxed when I get off.

I'm starting to have serious fun with this language thing. It really does seem to be coming back, the reading ability is improving daily, my ear is getting better, and my confidence is ever increasing. It's funny, I'm not treating the language as accurately as I would if I were taking a class, but this stumbling around and learning in real time does seem to be working. I've had a few simple conversations now which I think might have even snowed the other party into thinking I live here (again, maybe not a native, but they aren't viewing me as a foreigner 100% of the time). When they do ask me where I am from, the usually expected answer is England, followed by Australia (Aussie land being due to the Akubra hat I wear...I very seldom wear a hat, but this is very water repellent and much preferable to an umbrella.)

I've lamented before that Germans in general seem a bit abrupt, but that is definitely not universal. I had two different men today go out of their way showing me about the Berlin Hbf (which, though new, needs more signage!) One of them, a man well into his 60's, went so far as to walk me from the "wrong" platform to the right one. And no, he did not have his hand out looking for a tip, but rather it was purely a warm and helpful gesture. I think he realized I was an American, as he tried to explain something to me about the train station being the only good thing Hitler did before the Olympics, or something of that nature. Though I couldn't tell what exactly he was saying, it was obvious he had a warm feeling for Americans. In addition to these two gents, the ticket agent who issued me the replacement ticket was the epitome of excellent customer service, friendly to the point of even complementing my attempt at German. And the McCafe guy would make Ronald proud. So yes, I still think it is valid to say that Germans are, in general, very abrupt, but you can nonetheless find many exceptions on a daily basis.
A couple of other miscellaneous thoughts on Berlin: Unlike virtually any other Hbf (Hauptbahnhof or main station), this building is very new, sleek, and architecturally modern. Most of the large stations, whether it be Hamburg, Munich, or even London for that matter, have the old semi-conical roof with a sunken departure area. This one is really beautiful by comparison.

In the train station I also found an "Upper Crust," which is one of my favorite London sandwich stations; it's been a long time since I've had one of their ham and cheese subs, and it is as good as I remember: Simple but mouthwatering.




I finally had to cave in and try McCafe, and in all honesty the frappacino counterpart they had was better than any I have ever had in ths US, in that they actually ground up the ice so that the drink was immediately sippable through a straw. Normally I have to wait ten or more minutes for it to melt before I can suck anything through.