Thursday, July 17, 2008

East Berlin

People have often wished to go back in time. Maybe to right a wrong. Maybe to say something to a lost love. Maybe to change history. We went back in time, when we crossed Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. First, the bus had to go through several angled turns through the Berlin Wall. Then, we were stopped and boarded by a man with a machine gun. He was making sure that we were tourists. We were told not to take pictures of the Berlin Wall from the East side. They didn't want anyone to see vulnerabilities in the wall. Of course, I took pictures, but wasn't caught. The buildings near the wall looked pretty much the same as they did after being bombed in World War II. They were shells with no windows. It was pretty strange. We were also told not to speak to anyone. We stopped at a cheesecake shop to get authentic German cheesecake. The waitress was asking us about America. Suddenly, a man in a trenchcoat showed up, and she ran away. He was KGB. The USSR embassy was across the street from the restaurant. There were symbols of the Soviet Union everywhere. Statues of Lenin were at street corners. The hammer and sickle were on buildings. As prosperous as West Berlin was, it was totally opposite in East Berlin. We didn't see much color. It was sort of like stepping into a black and white movie. The guide made a point to tell us that an international youth convention was to take place son in East Berlin. We did get to see where the Reichstag stood and other World War II era buildings. We ended up at the Soviet War Memorial, where thousands of Russian soldiers were buried in mass graves. This was a time, when we were glad to be Americans. As we were leaving East Berlin, the guard with the machine gun came on the bus again to look for escapees, and a man moved a giant mirror under the bus to look for people hiding. They were serious. On the west side of the wall, I saw a billboard advertising Fanta. It had my last name on it. "Durst Macht Spass Mit Fanta". I took a picture of it. That was cool. The afternoon was free to do what we wanted. While most of the group took a nap, I went across the street from the hotel to the Berlin Zoo. It was a nice park. One strange thing to me though was the sight of a group of school kids. They appeared to be high school age. All of the boys had blonde hair and were tall. I felt that they were the product of the Aryan movement that the Nazis had to produce perfect children. After I left the zoo, I found that Talula wanted to go to the large church nearby to get a German hymnal for her pastor back home. So, I went with Talula and Sandra to the church. We first went to their gift shop to see about buying one, but they had none for sale. We then found a priest at the church to ask him if we could pay him for a hymnal. He got very upset and started to yell at us about offering money for a book. He was telling us that we were disgracing the church. I think it was a communication problem, but he said absolutely not were we to buy a hymnal. Talula and I were just shocked. As we left the church, Sandra pulled a hymnal out of her oversized purse and gave it to Talula. She had stolen the hymnal. I would like to formally apologize to the church now. We ran back to the hotel, thinking someone would call the police, but no one did. Thankfully. We then went to a department store to do some shopping. I had a knack for being able to convert American money to the money of the particular country we were in, so I became a human calculator for the girls doing the shopping. We also found that if you make a stab at the particular language, the clerks will be more helpful. A nice German woman helped us look at towels, among other things. Berlin was a nice respite from the terror that was Israel. It was nice to be home, even though I had never been there before, at least in this life.

No comments: