Berlin

I woke up, put on all my Canadian wear and headed down for breakfast. It was Canada day so I brought some little things to glamour myself up. After breaky we then headed to the bus for our guided tour of Berlin. It was founded in 1237 and was nicknamed the Swamp Town. First, we then went to the Holocaust Memorial - commemorating the 6m Jews who died. It opened in 2005. When you walk through the memorial it's unsteady and not flat ground. The structures also lean inwards and are extremely tall. This was all specifically designed to make people feel alone, divided, trapped, claustrophobic, cut off from society, and dehumanized. The structures are all grey which is symbolic for the removal of the Jews identities in the War. Hitler's bunker had a concrete ceiling and was 50m underground, we stood over where Hitlers bunker once was and it is now a parking lot. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 and was removed in 1989. There are bricks on the road that represent where the Berlin Wall was before it was removed. Of the people who escaped, 5000 survived and on record 136 died. On Aug 12 at 1am the wall went up, simply as barb wire and 40000 guards. The West encouraged the East to escape but never sent anyone back. The West were given jobs and a home in their new communist life. There was a 'Death Strip' - if you got too close to the wall you would be shot on sight. One family had devised a plan to zip line from a government building across the wall with the help of family on the other side. Checkpoint Charlie is the main tourist point. It was the easiest way to escape if you had connections. They would cut and hollow out the car seats and hid as many people as they could in there as well as in the trunks of cars. In 1990 several artists were asked to paint on the Berlin Wall which is now called the East side gallery. It shows the famous event of 2 male politicians kissing because one was unaware of the German greeting and leaned in the wrong way. There is one with every year the wall was up and has a rose for every death from the wall. We then had a 2hr break for lunch where we were able to walk around and see the local graffiti. I had a Dürüm kebab for lunch which was really good. The wall came down 9/10/1989. Tens of Thousands of Germans marched to the checkpoints in East Berlin to leave. This is now known as the Angry Bridge. The border control guards let them through without higher authority. West Berliners handed out champagne and bananas. The East Berliners did everything they couldn't do as it was banned. Wir sind das Volk - We are the people. The first western film they saw was Dirty Dancing. There is a section of the Berlin Wall where the Death Zone was reconstructed. There is the inner wall and then about 20-40m of barb wire and bombs, and then the outer wall. There was also a guard tower at least every 300m, as well as several guards on foot patrol. There are still bombs under Berlin today and so builders must be extremely careful when constricting new buildings and if a bomb is found the bomb squad is immediately called. There has been no explosions since WW2. After we went to a traditional Berlin dinner with music and dancing. I had asked the musicaians if the Canadians could go up nd sing Oh Canada but they didn't let us, instead they played a song dediacted to us and Canada day . My voice was gone at the end of the night.

all the canadians 

the holocaust memorial 

the politician kissing wall 

the Berlin wall

checkpoint charlie