Berlin 3/27/10

Today we visited the East Side Gallery, which is the longest section of the Berlin Wall left that is also used as a canvas for artists to work on. Pretty sick and I wonder if Banksy will ever take a stab at it. Following this we dropped by the Documentation Center which is another section of the wall that also has a nearby museum that gives more info on the topic of the wall than Checkpoint Charlie. It was really interesting to read and see the footage of the escape attempts over the wall. The 77-year-old woman who dropped out of a building after being simultaneously pulled back in and pulled down from the window. We then went back to Brandenberg Tor and went to the Stasi Museum which was all in German. Fortunately, I have seen The Lives of Others so I knew the significance of all the letters, cameras, and microphones. After this we went to the top of the Reichstag (parliament building) where there’s a cool glass structure up there that provides a great view. All the ramps remind me of the scene in X-Men where Xavier and Magneto first talk. We then met up with Francesca, her mom, and Valerie to eat at a beer hall. Unfortunately, it was full, but because of this we found an excellent European Chipotle called California Gourmet Burrito. Delicious.

Note: The traffic lights here use two types of walking people. The first is the standard stick figure, but the second is “Ampel Man” a comical walking figure with a hat. This originates from an East Berlin cartoon show designed for kids to promote the following of traffic signs while crossing streets. They worship him here so much that there are Hello Kitty type stores devoted to the character.