Berlin.....Beyond the Wall

We got away from bonnie Scotland without mishap but ran up a few extra kms trying to get off the motorway and into the airport via a petrol station. No dents in the wee car so all was good as German Wings lifted off from Edinburgh. A budget airline and I think this means they have the least landing rights and are the last ones to take off from any airport so we were delayed in Cologne a lot longer than expected but managed the sophisticated Berlin trams, trains and underground to arrive at our budget hotel with still a small spring in our step.

The main plan here was to check out the Nazi connection and find the reasons for the Berlin Wall. We took a walking tour and had four hours of nonstop history and explanation.....these tours are fantastic. Berlin seems to be a city built and wrecked on promises and pretence. Still today there are crazy signs of pretence. One huge building, perhaps 15 stories high and taking up an entire block is a good example. Construction began about 8 years ago but the the builder ran out of money...as happens. Rather than walk away from the project they had a billboard type plastic sheet prepared and then built scaffold so that this could be hung over the 15 storied block to look like a building! True as......it is there for all to see. I think that Tui would have a field day here with their "Yeah Right" campaign. The photo is the Brandenburg Gate, or Victory gate, near to the centre of Berlin and remained on the eastern side during the days of the wall.

We have read a lot of information about the 3rd Reich and one Adolf Hitler. There are plenty of monuments to display the fanaticism of a lunatic and it is extremely sobering to read the harrowing stories of those that Hitler and his regime decided were not worthy of being on the planet. The photo of Diana standing among the grey stone blocks is a huge memorial to the Jewish people that were murdered in concentration camps or on the streets of Germany, because they were not fit to be part of the human race! The German people it seems have no intention of forgetting the whole shocking story anytime soon as every monument built or remaining example of their leader from 1933 to 1945 is well placarded with interpretation boards and everywhere we went, there seemed to be several school classes visiting at the same time. It seems ludicrous that there is a neo-nazi following in this part of the world with one delegate getting himself a seat on the European Union in the most recent democratic election. Following on from the reign of Hitler and his bunch of henchmen you would think that the German people would have been subjected to enough torment and torture...but oh no, 15 years later a wall is built through Berlin to stop the capitalistic west getting in! The wall in Berlin was 43 kms long and took a staggering 6 hours to erect in 1961.Strange how over 100,000 people tried to leave East Germany and there would be more than 600 deaths at the wall over the 28 year history and none of those were from people trying to get in. The last person to die was on 6 February 1989, not that long ago and only10 months before it was pulled down. Absorbing all this history was exhausting but I felt we needed to know....we needed to understand that some people don't have quite the same living conditions that we do.

 

In an attempt to throw a lighter side to Berlin we booked to see the Blue Man Group show and enjoyed an hour and a half of mayhem......that was good therapy. Berlin has been a really good place to visit and apart from the odd person obviously closely related to Mine Fuhrer, the majority of the people have been very friendly and we have enjoyed being here.

Tomorrow we will take a 4 hour train journey to Prague. Czech Republic here we come.

 

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A week in the mother country.....

We flew into Edinburgh in the evening, a little late but were so pleased to have Moira pick us up. It has been many years since she visited family in New Zealand, nice to catch up and talk about our two boys who had recently visited her. She whisked us north to Dundee to be reunited with her Mum, Helen. These two have to be two of the happiest souls in the country, there is a bright side to everything. We had a great catch up and enjoyed having a homely house to live in for a few days. Attention to my aching shoulder was also brought into a brighter light as well. Moira is a practicing physiotherapist and both Helen and 'my sweet' are trained nurses. There was no wait in consulting rooms and no need to have have explanations made by expensive medics. Not sure that I would understand their English though as just as you seem to be getting onto the right wave length they throw in an "och aye" and you wonder if you missed something. So I now know that I have a trapped nerve and it will take a few more weeks before everything comes right. Just knowing that makes me feel better.

 

 

One of the most interesting things that 'one' can do in Dundee is visit the Royal Research Ship, "Discovery". This is the ship that was built in Dundee for Robert Scott to visit the Antarctica in 1901. Shackleton was also aboard and these guys did some pretty daring deeds. To think they were headed for the South Pole with no GPS makes my attempts and failure at finding a geocache with coordinates, a description and a hint.....and a GPS! Pretty pathetic. Fortunately I wasn't aboard but did give myself a few moments to pretend that I was thrashing through pack ice at the South Pole. A really well presented museum display and the old ship is being kept in excellent condition.

 

 

 

Dundee is a city built of stone, either grey or brown. It is an old city with numerous pubs and churches. If one isn't on a street corner the other is. It seems everybody is either drinking or praying....maybe doing both! The stone doesn't brighten what is a fairly dour climate......I felt that a maniac with some pots of high glow paint could brighten the place up, (British Paints isn't flavour of the month with the current situation of Jake the Peg). So it is very grey and when the temperature is in single figures and there is a cool wind off the channel it is unpleasant. Current season tells us that it is coming on summer and we have had some cold days and some not so cold days. However when the weather does nudge into the top of the teens it means summer and off with the jerseys, t-shirts and shorts are order of the day. Out the families come and down to the 'rec' they go. I am pretty sure that if skinny white legs are an inheritable characteristic then I have some Scottish ancestors. It is hard to believe that they can sell convertible cars here and we also surprisingly note a number of solar panels on roofs.

 

 

 

 

An improvement in my arm means we have made a plan to have a couple of days in a rental car around Aberdeen then fly from Edinburgh to Berlin early next week. Surely more adventures to be had in Europe.

 

 

 

 

We headed north in our wee Ford Fiesta this morning and spotted a few castles on the way. Mention of William Wallace brought back memories of "Braveheart", tough times. There are so many amazing castles in this part of the World, hundreds of years old.......we could spend months wandering around here but we must get back to Edinburgh airport by Monday morning.

 

 

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