Twenty years ago today eastern and western Berliners united and danced on the wall at Brandenburg Tor. There's been a lot of hype in the media about this so I thought that today, despite the pretty horendous weather I would wander around and see how Berlin was celebrating.
At Alexander Platz they have an interesting open-air exhibition detailing the steps leading up to the collapse of Eastern Berlin and the end of the Cold War. It surprised me to learn that approximately 100,000 East Germans sought assylum in Austria, Hungry and Czech in the months leading up to the wall falling in 1989.
The exhibition had lots of interesting pictures, but my favourite was the one above. This woman likely lived through both World Wars and the separation and reunification of Germany - you can only imagine what she must have been thinking!
Next to the exhibition these funny men were singing traditional ?Soviet songs. It gave the whole place a slightly comical feel, but it did keep things lively and intersting, which is more than I can say for Bradenburg Gate.
There were lots of people, and plenty of politicians giving fairly uninspiring speeches. Okay, so I couldn't exactly understand what they were saying - but even the locals looked bored.
Everyone, reporters included, seemed to be waiting. Lots of security, lots of news media, lots of politicians but unfortunately not a lot of excitment. And is was freezing. Seriously cold. So cold that I needed a Gluhwein to warm me up. And then I hot-footed it back to my apartment where the media coverage on the internet and TV seems to be more exciting that the actual thing!
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