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Who holds the aces, the East or the West
For the past month we’ve been watching old news reports and new documentaries of the events in Germany leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago today. It doesn’t seem very prominent in Munich but most everywhere else, especially near the former East/West border, everyone is talking about where they were and what their reaction was 20 years ago.
Other than the few documentaries I’ve seen, I’ve had little exposure to Iron Curtain history as it relates to Germany. I’ve never been to Berlin or Rostock, I’ve been once to the Czech Republic, and only this weekend was the first time I crossed the former inner border.
Of all the Germans I’ve met in Germany, a handful of them lived in the East before German reunification. Perhaps I didn’t have the right questions but most of them seemed indifferent to the abrupt change that occurred 20 years ago.
Although the most striking observations come from people around my age, those who were about 10-12 years old when the Wall fell. They see the German reunification as a sad event because now the environment and culture they knew growing up no longer exists.
All along I figured reunification was a good thing considering the number who died trying to the cross the border, the number of people waiting in line to get milk, the number of neighbors forced to spy upon each other,…
It never occurred to me that there would be a group of people grieving over a revolution that made sense for the German people. But I do feel for them. I can’t imaging having a kind of homesickness worse than my own. At least I have the opportunity to go back home and face some familiarity.
the East and the West
This weekend we left Munich for Philippsthal to visit a Kalisalt mine. To get there we drove on the B 84, which was formerly known as the Frankfurt-Leipziger street. The road was closed off between the DDR/BRD border for 33 years from 1956 to 1989. We drove out of Hesse (Hessen, formerly of West Germany) into Thuringia (Thüringen, formerly of East Germany) and back out again. In between these two German states, we saw one of the first prototypes of an observation tower in Buttlar.
Trees and brush are still cleared along the former border and still no houses can be seen for quite aways. The first thing my eyes wandered to were the busted windows. Anybody watching me?
I didn’t noticed the graffiti remnants, “ficken”, on the side of the tower at the time of the shot. Perhaps I was calculating the chances of stepping on an old anti-personnel mine as I wandered around the tower. Even though there are no traces of barbed-wire fencing or metal barriers, the tower holds an intimidating presence. If I had the means, my inclination would be to tear it down, immediately.
Which leads me to question, why does the tower still stand? Maybe it’s symbolic: Reunification is very much still in process.
Other links:
- Innerdeutsche Grenze – external link to border pictures
- Fall of the Berlin Wall – my thoughts 4 years ago
- Feiern: Bavarian-Czech Style – Reflections driving between German and Czech Republic
bee.arr.bee
The past 3 weeks I’ve been intensely polishing and stuffing every brain cell with words related to Wirtschaftlichkeit, Indifference Kurven, Abschreibung and Wertschöpfungkette.
Occasionally, a brain cell would pop from the extremely tedious fact that it was designed to know how to apply knowledge and not to memorize a phone book of foreign words and phrase. All in all, I think I passed. I know I passed. But by how much, C or B level, dunno.
It’s a disappointment that the results will not be anything to tie a ribbon around my neck considering the -demic beating I gave myself. Regardless, confidence has been build and I’m actually looking forward to tackling accounting. Yes, I am outside my mind.
I’ll post a recap on September before it slips into October. pinkie swear.
(thanks for missing me)
this little piggy went to Vinschgau
Last week we headed back to Vinschgau for more mountain biking adventures. We managed to work up an appetite and the above photo collage provides a few highlights. We tried to be better prepared and bought the regional food guide, Genießen in Südtirol: Gastronomieführer Vinschgau. It helped a bit especially for discovering the hidden Biergarten nestled in the woods in Latsch and scoring a sweet bowl of fresh picked strawberries in Martell.
The opening hours of most restaurants are a lot of times hit and miss for crazies like us who spend hours pedaling up a mountain just for the thrill to speed downhill in 20 minutes. Often times we arrived in town around 3pm to discover kitchens were closed until dinner. Lunch sometimes included a heaping bowl of gelato. Since I’m not a big souvenir collector bought the cookbook, Südtiroler Leibgerichte by Hanna Perwanger, hopefully this Oma’s mad cooking skills will rub off on me.
And we so dined…
Gasthaus Krone
Jausenstation Bierkeller
Pension Gasthof Zufritt
