Today I achieved a childhood dream.
Let me explain. G, my father’s friend, had an artefact in his living room that I loved as a child – a piece of the Berlin Wall. I was enamoured with it and feared that I would never go to Berlin myself. My parents couldn’t afford it and obviously I would never be able to afford it either.
Through my childhood, imagery of the wall coming down was constantly replaced on television (usually during those “we’re there when the news happens!” reels). I was a few months old when it happened. As a child, I couldn’t imagine why people would let such a wall divide them, but I also remember the sense of wonder I felt that people could come together and reached for freedom as one unified force.
So with this in mind, we went back to Checkpoint Charlie this morning, hoping to avoid the crowds (I’d rung Mum already and she’d sounded a wee bit envious).
The sign is a recreation, its original in a nearby museum, but it did bring to mind the opening sequence of The Living Daylights, starring Timothy Dalton as James Bond – how unchangeable the situation must have appeared in 1987.
It wasn’t all that fascinating, if I’m honest. But I did pop into the nearby tourist shop.
And my God, they had pieces of the wall for sale. They looked exactly like the one G had in his living room. They were accompanied by certificates of authenticity and sure, it’s hard to tell the origin of every wall souvenir and some of the real ones have been painted post-collapse – but that’s not exactly the point.
I selected a large purple piece (a smaller one for Cazy) and bought it, finally achieving the impossible dream.
We returned to Brandenburg Gate for better photos, but alas the tourists were already out in droves at 10:40am. We enjoyed our second visit there regardless and went back to Checkpoint Charlie.
Our destination: KFC! It provided a free WC and food – the chips here are more like fries, ugh. But The Husband wanted to eat KFC at the same time as his brother, as it is his brother’s birthday. My brother-in-law was having it for dinner in Sydney.
We crossed back over into East Berlin, passing a group of bright orange-clad monks taking photos of each other (they had actually been on the same flight as us from Stockholm).
It’s so easy to walk around Berlin as it is so flat. But I was done. We stopped by a supermarket and now we’re happily ensconced at the hotel.
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