And he did! Sure lots of things went into tearing down the Berlin Wall, but it still say we all have Gorbachev to thank. It was always Russian tanks (in Prague, in Hungary, in East Berlin, etc.) that kept the Wall and other things in place. Gorbachev told the East German govt that the Soviets weren´t going to support them in that way anymore (force to keep things ¨line¨) and so thanks Gorby, THANK YOU!
Coming up out of Potsdamer Platz subway station I was welcomed by the Salzburg, Austria set up that comes every year with their snowy tubing hill ride that the Berliners seem to love...maybe I should have gone to Salzburg...maybe they would have let me stay...hmm..oh well....
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall they made several ´Dominoes´and created another wall that would eventually come tumbling down. These were decorated by school classes and children throughout Germany and a few from other parts of the world...
Here they are at the Potsdamer Platz end of things...
I walked towards the Brandenburg Gate, but it was closed...so took a detour through Tiergarten and then there was the beautiful, WET Brandenburg gate before me!
In essence I should have stayed home like everybody else and watched it on TV, because as you can see that was essentially the experience I had avec RAIN! ;)
This was a classical concert that they did and then Placido Domingo came out and sang ´Berliner Luft´- it is Berlin´s ´song´and I had never heard it sang before...so that was fun...
I moved closer and closer...a better pic of the Umbrella Sea.....
Here is the Press Stand - how I WISH I could have had their view of things....I was down below and couldn´t see Gorbachev, Sarkozy, Merkel, etc. even though they were only a few hundred feet away....
Each leader gave a speech, in their native language. It was interesting how during Sarkozy´s speech only a few people cheered, i.e. NO ONE UNDERSTOOD what he was saying!
Then Clinton spoke and people seemed to get excited (they even heard Tony Brown before...but weren´t excited. ?) and then she introduced...
and it was funny, as soon as Obama´s message came on the screen, the Gate turned blue and people cheered! (I still can´t believe he didn´t come...)
I don´t remember much of what he said, but the message from everybody is that freedom must be taken to ALL the world...I almost wondered if they were giving their own Áxis of Evil´speech in a different way than Bush, i.e. North Korea, Cuba, etc. are next....
I show this picture because here you can see the Dominoes standing up....if I remember right, the guy on the screen is the old Hungarian president who opened the borders with Austria, essentially unleashing a wave of East German refugees into the West via Hungary (he gave his speech in English, interesting...)!
And then they fell! It was all over and the crowd began to disperse...gratefully the rain had subsided a bit...
What an experience to commemorate what I call the greatest miracle of modern times - the Cold War was supposed to end with the END of the world...and yet it didn´t! MIRACLE OF MIRACLES and I am VERY grateful for it!
They started picking the Dominoes up. They will be transported around the world as a...political art project, I guess...
For example: this one domino that did not fall represents the ´Wall´that divides North and South Korea (it has Korean writing all over the side of it) and apparently the Dominoes will be set up in South Korea in a bit...
Making my way back to Potsdamer Platz, here is the view looking back towards the Brandenburg Gate with the ´fallen´Dominoes....
I thought this was amazing! A family that I know in my church was able to decorate one themselves! I don´t know how they were able to do that, but...COOLNESS, EH?!!!
FESTIVAL OF FREEDOM has come to an end!
Wahoo! What a memory! And what a miracle!
Goodbye again Berlin....
