Stone Life

Posting two weeks worth of pictures may take two years at this rate, but I suppose (for those of you who are looking) that it is better to post them slowly than not posting them at all.

Walking through East Berlin (the day that we estimate we walked over 15 miles) was both surreal and enlightening; surreal in that there is no trace of the schism that existed not even twenty-years ago, and enlightening in outlining the vast differences between the two sides of the country in the post-war era.

Thinking through those last comments, they sound as if they are contradictions, so let me explain myself further. What defined a country for so many years, the East-West split, was nearly impossible to find in 2009. We looked all over for markers/indicators to let us know that we were crossing the border between the two, but other than the few monuments (Checkpoint-Charlie..etc), that split has been utterly forgotten by the looks and operation of the city. At the same time, though, the difference in architecture and culture between the former-sides is striking. Where the West, in the stereotypical westernized-fashion, rebuilt itself into a modern-industrialized, metropolitan city in the fashion of Paris after the destruction of Berlin in the War, the East, in the spirit of Communism’s Mater-centric Russian heritage, clung to its roots and rebuilt their side in the traditional, modest fashion. Much of these distinctions no longer exist, because the sweeping force that is the West (e.g. capitalism) has infiltrated both, but the East had a decidedly different feel.

It is hard to put into words what exactly that “feeling” was, whether influenced by the experience itself, or merely a colouring of experience through the lens of the historical understanding I mentioned above, but there was a certain charm to it. The buildings were filled with more graffiti (some of it was outstandingly artistic), the buildings were consistently more traditional in form, even to the point of being bland at times. It was grittier, dirtier in places, but these things added and element of genuineness that the sanitized sections of West Berlin did not give-off. I realize it is a romanticized version of the place that probably only partially corresponds to the actual place, but those were my impressions of it at least.