March 27
Ich bin ein Believer!

Berlin continues to impress, although ordering food continues to be a problem when the only German words you know are "Anschluss, Luftwaffe, and Kristallnacht." The city truly is a cosmopolitan metropolitan - last night I was talking French to an Indian cab driver - that remarkably managed to survive its recent history of Nazism and Communism to become a cultural and financial capital of Europe. I especially admire how Berlin entrepreneurs have learned to capitalize on their legacy of communism and exploit their precious Wall for tourist dollars! Along our guided bus tour of the city, we stopped at Checkpoint Charlie, the iconic former border crossing point between East and West Berlin. On the site of the old military guardhouse is a recreation, manned by a dude in Soviet garb with whom you can take a picture for five euro. That’s just the beginning of it… there is a Checkpoint Charlie Museum with a ten-euro entrance fee and multiple souvenir stores along Friedrichstrasse selling small pieces of the Wall for disproportionately large prices! But if you don’t want to pay the inside retail, there are just as many street vendors hustling decidedly unauthentic Commie paraphernalia to choose from. My favorite aspect of the Checkpoint Charlie area is the inane display of punning to be found in the names of neighborhood establishments. There’s Snackpoint Charlie, which I guess is a snack shop. There is also the Czech Point Kulturinstitut, which I believe is one of those “We Sell Your Stuff on eBay” stores for Czech people living in Germany. But there are so many more business opportunities to be pursued here in the name of word play! What about Checkcash Charlie, a Cold War-themed provider of payday loans? It could be a franchise! And how about Checkmate Charlie, your one-stop Berlin shop for all things chess. I imagine the most popular seller would be a set pitting the Gorbachev administration against Reagan and his cabinet on a board constructed from a polished Wall fragment. It would be a welcome change from all the decorative paperweights. Get on it, Germany, or I will.

I’ve hatched another brilliant plan to buy up every remaining piece of the Wall, ship ‘em home, and rebuild it in Berlin, New Hampshire. Let’s face it, that town could use some help.

Where do you think the Berlin Wall historically ranks among other walls around the world? I’d put it ahead of Hadrian’s and China’s Great, but behind Jerusalem’s Western and the girls’ shower room wall in Meatballs 4.

Berlin cannot be sorrier for the Holocaust. We toured Daniel Libsekind’s Jewish Museum and memorial, and I walked through the concrete blocks that comprise Peter Eisenman’s tribute to the six million murdered European Jews. Pretty soon, the entire city will just be one giant Holocaust Memorial, and the sign on the autobahn will read, “Berlin: Apologizing Through Construction Since 1945.” Only then will my mom visit.

DIS arranged for us to eat lunch at Restaurant Käfer located at the top floor of the Reichstag building. The kristallnacht was rather bland, but the hearty bowl of gestapo more than made up for it.