#FotW25

Fall of the Wall. The Berlin wall, duh. 25 years later. They had signs up for weeks inviting you to take pictures and hashtag with the above. So there ya go.

Back in March or so when it first came up that, "oh my gosh, we're considering a move to Berlin", I realized that this year would be the 25th anniversary of the wall coming down. And I thought, "I bet that's going to be really special".

And it was.






Berlin set lit balloon lantern things all along where the wall once stood. I think I read that it was 8000 balloons over 15 kilometers (a little more than 9 miles). They had this "Lichtgrenze" (light border) up for the whole weekend: Friday to Sunday.



 Then on Sunday night November 9th, which was the actual anniversary, they were going to release these light balloons into the sky. Each balloon had a little tag on it, each with it's own unique patron from wherever in the world who wanted to sponsor a balloon with their story of how the wall--or the fall of it--affected them. I didn't read any. I don't know if you could. Anyway, we knew we had to be there for this. It was like, "When in Rome Berlin", you know? Like, Jason had to go out when Germany played in (AND WON!) the World Cup this year. I mean, come on! So, even though it wasn't till 7:30 p.m. on a school night, we bundled up and headed out. It was soooooooooo crowded where we got off the train at Potsdamer Platz. Even so, we bumped into a colleague of Jason's! Ha! He offered to take some pictures of us. Jason politely declined as some random couple had traded photo ops with us and our phones (but none turned out well!). Grrr. I wish we had taken him up on it.


Anyhoo...

We walked around for a bit before we decided where to park ourselves for the release. It was going to start up at the Brandenburg Gate at 7:20 and go off sort of like a domino effect in each direction. So, we weren't too far away from the Gate and were right there as they floated up to the sky.



Then, of course, it was time to leave.

For everyone.

We headed back towards the Potsdamer Platz station only to find that it was closed and Autumn was at risk of being trampled. I can't imagine what it's like for small people like Jason (ha ha ha) or the kids to be just randomly dragged through insane amounts of legs with absolutely no idea what is going on around you. You just trustingly hold on to Mom or Dad's hand and go along with it. But, we had to stop. No one was being rowdy or anything, but it's still hordes of people who can't see my small people dangling from my hands. So, we decided to walk to the next train station further down. Only, lots of people had to do that too. We waited and the first two trains that came by, we couldn't fit on. Finally Jason had this idea to get on it going in the other direction (completely opposite from home) just to get away from the crowds. So we did. We got seats that way and got all the way over to the station by the TV Tower (Alexanderplatz). Jason had thought to catch an entirely different train at that point but I was like, "Dude, lets just go back the other direction". So we did. It was crowded and there were no seats, but we got on. As we got closer and closer to the gate, however, more and more people were trying to shove themselves onto trains. Like seriously I was having to push back with all my might as people were pushing with much of theirs to squeeze into any inch they could find. But my small kids were there too. And of course, someone from the door couldn't see them so they just think, "There's room!" when there wasn't. There were serious shouting matches in German as people who could see our 3 small children would shout back to the shover-on-ers, "Kleinkinder!!!" and other "nicht" sorts of things. And it seemed like people would back off then. Like, they wouldn't hesitate to smoosh in with a bunch of adults all crotch to crotch, but when they heard there were kids in the throngs then they would be like, "Oh fine" and step back. Eventually we made it home and Easton has decided it wasn't worth it and when it's the 50th, he won't go back. I told him, "You'll be in your 30s then so that's fine, I won't make you go" and he then moved on to say how he'd tell his wife how he went when he was little and such. Ack! Crazy to think about.

So, a few highlights for me from the event:

1. When the Minion balloon went tumbling through the sky with all the other lichtballons. As it was a big event, of course vendors were out there selling things like mylar balloons. And when all the white lit balloons were being released, someone also happened to let go of their Minion balloon and the kids and I had a big laugh watching "Dave" or whoever go bumping through the other balloons.



2. When the crowd near us erupted in cheers when one of the initially-failed-to-launch balloons near us finally made it's way to the sky.

3. When nice Germans on the train created and offered "safe" spots for our kids to stand in to give them a little more breathing room away from someone's bum or when they offered to let Autumn sit on the lap of someone who already had a seat (in a non-creepy like it might be in America sort of way). Sometimes the trains can be an ugly, gloomy sort of place but that night everyone was feeling the unity spirit again, I guess, and people were being rather kind. And I'll leave it at that, I guess. Just wanted to make sure I got this down to some degree for whatever future sort of journal this acts as for our family. Ciao!