This last weekend being the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, news outlets here were awash in stories and images about it -- remembrances, coverage of anniversary celebrations, all that. Me, I went out for a long walk on Sunday, found myself drifting along el Paseo de la Castellana during the afternoon, pulling up alongside the German Embassy. It occupies a fair-sized chunk of real estate, the embassy does, with a substantial wall running along its perimeter. I might not have realized that I was outside that particular embassy except for their way of observing the anniversary of that major turning point 20 years back: hanging large replicas of murals originally painted on the original wall's West Berlin side. Big, brazen, insistent works of political commentary -- impossible to miss.
Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Hoeneker show just how close their friendship was:
I spent a while checking them out, wondering what it must have been like to encounter the real thing, remembering television coverage of the massive explosion of joy when the wall was brought down. And then I moved on.
Cool autumn air, November sunlight, the long three-day weekend, unexpected sights. A good day.
España, te amo
rws 8:45 AM [+]
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