Tag der Deutschen Einheit: A Sketch

Tag der Deutschen Einheit = Day of German Unity
(commemorates the formal reunification of West and East Germany in 1990)*

- walking up the "Potse" (Potsdamer Straße)
- beautiful blue sky, crisscrossed with broad jet trails and with grey mass of cloud coming from the north
- long queues to get to the French Impressionist exhibition (now in its last week) at Neue Nationalgallerie
- St. Matthäi Kirche - unusually beautiful, with beige-and-red banded bricks, translucent windows, dusty turquoise bronze roof, brown door, and dark green Italianate acacias with their symmetrical leaves and twisting shadowed trunks and branches before it
- "Die Welt" balloon aloft to right of Sony Centre, and the Deutsche Bank glass skyscraper; person walking at top of New-York-esque dark red building with gleaming gold tips
- "North American" scene behind Kulturforum: birds flying above the leafy "wilderness" of the Tiergarten, an odd solitude between a plane tree in the foreground and the golden glow of the Philharmonie
- huge banners at Kulturforum; one for Piranesi's views of Rome, a sketch of St. Peter's (?) that rippled in the wind and came alive, with the needle in the centre of the plaza quivering; Q: Are bright pink signs "Uli Richter" advertising an exhibition really that tasteful?
- black crow with smoky grey ruffle around throat
- passerby astutely explaining to companion at Philharmonie, "Concerts are sometimes given here."
- crossing through the Tiergarten behind the Philharmonie
- a soldier without visible arms; two security people in olive-coloured uniforms with a German shepherd (?) wearing a shiny muzzle; orange-uniformed personnel at gates barring entry in one direction; green and white police cars and vans scattered about
- people piddling into the bushes, not nearly inconspicuous enough
- illumined row of dark-green-stemmed snowdrop lanterns along path, with stream of people in one direction; white cloud art installation
- emerging out into the street; check-point where one had to quickly open any bags to let the orange-clad security people glance at their contents; masses of people, mostly over 19
- big black screens showing music performances, pounding sound, rather inert crowd with a few jumping fans with enough energy to scream and lift their arms, camera-man who looked puzzled and disturbed when a colleague included him in a shot of the lead singer and he evidently saw himself on one of the huge screens
- very few German flags visible, reflecting refreshing lack of nationalistic overtones
- crane bungy-jumping; ferris wheel; booths for grilled bratwurst, crêpes, jewellry, Chinese food, waffles, clothing, roasted almonds and chocolate-covered fruit and gingerbread, etc.
- grey stone marker "Den Opfern der Mauer, 13. August 1961"** with white paper garbage piled on top, photographed by at least three people who probably also perceived the irony
- refreshments: crêpe with apple sauce, Thuringian bratwurst (2 Euros)
- watched crêpe-maker ladle out batter onto a round black heating-plate, then take T-shaped device with a rounded bar to smoothly and evenly distribute the batter, flip the browned crêpe neatly onto another heating-plate with the help of a long metal spatula, then drizzle the interior with Nutella or apple sauce (other options: Cointreau, cinnamon-sugar, strawberry, apricot, etc.), and fold the crêpe into an envelope with the help of the spatula before placing it on a rectangular paper plate and handing it over with a serviette (2 Euro 50 with apple sauce topping)
- Reichstag and Kanzleramt (?) each with small grey-lined cloud overhead, which seemed a trifle ominous; Reichstag bathed in nice golden light; fresh air that was cool enough that I could see my breath for the first time this year; people spiralling up into the Reichstagsdom; people in the queue into the dome facing out toward the lawn instead of the door for once; young men throwing green frisbee and spinning a dark brown beer bottle to each other; rows of hedges (dusky purple, wine red, yellow, dark green), huge green lawn out of an eighteenth-century architectural engraving, long shadows across it, people ambling around the perimeters
- incredible sunset behind the Victory statue on the Siegessäule, with wispy white jet-trails, light and ripply golden clouds, faint sky, and glowing pearl of red-pink sun at the vanishing-point of the line of trees that ran along the road
- wearying walk home through the dark back down the Potse (refused to take bus, to T.'s heroically patient dismay); back home ca. 7:30

* According to the Wikipedia article, the "Tag der Deutschen Einheit" is held now and not on Nov. 9th, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, because the Kristallnacht also occurred on Nov. 9th.
** "To the victims of the Wall"