My week so far...

MONDAY:
...was meant to be the most epic night for pictures.

The official reunification celebration stretched all the way from Brandenburg Gate to the Potsdamer Platz. I heard later that over 2,500 people were out last night. It was pouring rain. International celebrities and political figures like Lech Walesa, Jon Bon Jovi and Hilary Clinton (also: Thomas Gottschalk? Really?) were all there to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago.

Unfortunately, I have no photographic record of any of this. Not the dominos falling. Not a screenshot of Obama's speech, or of Jon Bon Jovi. Not the silky sheen of Thomas Gottschalk's bleached blonde hair. Not even a decent shot of the Brandenburg Gate that used to symbolically divide East and West.

My camera batteries died on me halfway through the evening.

Which isn't to say I didn't get pictures. It's just that I don't even know if the term 'pictures' is appropriate in reference to these rather loose appropriations of questionable artistic merit.

For posterity and general...I don't know, befuddlement?...I leave you with the pictures I did get. Make of them what you will:
(Or, even better, try to deconstruct them, just for fun!)

We begin with an artistic shot of a truck driving down the street:

Followed by some blurry shots of umbrellas:



I actually kind of like this one.
Can you make out the Brandenburg Gate in the background? I know I can't.

At least this one's not blurry:

Things just go downhill from there:

Well, you know what they say, right? Dabei sein ist alles.

Also, despite all the camera mishaps and everything, I'd just like to say that, as a German citizen born just months before the wall came down, I was very moved last night, especially when I think that I had the good fortune to be born just in time for the end of a very difficult chapter in German history (and, arguably, the start of another difficult one).

I also think we have to keep in mind that commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall also carries with it the responsibility of recognizing similar cases of division today. Walls dividing people from their neighbours still exist, whether in Israel or Korea. We have to try to make an effort not to let the lessons of the past go unnoticed, and be cautious before proclaiming "the end of history" or pretending that Berlin signaled the end of global separation. Last night definitely cemented in me a desire to do something.

How did you perceive the commemoration last night?