another wall

Composed April 11
Postdated April 4 for that continuity thing
another wall

You know we’re doing the literal backpacking tour thing. We’ve got big ol’ rucksacks which carry everything we’ll want with us for the five-plus weeks of this crazy journey.
To further the cliché we’re traveling on a literal Eurail pass. All the traveling we’ve done since we’ve landed in London has been overland, except for the ferry ride from Dover to Calais, which was not only over water, but shared with several busloads of rowdy teenage rugby players hauling palettes of beer.

We hit the train station for the new city, get the hell off the train. Pull off to an area of less traffic within the station, take turns running for the toilet, and get ourselves strapped up for the walk or the public transport ride to wherever we’re staying. Or to the theater where we met Hidden Shakespeare in the case of Hamburg.

When we hit Berlin, we hopped a commuter train to the station closer to our hostel, and began to hoof it the mile or so from the station to the hostel.
As is true of many of the cities, the area immediately surrounding that train station is relatively desolate. No worries, we check our compass, check the map, and we’re on our way!

Across the busy road is a long section of a wall covered in graffiti. No surprise, we’ve already seen a ton of graffiti throughout Germany. I’m this close (fingers close together) to making a joke about how we’re looking at The Berlin Wall and I realize: We’re looking at the Berlin Wall!

We’re not on a tour! We’re not following a map! We’re schlepping our big effing bags from the train station to the hotel and we’re gazing at what is known as The Eastern Gallery. It’s about a mile of all that’s been left standing with some wonderful graffiti art. Most of it political, some of it simply artistic, some of it just made by asshole tourists who want to be a part of it all.



A historic wall has somehow dominated every city we’ve been in so far. Some are to keep people out, others to keep people in. Meanwile we’re tripping around from country to country with very few worries: Where can we do laundry? Can we get an internet hook up? Can we find an affordable place to eat before we want to kill each other? We’ve never feared for our safety or wondered if we might be refused access to a destination. Nobody’s even checked our passports since we landed in London almost three weeks ago.

Most of the walls we see are simply sections. Even the complete walls stand for the sole purpose of allowing tourist assholes like us to climb on them, snap pictures, and ogle at the historical richness.

Those that stand for greater reason than as a tourist attraction remain as a monument and a celebration that this specific wall is really no longer necessary. Or indeed that it basically failed in its intended purpose.

Really any of those reasons are kind of nice.

You know?