Mauerfall - 25 years to the fall of the Berlin wall

On Sunday we decided to take a break from all the fun of figuring out the little things like where to live and what school to send the kids to and instead participate in helping the people of Berlin celebrate 25 years to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany.
We've been watching them get prepared all week:

It was one of those moments where innate cynicism clashes with the desire to be there, and in the end what made us leave the house and brave the crowds and the (very low) temperatures was the fact that, well, cynicism or not, a person only gets a definite number of once-in-a-lifetime-events to participate in, and seeing how we had a chance to celebrate the Royal Wedding, the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, we should be really close to the end of our allotment. And besides, saying no to celebrating one of the greatest moments in history is not something you do lightly. Especially when they said you could buy a tiny light-ball as memorabilia.

We decided to start the day at Check-point Charlie (which evidently is not named after a specific Charlie, just because it's the word they use to signify "C") and take it from there. I know, always a good plan to leave it all to "let's see where we go from there", and then we saw a Starbucks. And you have to stop at a Starbucks, especially since it wasn't crowded, and also because they started selling the Christmas drinks, and I love the Christmas drinks.

Unfortunately things did not go as planned from that point onwards - apparently Starbucks have decided to take away my favourite Eggnog Latte, Yon spilled his hot chocolate all over his shirt, scarf and coat, we were late for the guided tour, the camera wasn't focusing, and it was colder than I remembered it could be...

Camera with no focus

It took us a while to clean Yon, fix the camera, figure out where to buy tickets to the tour, and eat lunch so we'll get the feeling back in all body areas, but two hours later we've manage to restart the day, and then the fun began.

We planned to take a short walk around Checkpoint Charlie and go back home until the evening. In the end we ended up walking most of the light-wall (Lichtgrenze) and didn't make it back until after 9pm...

So, this is going to be more of a photo-post than a writing post, but it was quite the photo-op day...

We got a family photo out of it. This very nice lady offered to take our picture, but then started directed us - where to stand, what to do, etc. She was not happy about the result, but gave up...

Around Check-point Charlie 

I found it so amusing, the check-point, the McDonalds, and all the Americans walking around

The balloons

They actually charge you 2Euros to get your photo taken with a pretend solider. Capitalism at its best.

So we took a photo of the back. Where it's free. 

I was checking the focus of the camera

The entrance to the Museum at Check point Charlie. They charge you an extra 2 Euros to take photos. And 30 Euros for entrance.

We took lots of pictures in the museum. To justify the 2 Euros.

Our guide in the guided tour, explaining the structure of the wall on the east side. 

This is where the wall used to stand. They have these kind of reminders all over the city. I find it amazing.

Ron is standing on the wall 

I still am not sure what these bears are all about, but there are plenty of them around the city 

This is the real wall, and the light-wall.

They put on these screens and showed snippets of stories, and news-flashes, and films all day long. Honestly most of it was just too sad for me.

A fake Russian solider 

This is around 5pm

Without planning to, we ended up at the main event 

And at the Reichstag

And then we walked along the lights back to the north part 

And we got to Mauerpark, where we stopped 

And watched the balloons being released