So This Is Christmas...

And what have I done?  Not been the greatest blogger of the year, that's for sure!  Hopefully, all that will change in the New Year...

In the meantime, wishing you all the happiest Christmas if you celebrate it, and good times even if you don't!

 

 See you all on the other side...

It Wasn't The End Of The World As We Know It...

Sombre

I was going to write a quick post to explain why I have been so absent lately. I was going to use the opportunity to have a bit of a moan about a certain client who does her best to 'make my life a living hell'.... but in the light of events that have unfolded around the world these past couple of days, how can I possibly think I'm having a hard time when others' lives have been destroyed.

At times like these, it's possible to despair over mankind. To quake at our seemingly endless capacity for inflicting such abhorrent cruelty on each other. Why do so many innocent people have to suffer so much at the hands of so few? Do we never learn from the tragedies that have gone before despite there being constant reminders everywhere we look? Perhaps none so poignant as the Holocaust Memorial near the Brandenburg Gate....

Photographs taken by me in Berlin

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it - always.”  Mahatma Gandhi

The A B C of Berlin...

A is for Ampelmännchen....

...who, according to The Fount of All Knowledge (Wikipedia), is...

...the symbolic person shown on traffic lights at pedestrian crossings in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR - East Germany). Prior to the German reunification in 1990, the two German states had different forms for the Ampelmännchen, with a generic human figure in West Germany, and a generally male figure wearing a hat in the east.

The Ampelmännchen is a beloved symbol in Eastern Germany, enjoying the privileged status of being one of the few features of communist East Germany to have survived the end of the Iron Curtain with his popularity unscathed. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Ampelmännchen acquired cult status and became a popular souvenir item in the tourism business.

You may have already spotted him in two of my photos of my last post, Autumn in Berlin.

....

B is for the Brandenburg Gate....

The Brandenburg Gate is one of the most well-known landmarks of Berlin and Germany, located west of the city centre at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace and built by Carl Gotthard Langhansfrom 1788 to 1791. Having suffered considerable damage in World War II, the Brandenburg Gate was fully restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin (Berlin Monument Conservation Foundation). During the post-war Partition of Germany the gate was isolated and inaccessible immediately next to the Berlin Wall, and the area around the gate featured most prominently in the media coverage of the opening of the wall in 1989.

......

C is for Checkpoint Charlie....

Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War.

GDR leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and manoeuvred to get the Soviet Union's permission for the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration westward through the Soviet border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from East Berlin to West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of east and west. Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the building at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction.

Photos my own. Text adapted from Wikipedia.

Autumn in Berlin....

Lessons Learnt In Berlin...

The Brandenburg Gate

I was in Berlin last week for a work conference.  Here's what I learnt....

While I did wonder if Berlin would Take My Breath Away....you know, like the 1980s group on the 'Top Gun' soundtrack? Get it? Oh well, never mind!.... I hadn't banked on getting a hotel room at andel's Hotel Berlin that stank so strongly of old, stale smoke that I was left gasping as soon as I walked in! For only the second time in my life, I demanded a new room - the first time was under similar circumstances in The Stratosphere, Las Vegas.

Unless you're fluent in German, it's probably best not to attempt to set your own wake-up call via the hotel phone of your Berlin hotel room. Wake-up calls a good hour before you need them are not endearing... especially when your body clock is already put out by the hour's time zone change!

Sitting though seminars, plenary lectures, workshops and networking sessions all day is exhausting! I think my brain reached its Information Overload threshold about halfway through the week.

Social dinners at a brewery, where the beers are served by the litre, are somewhat wasted on someone who is almost a teetotaller these days. I did get chance to admire the decor though....

Spicy hot chocolate is exactly what is says on the tin - hot chocolate that is spicy!

Best served with a slice of apple tarte!

My sense of direction and map reading skills do not improve with age. It seems the more places I travel to, the quicker I get myself lost. However, if I've learnt anything from being lost in quite a few strange cities, it's that the quickest and least stressful, albeit most expensive way to find your way back to your hotel is to hail a taxi cab!

It's one way to get around the city...

Although I recently passed my 4th kyu (3rd level) grading in Aikido, I was not yet confident of my abilities to fend off any would-be attackers, when my haphazard wanderings led me into a dark alley in a slightly dodgy part of Berlin! Luckily, my new-found fitness and litheness of body meant I could hot foot it out of there prompto!

The biggest tourist attraction in Berlin is something that doesn't actually exist any more! While there are panels of the Berlin Wall doted around the city, the Wall itself, thankfully, came down almost a quarter of a century ago. There are some other Walls in the world right now that could do with a topple...

More on Berlin soon.....

Baby, you're a firework!

Last night we donned thermals, hats, scarves and gloves and braved the elements... just so I could bring you all these slightly abstract shots of the Guy Fawkes' Night fireworks display at Moggerhanger Park.....

Do any of you celebrate Guy Fawkes' Night?