Paths, Road, Wall, Journey by Liz Miller
Vicky packed too much stuff. She had one of those packs you take when you’re doing all of Europe the summer between your sophomore and junior year of college. And she had it full. As if someone had told her that Berlin would just be the first stop on a ‘major European cities’ tour, instead of: we’re just going to Berlin. And for just one night.
I was eleven when the wall came down. I remember it in the news. I also remember wondering if it was that big wall you could see from space. Now I contemplated the probability that some of us on this ride had, when it came down, probably still been staring at mobiles over cribs, 20 years ahead of being able to see clips of it on YouTube.
So there we were, two instructors, six students, four video cameras, four still cameras, no pillows, far too many Red Bulls, one oversized backpack and a big white van. We told the students it would be a fast, and hard, trip. And it was. It was cold. And as I stood shivering Monday night staring at the row of large monolithic dominoes set to symbolically fall minutes later along part of the ghost of the original wall, the word suffering came to mind. And my shivering temporarily ceased.
Sunday night after departing Schiphol, we made it to our hostel with the help of a friend (first name Tom last name Tom), threw our stuff down, walked to a station of some variant of public transport, wandered aimlessly around the outside of the station until we gave up and then went back in and took a real train. To somewhere. Our radars were tuned to ‘signs of life’. Of any kind. We found a small place to sit down, and did so. The evening evolved into one of those pockets of time wherein teachers learn more about their students than they ever wanted to know, and the students learn more about us than they’re usually allowed to know. We went around the table answering the not-so-clever question of what one would do if they found themselves on stage in a talent contest. Within 2 or 3 people it turned into the Un-Talent Show, of us showing off the things we can’t do. (Did you know that many media students, for instance, can’t whistle? Or snap? Who knew.)
Later that night, (an undisclosed length of time later), we learned how big Berlin really is, on our walk home. Not in edge-to-edge size, but in space. The roads are wide, the sidewalks are wider, and the buildings look like they were built by an administration that took itself very, very seriously. We took ourselves less seriously as we made the six-block, hour-long walk back to the hostel, leapfrogging our way between the small breakaway groups that emerge when the alchemy of a medium sized group, a few fun hours, and lack of a map all come together. Eventually we landed safely, if not tardily, back at our beds.
The next morning, over a slow breakfast, we roughly routed the day out, deciding to start at the East Gallery, a portion of the wall still standing, and which was quite close to us, and from there to walk the actual path of the wall for a few hours, toward the city center.
The East Gallery offered tactile history bearing contemporary messages. And today of all days it was being paid much attention. School groups with young children on the buddy system darted past older, more solemn visitors. It was Monday now. Now we could feel the weight of 20 years.
We walked the wall, trying to match map to real-life, not wanting to deviate even a meter from the real path of the old wall. Our idea was to walk a few hours until we arrived as close as we could to the recording studio of a musician contact we were going to meet and visit, and from whom we could get a firsthand account. But first…. Schnitzel.
Eric (also the sole male student in the group, a demographic situation he silently made careful note of) piped up after a good bit of walking: “Um, would you guys all be upset if for lunch we had something super-German like, schnitzel, at a beer house?” Empty plates 20 minutes later offered a resounding ‘not. at. all.’
Our musician contact was jolly. He welcomed us as old friends. We sat on his carpet, in his chairs, and listened, cameras out, eyes fixed, as he told his stories and answered our questions, with mixing boards and audio cables decorating the background. It was a full and rewarding hour. And a transition to a more serious part of the day. Afterwards, we headed to the Hauptbanhof where, apparently, nearby, everything was happening.
We didn’t pay for any public transportation, during our entire time in the city. One time we just couldn’t figure it out. Another time the machine was broken. Another time we just didn’t have the time. We arrived at central station and we walked, somewhat hopefully, in a slightly random direction. By now the light was shifting from bright grey day to a looming blanket of evening. We found the event and we all cut loose from one other. Crowds meandered around and through the long corridor of larger-than-life dominoes erected along the path of part of the former wall. Many of them had been painted or decorated by groups of school children, saying things like “Make love not walls” while others held the marks and manifestos of professional artists.
We re-grouped after dark, found a lone café in the roped off side-streets, ate (more) schnitzel, and baked potatoes, charged our camera batteries and warmed our fingers. We waited as 8pm approached, festivity time. Then we layered everything back on, strapped cameras back over our shoulders, made a quick, blurry group photo, and re-dispersed.
That’s when it got cold. The rain came. And no glow from any of the numerous big-screen monitors could offer warmth. We listened to Sarkozy, Merkel, Clinton, and others give perhaps un-memorable speeches about an event quite more so, to the level of being embedded in our entire social consciousness.
It got colder. Were they EVER going to let the dominoes run?? We had our spots staked out, our cameras set. I was sure this fall would be undoubtedly swifter than the original. But all of us who weren’t there the first time could contemplate it this time.
The whole time, we shot. Until our cameras were full and our fingers numb. We webbed our cell communications with one another, and two hours later we met back at central station. We thawed at the food court, while photographers from Der Speigel uploaded their images across the table from us, frustrated at technology. And entirely missing the irony of even being in the technological situation making their frustration possible. Other journalists eagerly downloaded and uploaded and loaded up on pizza all around us. This was a real event. And we were really there.
We dodged the ticket-checker on the train one last time as we headed back to where we had stashed the van in a parking garage. I wonder now, as I did then, if actually transport was free that day. So we soggily piled into the van, after a quick pajama-donning, all of us eager to put the cameras down and rest our eyes.
Then, we drove. It was a long ride back. We stopped and rested. We car-danced to Kanye to keep ourselves awake. We landed back at Schiphol, unpacked the van, lifted weary hands in signs of parting and headed home to swallow and sleep off an experience which still had yet to settle in.
Liz Miller teaches photography, media production, digital imaging and journalism at Webster University Leiden.
[ Berlin Wall 2009 ]
