The fall of the Berlin wall

Anyways, as you probably know yesterday was the 11th of November so everyone was celebrating the end of World War I, and last week was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. I am so glad I got to experience these two events in Paris. In the US I don't think I would have appreciated these two days as much. It's amazing to see the way everyone in Europe remembers these important dates.

Me in front of the Arc de Triumph on Nov. 11th. They had a huge flag up, and they also had something going on at the tomb of the unknown soldier.

Everyone here has been anticipating the 20th anniversary of the Berlin wall for a while. One chocolatier, Patrick Roger (I've sampled some of his chocolate before, delicious!) even built a chocolate Berlin wall to commemorate the occasion. I attended a free city wide celebration in the Place de Concorde.The event was amazing. They had amazing music playing while they projected images onto some of the buildings behind the orchestra. Some of the images were just stuff like shots of the musicians up close, but they also projected old photos of the Berlin wall. It was a really moving site actually.

Some of the images they were showing at the memorial presentation.

Everything was light up, there were tons of people, and they had a whole orchestra there. They had all the cellist in individual stands/box things that were covered in graffiti (like the Berlin wall) and they would spotlight them at different times throughout the songs.

So the video is kind of hard to see. There were a lot of people and it was dark, but the audio is worth listening to (I think you actually see some of it towards the end).

Anyways, I was so glad I took the time to remember some very important bits of history these last two weeks. It has definitely been a highlight of this trip.

Another picture from the Place de Concorde, there is a tiny French flag in the background (Although, I'm blanking on what building that is right now).



I love this picture by Cartier-Bresson of the Berlin Wall. I learned about him in my photography class. He is amazing.
(http://www.ttx-net.sk/georgie/Cartier-Bresson1.htm)

Currently: Really tired, despite all my naps today (train rides are a good place to catch up on sleep, lol)