Friday, January 20, 2006
Sign of success
As spotted recently in Leipzig. Not sure if the orange suits are part of the official uniform, but regardless I suspect there will be massive conversions all over Germany soon. Stay tuned.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Schloss Charlottenburg
The old imperial summer palace in Berlin is now a series of musuems, surrounded by a beauiful set of gardens. Near the front gate there's a sort of mysterious fenced-off yard filled with sculptures, lined up as if they're in storage. A photo I took of it was featured on Flak's photo page today.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
World Cup -- Just six months away!
I was in Leipzig a few weeks ago for the World Cup draw. For those of you not familiar with the big news yet, Germany is hosting the 2006 World Cup. Of soccer. Which is a sport they take seriously everywhere in the world except America. To that end, the drawing to decide who would play whom in the first round was a really big deal. So big, in fact, that it was hosted by the talented (and bilingual) Heidi Klum.
Though the Cup doesn’t start until June 2006, the events this weekend were a taste of the craziness that Germany will be next year. A huge big-screen TV was set up in Leipzig’s scenic main square, right in front of the Gewandhaus, or symphony hall. A few thousand people stood around in the cold drinking mulled wine from the Christmas market nearby and cheering. The real party broke out when Germany was seeded in a group of relatively weak teams in the first round – Ecuador, Costa Rica and Poland. America ended up in a killer bracket -- we're in with Ghana, Italy and the Czech Republic, and have to beat two of the three to move on. No one really cheered for America. Except me.
Though the Cup doesn’t start until June 2006, the events this weekend were a taste of the craziness that Germany will be next year. A huge big-screen TV was set up in Leipzig’s scenic main square, right in front of the Gewandhaus, or symphony hall. A few thousand people stood around in the cold drinking mulled wine from the Christmas market nearby and cheering. The real party broke out when Germany was seeded in a group of relatively weak teams in the first round – Ecuador, Costa Rica and Poland. America ended up in a killer bracket -- we're in with Ghana, Italy and the Czech Republic, and have to beat two of the three to move on. No one really cheered for America. Except me.
Children's memorial
In early December I spent the weekend in Poland. I was there for a story, but I got a chance to spend some time walking around Warsaw, too. One of my favorite places to go is Warsaw’s Old Town, which isn’t actually all that old. It was reconstructed after the Second World War as a sort of idealized version of the pre-war city. As a result, it has a certain Disney-esque quality to it. Still, it’s a nice place to walk, and a lot of my memories of Warsaw from childhood are tied to the Old Town.
It’s also the site of one of my favorite memorials, the monument to the children who fought in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The Warsaw Uprising – as opposed to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, which is the one most people outside Poland remember – was a massive battle, initiated by the Polish underground army as Soviet troops closed ion on the German-held city. The goal was to be in control of the national capital when the Soviets arrived, and hence have a better bargaining position. Instead, Stalin – always a shrewd operator – halted the Soviet advance on the other side of the Vistula river, within sight of the main part of Warsaw, and waited weeks for the Germans to crush the resistance before moving in.
The memorial is one of those modest, small things with a power all out of proportion to its size. In a bend in the wall that surrounds the Old Town, a boy wearing oversize boots and a helmet that almost swallows his small head carries a rifle way too big for him. The memorial stands for the hundreds of children who died crawling through the city’s sewers delivering messages and fighting during the uprising. It’s not abstract, or complex, or theoretical, or particularly dramatic, and that’s why I like it so much – it speaks for itself.
