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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 23, 2013 15:20:15 GMT
Wow ~~ wonderful pictures. Amazing to think that at the time you took them, so many people assumed it would be that way forever. That last shot really sums up the situation as it was.
So lovely that your dad could come for a nice long visit. I'm sure your husband is happy for you & is possibly learning German through osmosis. (would that it were so easy!)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2013 16:24:32 GMT
In case you haven't come across it, I have a whole report in the Post Cards section devoted mostly to the Berlin Wall.
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Post by fgrsk8r1970 on Apr 23, 2013 17:12:32 GMT
Thanks Kerouac - I just checked it out and posted a response. Amazing photos !!!!
Bixa - They both are beyond help trying to learn each others language LOL.... Beer/Bier and Wine/Wein sounds the same though, so we are good ha ha.
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Post by htmb on Apr 24, 2013 10:46:34 GMT
Welcome, fgrsk8r1970! I have been enjoying your posts and look forward to seeing many more in the future.
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Post by patricklondon on Apr 24, 2013 13:41:44 GMT
Goodness, this brings back memories. I went to East Germany for three weeks in 1969 when I was studying German at university (they gave me some money to go and travel, so I thought I'd better do something slightly out of the ordinary). I was allowed to go and stay in youth hostels, though I naturally assumed any German sharing my room was probably going to make some report on me.
I know I scanned the photos I took, though by today's standards they're remarkably few and remarkably uninformative. By the time I went back into East Berlin on a wet November Sunday (as it happens almost exactly a year before the Wall finally fell) it was clear things really couldn't last much longer, but in 1969 East Germany did give the impression of somewhere stable and on the up, if still some years behind the West in overall prosperity.
It was the official line that it was there to keep out spies and saboteurs from the west, so presumably they went through the motions of showing that they did the same checks on the way in as on the way out. If you wanted to get in for family reasons, they were quite keen to welcome you in (on the usual financial terms) once West and East Germany were formally talking to each other. If they could make some sort of political propaganda out of it, they were even more welcoming.
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