the berlin wall is...

ONLY 13 feet high! What?!? Did everyone else know that but me???

So Berlin is a really cool city. It is surprisingly cheaper than many other european cities we have been in lately, which is really nice, and we are couchsurfing with an Irish-Italian guy who has been an excellent host. I know I was 12 when the wall came down...and I was old enough to more or less understand the situation, but being here has been really thought provoking for me. It is just mind blowing that overnight a government threw up a wall that prohibited people from going to work, going home from work, separating families, etc. for over 28 years. Wow. And the scarier part to me is that these so-called crazy things are still happening in our world today. It started as a barbed wire fence...then a 13 foot high structure that people could SEE over. Just not cross. Then, of course, on the eastern side they enforced a ¨death zone¨ so people couldn´t get close to the actual wall, but on the western side people could walk right up to it, paint on it, whatever they wanted. I am blown away.

So we have been wandering around what used to be East Berlin these past few days. It has all kinds of great pockets, gourmet food and restaurants (which we haven´t taken advantage of at all), super funky neighborhoods of hipsters, tons of historical buildings and monuments, and more. There is a lot of great graffiti as well, my favorite of which was a sign that reads, ¨David Hasselhoff saved the world¨. He did. Little known fact. Look it up. =)

Apart from all of that, we have been amusing ourselves with a newly invented game called ¨flattering or frightening¨. It is kind of a take on the whole ¨Would you rather...¨ game. But in this case, you present a scenario and the other person has to deem it flattering or frightening. For example, Rahima recently introduced me to the website and book of Post Secret, where people decorate a postcard and anonymously send in a secret some of which are posted on the website or in a book. They range from the simple to the heart-wrenching. One of my favorites was one where a woman confessed that when she makes her husband a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she secretly draws a heart in the peanut butter before closing the sandwich. Cute, huh?

So here is an example of the game:
Rahima: Flattering or frightening? I secretly draw a heart in your peanut butter sandwich.
Annette: Flattering.
Rahima: Flattering or frightening? I use my dirty finger to do it?
Annette: Eww! Frightening.

Try it with your friends. It is really fun. =)