Berlin, Germany

Ok...i need to make myself another cup of coffee before i get down to this post...i seem to have finished my first one way too soon...will be back shortly.

mmmm, some coffee, and the world immediately seems to feel better!

I fell for this card the first moment i saw it...coz of the way it "shows" the Berlin Wall...very cool idea, and you know how much i like cool cards!
The only real memory i have about it, is from when i was little, and when there was this breaking news on TV, showing how they are knocking it down and how people from one side cross on the other and vice versa...i was little, so i didnt really get the whole fuss about it...to me back then it just seemed as a 10 metre wall being flatted down, and i couldnt possibly figure out why didnt just go the round way and pass by it if they so much wanted to go on the other side?! I mean, 10 metres is not much to walk....well, it was the mind of a 9 year old speaking....thinking if people on the east side coudlnt actually go shopping on the west one....
well, you all know the significance the Berlin Wall has and the whole story behind it, or at least what it represented back then.
It was, what it is called, the Iron Curtain between Western Europe and the Eastern Block...people who were caught trying to cross it, were usually killed, and it was people from East Berlin who were trying to go to the western part...
I like how the card represents the West allies on one side and the East (the Soviets) on the other...which is how Berlin was divided some time after the WWII. The white line in the middle represents the famous Berlin Wall, which was actually 140 km long...(and not just 10m. as the little me had thought).
It just funny to actually think that someone needed a passport/visa to be able to cross on the other side of their own city (if they were allowed to cross in the first place).
There is much to talk and talk about the Berlin Wall, of course, with both sides having their own versions of the facts, but still, its a really interesting read...and if i ever get a card showing the Berlin Wall for real, i will get into some more insight about it.
For now, here is just a small map of Berlin, showing the border and the checkpoints from where you could go on the other side...there certainly is a huge difference between the blue and the red dots.

I really really love this card!

Berlin, Germany

Here is a card with some special thrill....I hope this wont sound wrong or creepy, but memorial centres and cemeteries are fascinating me...I dont know...they have some sort of tranquility note that eases me in a certain kind of way...i dont think i can explain it properly, so i wont try to do so...otherwise,  i will tangle up myself in my own flow of thoughts :)

Here you can see the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, situated in Berlin also known as the Holocaust Memorial since its a commemoration to the Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. A 2005 copy of the Foundation for the Memorial's official English tourist pamphlet, however, states that the design represents a radical approach to the traditional concept of a memorial, partly because Eisenman did not use any symbolism. An attached underground "Place of Information"holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims, obtained from the Israeli museum Yad Vashem.

I think i will definitely add Memorials and Cemeteries to my wishlist....

Berlin, Germany (03)

Berlin, Germany (02)

Berlin, Germany (01)

well, this is how the whole exchange thing started...

One day, while i was about to write in my other blog, i was at the 'sign in' page and you know, at the top left corner, you have blog links appearing, as they are updated....and just at that moment a title appeared saying 'postcard exchange'....it immediately caught my attention and thank goodness i was quick enough, so i didnt miss it.....i clicked on it, and came across a site of a postcard collection...I was all in awe, coz it just started tickling the collector in me and made me feel all anxious about postcards....and made me search for other postcard blogs, and thats how i eventually ended up at the postcrossing site...and the rest is history! (have in mind that im updating these cards with text a few months later than they have been originally uploaded....)

but im terribly glad i was at the right place, at the right time, to discover all this...otherwise, i probably would have been still completely ignorant about the existence of postcrossing...