6 Brandenburg Gate
It is winter 1993. It is winter 2022. Berlin, Germany.
The Brandenburg Gate stands before me surrounded by concrete walls that reach up to the edges of the upper platform. The Col War has ended, the Wall has come down for the most part, but there are still remnants everywhere. Like here surrounding the Gate. The monument is about 3 stories tall with a statue of four horses pulling the goddess Nike on a chariot. I stand a few blocks away, my beard is not yet gray, and I still don’t understand the impact this monument or the county will have on me. I’m thrilled to be in a mostly re-unified Germany – although less than a month ago I was in the Parliament building, still located half a country away in Bonn. True unification will take many years still.
There are wrinkles around my eyes now, my wife and teenage children are with me. Our apartment for the week is only a few blocks away, but we now stand amongst 50,000 other people listening to music, eating street food and the adults are drinking beer as the countdown to the New Year slowly ticks away. My youngest says her feet hurt so as she sits down among all those people, I spread my feet apart and create a protective space for her. The Gate is a couple hundred yards away and is the backdrop for Germany’s biggest New Year’s party. We can’t walk under it tonight because the stage hugs the columns and the whole area is cordoned off. This trip with my family is for my 50th birthday and this is my third trip to Germany since I was here as an exchange student in high school. The fried sausages and pungent sauerkraut smells are everywhere. It’s only misting, but the moisture adds to the chill in the air, and I stomp my feet to warm them up, startling my daughter who still shelters below. I hope she can handle the next few hours. It’s only 9:30pm and there is no way my wife or eldest daughter will leave before ringing in the New Year. Me, I can go at any time. To me, almost no celebration is worth any amount of pain or misery. If I were by myself, I might have left after the one performer I had heard of, had played their set.
It was cold back then too. And wet, I’m wearing a thick fleece covered by a ski jacket, both of which I got from my parents for Christmas. They had sent me warm clothes and a care package full of my favorite foods. My mom made magic cookie bars and, when my host family hadn’t shown much interest in them, I decimated the whole package. I don’t remember getting sick, but I do remember wondering if I would. But I’m wandering around Berlin with someone whose name I have since forgotten. We’re both well dressed for the weather, but she’s got an agenda, and we quickly move on to the German version of the tomb of the unknown soldier. As we arrive the sun comes out and blinds us both, bouncing off of glass throughout the monument area. I remember smiling as the sun warmed my face.
For years I will wish to have had more time and more access to the Gate. In the late 90s when digital pictures of the Brandenburg Gate become available it’s my computer background for years. And once my wife and I decide that my birthday trip is going to be to Germany, the Brandenburg Gate is the second place I decide we must go. Since it will be Christmas, the first destination is my old hometown of Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, where the holiday is celebrated for most of the month of December with a vigor that only southern Germans can summon.