Art & Architecture Trip - Day 39

I will remember today for as long as I live. I will not forget the date - or what happened. This morning, after a troubled sleep, I awoke to the sound of the radio - Stephan had turned it on. I ate breakfast (at 1200) and we prepared to go to East Berlin. We went alone at 1500. After a ride on the S-Bahn to FredrichStrasse, we got out and prepared for the surveillance. We got split up - Stephan went through the border one way and I had to enter another line. I met two people from England who were staying in East Berlin on vacation. Later, I enterd a small, cramped hallway and had to show my passport. I was requried to exchange 25 DM into East German DMs and then pay 5 DM for a visa. It took nearly 45 minutes for me to get through - and the border guard asked me if I knew how to speak German or Russian before finally talking to me in English. Back with Stephan at last, we went to a museum in the city that had artifacts from Sumer, Babylon, Greece and Rome. It was really interesting. We spent several hours there and then proceeded to the TV Tower. We went up to the top - and got a beautiful view of the city below. We could even see the old city, which (minus the wall) seemed similar to Berlin before 1945. We also got a look at the Berlin Dom, which (like all the churches in East Berlin) was closed. In the TV Tower, I bought many souvenirs - mostly to use up the 25 DDR DMs. After this, Stephan and I walked around the city. I enjoyed the area around Alexanderplatz. There was a church there that had a cross on the top - when the sun angle is just right, the cross appears on the side of the TV Tower (much to the annoyance of the East Germans!). We had plans to visit a cemetery, but it was closed (at 1900). At 2000, we returned through the checkpoint again - a little faster. The men saw my USA passport and waved me by. One thing that made me nervous in East Berlin all day was that there were lots of police walking around everywhere... We arrived home around 2100 and ate supper with Stephan's dad. Then, Stephan and I played more Skat and squirted more people in the street. We then were going to play Skat with Stephan's dad at 2230, but the game was interupted by my dad's phone call from California. Mom had died. I am at a loss for words about how it felt at that moment - I cried, of course. My letter never reached her, but I hope she knows how I feel. I was sad, at first, but then I was really angry. I left the apartment and went downstairs - with no destination in mind. I encountered lots of happy, partying people. There were hookers everywhere, it seemed. And, when I really needed them most, I couldn't find one church that was open. It seems that all of the churches around here are museums... I don't know what I am going to do now, but it seems hard to imagine life without Mom.