18.5.07

Piccies!



That is pretty, pretty, pretty Killarney, where I am right now. Sadly I forgot my camera on the bike ride I took today around Muckross Lake -- I did about twenty kilometers, ten of them on an empty stomach. Yeah, that was pretty stupid. But I saw lakes and waterfalls and forests. Ireland is the best place I ever heard of for playing "Maybe it's the road to."

Since I have now figured out how to upload pictures, here is one from Berlin:



That's a pretty good view of the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, downtown near the Brandenburg Gate. The tour revealed a certain amount of -- well, I don't think trivia is exactly the right word, but it's what I mean. Other options considered for the memorial were a huge vat of blood, a huge oven, and the little pieces of the Brandenburg Gate, which would be blown up with dynamite for the purpose. I'm pretty glad they went with this one... each slab is the same width and depth, but different heights, generally getting taller towards the middle. When you're in the middle, it's pretty nervewracking. People are wandering around it constantly; whether you want to be alone or with other people, you sort of can't. Some people, of course, kind of miss the point and climb all over it, giggling and talking about stupid shit. There are actually police officers who hang around so that people respect it and don't get too rowdy. Which is really, really disturbing when you think about it. But by far the most interesting piece of information is that the stones are coated with a substance that makes spray paint not stick, so that the memorial can't be graffiti'd. The company that makes the product is the same one that produced the Zyklon B gas that Hitler used in the gas chambers in Auschwitz and other camps. When this came to light, the company publicly announced it, apologized, and provided the coating for the memorial free of charge. There was still a huge controversy... this is one of the reasons I love Berlin.

Anyway. I'll post more pictures when I get a chance.

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