Off the wall
Today I’m thinking of this German I couple I met two summers ago on the Snake River. We were all part of a rather ill-fated jetboat trip up Hells Canyon, and the couple — I think their names were Hans-Christian and Cristina, but I can’t remember her name for sure — were from the former East Germany. She told me, in her thick accent, that ever since the wall came down, they’ve travelled abroad every summer to make up for the half of their life when they couldn’t.
That even speaks to my historically cynical heart.
Overheard a woman on NPR today in a rebroadcast from Nov. 9, 1989. When asked to put into words what it was like to finally visit her grandmother in East Germany, she paused for a long time and finally said, “I cannot say it. That I cannot say.”
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Awesome.
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