The Spree, Berlin’s primary central river and, like the Havel from our last post, also often the border between east and west. The image below is looking pretty much east with the TV tower at Alexanderplatz (very much East Berlin, in the day), and above looking more or less west to where the post-reunification Central Train Station was built. Also in the photo above you’ll notice eight human figures on a sign along the riverfront. These are commemorating eight individual humans killed while trying to cross from east to west in the decades when this border was so deadly. One of them was more or less exactly my age and was killed crossing with her boyfriend, who made to the west alive, during the year I myself was spending an exchange year not far from Hamburg in “the west.” Note to self, be glad of each day you wake up with a chance to help foster more joy in the world.
(so much world, so little time....) 
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