Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, and a Jump

I've completed 19 miles of the 30-mile Berlin Wall walking challenge I started last week. I've learned a few things about the Berlin Wall, increased my motivation to exercise, and I even look forward to walking (most days). 

After passing Checkpoint Charlie (which was really just a wooden shed when it was used as a crossing point between East and West Berlin), I came to the Brandenburg Gate. I've always imagined it as a magnificent sort of gate that was opened to mark special occasions, but I learned that while it was a gate when Berlin was a small walled city circa 1730, the current structure was built between 1788 and 1891. It has stood since then despite being damaged in WWII, through war and peace. 

Yesterday I reached Bernauer Straße where the first casualty of the Wall happened. It was also where 34 West Berlin students dug a 475 ft tunnel under the street, and 57 people used it to escape. An East German border patrolman, Hans Konrad Schumann, decided that he longer wanted to keep his fellow citizens imprisoned, so he dropped his machine gun and took a leap of faith over barbed wire to safely escape to West Germany. Things like this give me some small glimmers of hope today. 

I'm enjoying my trek through Berlin. Only 11 miles left to go!