Berlin In Three Pictures

Zum Ersten...

A bas relief as the base of Berlin's Victory Column. If you've seen Wings of Desire, you know the monument.

This sculpture wraps around the base of the monument. The final days of WWII have rendered it a most true war monument. In this panel, a shrapnel-wounded Jesus oversees watches over as an equally bullet-strained congregation prays together. An officer, soon to head off to war, deals with the priest directly, but his top has been lost entirely. On other panels, brave soldiers ride to war on horses who have had their legs blown off, and brave men missing heads and arms march in column formation.

Zweiten...

The East German Amplemaennchen makes a comeback! This little guy was an endangered species after the unification. As East and West Germany merged, the nation had to agree upon whose version of everything it would use, including whose traffic lights, the East or the West? While everything standardized to the Western version, the East Germans rallied around their walk/no-walk guy. (Ample Mann - traffic light man) Sure, they said, your devices are higher quality, and of more advanced engineering. But our Amplemaennchen is cuter than you'll ever be able to match. Throw us a bone. Let us keep our Amplemaennchenen. And it seems that after initial setbacks, the Amplemaennchen is making a comeback. Rejoice!

Dritten...

Geek porn is a real German board game store shelf. That's right, Lukass, I know you got hot and bothered just looking at this. d23, Nixon, don't think I didn't just hear you unzip. Acidgrampa, obd, I'm looking at you. No, wait, I'm not. That's disgusting.

But see there... see the copy of Power Grid in the corner? See all the expansions they haven't ever translated next to it? Seems they're down to only one copy of Agricola, and not even Spielbrett can keep La Havre in stock.