Helen FieldsScience Writer

I just caught a segment on German public TV called “Countdown: Mauerfall.” Mauer = wall; Fall = fall.

It’s totally cool – they’re counting down to November 9, the day the Berlin Wall fell, by showing TV news from that time. I think it’s actually from this date in 1989. Today’s was about people leaving East Germany. A major way to do that was through Hungary, which was starting to do the whole glasnost thing; people waited for days in lines outside the West German embassy in Budapest, while the East German secret police photographed them.

The news also showed interviews with East German vacationers at campgrounds in Hungary who were like, well, we sure hope they don’t close the border and take away our vacation spot just because some people have to go and abuse the privilege of travel to Hungary.