...Blowin' up the palace looks good on paper, but will it make for good cinema?...

The one aspect of making our Berlin films that stands out as most intriguing to me is the fact that we are going to be capturing this city, at this time, in this way...and it will never be like this again. It is different for other cities, I think. Most other cities don't have the history of rapid change, of destroying the edifices of the past only to rebuild them later, of destruction, rubble, and rebuilding.

Eddie Izzard once joked that Europe is where the history comes from and that we "tear (our) history down man! Fifty-years-old? Let's smash it to the ground and put a car park here."

Every time I walk or ride my bike past the former site of the palace, and soon to be former site of the Palace of the People, I think of that line and wonder if Mr. Izzard knows how apropos that line is of Berlin's cityscape.

One of the reasons that I posted the YouTube link to the U2 video is to show just how different Pariser Platz looked in 1993. Just watch as the bus turns left near the Brandenburg Gate and you'll notice a distinct lack of buildings.

Years from now, when I come back, my embassy will be completed and there will be a tramline in that area. There will, most likely, be less construction. But the skyline will still hug the ground, relatively speaking.

And so, we go out with our cameras to documenting now.

And now is a good time.