Obama in Berlin
It just goes to show you. Everybody who's anybody is coming to Berlin. During •Barack Obama's first European tour as a candidate, he spoke to a receptive crowd of over 200,000 cheering fans. Although Obama is also visiting London and Paris on his trip, he chose Berlin as the venue for his major public speech.
In his speech, he talked about restoring the trans-Atlantic relationship, combating global climate change, and the needs to "tear down the walls" between various cultures and social standings. The whole speech was very heavy on the wall metaphor, but what else was he going to say in Berlin.
All in all, a successful appearance that showed that America does have the ability to produce a leader that the world can work with. And if you can impress a crowd in Berlin, the rest of the world will be easy.
As the editor of the PROLOG newsletter and as an American abroad, I knew I had to be there. I got there three hours before Obama was to speak because I knew the crowd would be massive. The newspapers had estimates from 10,000 to one million people. When I arrived, some had even made it into the front "security zone" before me. After being checked through Heathrow-like security, I was able to get about 50 meters from the stage. Luckily, my cameras made it through and I was able to capture this monumental speech. Below you can see the result...