“Who designed these buildings?” I asked.

“When were they built? What year specifically?” “Were they meant to prove something?” “What happens here?”

“They’re made with lots of glass because democracy is transparent,” said my False German Tour Guide, sipping coffee.

God, it was cold.

If I could count on one hand the number of things I believe about foreign (to me) cities, because somebody gave me an off-the-cuff answer.

The catacombs in Paris, the Reichstag in Berlin, the pantheon in Rome. My brain is an encyclopedia of inherited memory.

“I don’t know who built it, but my Mom said that her great Uncle once met a guy who claimed to have….”

History is a giant game of telephone.

(Echo, echo, echo…)