Berlin, second photoshoot

So where was I? About to be dislodged in Kreuzberg, I think. Of course I don't remember much at this far remove, but walking down the Kreuzberg street to get to Chez Gert und Laura was quite pleasant: lots of three, four storey houses a couple of centuries old, which gave the neighbourhood the kind of urbane feel I'm not going to get in Oakleigh. And square houses, which reminded me of Vienna—the last place I'd seen stately Middle European architecture. Trees in moderation, unfamiliar building colours. Unfamiliar enough to be interesting, familiar enough not to be alienating. Yeah, I could get used to it. Not all the houses were as wedding-cake as this:




—but that this wedding cake could be an apartment block was somehow reassuring to me: if I'm going to live in an apartment, the building might as well be a conversation piece.

Once out of the bus, we passed a fair number of quirky shops, as befits a neighbourhood like Kreuzberg. I thought one place was selling pet clothes, and no, it wasn't—but given the odds and ends it did sell, the guess was entirely plausible. The vaguely dodgy card shark joint with the motorbikes in the front window. (Quick getaway?) The bar with its drag queen owner prominently featured in the advertising, only the drag queen was female, and larger than life in several senses. And I didn't even notice the Button Shop. Owned by a Mr Button. Honest! Knopf, Paul.

It was in good spirits, engendered by the cross of funkiness and stolidness in the neighbourhood, that I barged into the entrance of Gert's building—after pausing to commiserate with Gert over the upcoming firehouse red paintjob the street frontage was about to get. (Some colours, we're unfamiliar with in the Anglosphere for a reason.) I greeted with similar joy the concept of a courtyard, opposite the entrance. A very civilised notion, this Atrium of Berliners, and I hadn't come across it elsewhere (because I don't get out much). You build these stolid square apartment buildings in a square, siehst du, and put a yard in the middle. Very cool. Conceptually, anyway: the actual performance was a bit more grey and jumbled than that, but it's a very sociable idea. For some reason, the information that some places do chain-courtyards, nested three or four squares deep, fascinated me: chain sociability. I *think* this is an instance of it:



I was less joyful to realise that I was going to have to lug my Suitcase of Immobility up four flights of stairs, with no lift to speak of. There, Berlin was unlike Athens: by the time Athens had surrendered its fate to apartment blocks, elevators had been invented. I'd like to think I was not so callous as to leave Gert to drag up the more immobile of the two suitcases. Really I would.

My recollection is that I barged into Gert's flat, greeted Laura, praised the layout of the flat, rushed straight into the kitchen, and grabbed some water that wasn't actually intended for me. I could be projecting or telescoping or something. But I was pretty excited to be there (the bright light helped), and kept quizzing my hosts about either what they'd been up to or all things Berliner for an hour. Whoosh.

The interrogation was how I found out about the Pilsner ad campaign "The Dignity Of Beer Is Inviolable"—prominently figuring on the wall. Asking what that was all about led me on a guided tour of the German Constitution (The Dignity of Man is Inviolable"; as the followup lecture from Dale established, a *very* big deal in Germany, and as Gert frowned, not the optimal phrase for a Czech company to base an ad campaign on.) Asking what on earth prompted the concern with Beer Dignity in the first place was how I found out about Hefeweizen–Grapefruit cooler. (Great blog posting about it, that, but don't you go saying bad things about Cloyingly Sweetened Lambics. I did think this stuff was more wrong than a lambic can ever be.)

Which meant that I had no choice but to imbibe it when I came across it, later that night:



And yes, that's the Deutschland cap. But back to the flat. There were some things about the layout of the flat that reminded me of flats in Greece. I guess Germany is a plausible source for Greek apartment aesthetics; there was something nicely spartan about the kitchen (although no Greek flat would have a roof that tall). The room that struck me as most Greek was the bathroom. Something about the tiles and the water heater. And as I rushed into the bathroom to immortalise it, my hosts chuckled indulgently, and ended up immortalised themselves. Bildhübsch, ne?




Because we had a timetable to stick to, after an hour I was out the door: Gert was going to show me All Of Berlin in three hours, and the best way to guarantee that was to send me up the Berlin Television Tower, from where you can literally, uh, see All Of Berlin. Nifty, eh?

Getting to the Television Tower involved the Berlin Subway, and the Berlin Subway featured the kind of ad that would get you some serious fines in Australia:



What does that packet say? *Mumble*... can... something-deadly... something... Why I have no idea what would be written underneath that strategically placed cigarette. Hats off!

In fact, that inspires me to take another breather. Next stop, Television Tower:

Berlin, first photoshoot

I'd already summarised my sojourn in Berlin as a timeline and a report. Having left it for so long, the experience is awash and faded enough that I can get away with just one more posting about it. A long posting, with pictures. And some ill-founded cultural critiques.

[EDIT: Crap. I have only one post's worth of memories without prompting from photos; with photos, this will go on a bit longer...]

The trip around England had the odd crank piece of commentary; and of course my every minute in Belgium was filtered through my own particular take on the Franco–Flemish divide, which should have gotten me in a lot of strife. They did not, because I was doing cultural critique as drive-by shooting: the commentary was confined to the page, and did not get shared with the locals. (In the instance of Newcastle, the commentary was coming from my friend Camilla, who was not a local anyway; and I'd hit my first of two walls in terms of exhaustion while in England—so I didn't blog about it much.)

With Berlin, I won't quite get away with the same drive-by tactics, because I ran my impressions past some actual Germans—Gert there, Dale back here; and whaddaya know, my impressions are not necessarily well founded. That's a useful corrective in case you're taking any of the blog content seriously. If you are, you might want to reconsider: the blog has ended up an excuse to string together stream-of-consciousness shaggy dog stories about lambics, which have only an approximate relation to the truth.

That said, my ignorance was of great benefit when I went to Berlin: I had the best time of the entire trip, and it was largely because I knew close to nothing about the city. I knew they had a Gate, and a Wall, and a Reichstag, and a Love Parade, and a Free and a Humbolt Uni, and some new glass buildings. That was it, more or less. As a result, Berlin surprised me a lot. I hadn't articulated or even thought about what I expected; in retrospect, I probably got my Axis powers mixed up, and was expecting Rome. I didn't get Rome; as both my German contacts so far pointed out to me (with some degree of bewilderment), Berlin never claimed to be pretty. But Berlin was unexpected, and that made it enjoyable.

I feel sort of bad that I enjoyed Berlin more than I enjoyed Newcastle; that of course is no aspersion on Camilla's good company while she was in town. It is very much an aspersion on Newcastle's weather: rain Saturday, gale Sunday, miserable either day. We'd made a brave attempt to explore the riverside; but most of the exploring of the city was done inside the Laing gallery, which confined the rain and gales to the paintings. (There was an exhibition of art about Newcastle, so there was still plenty of gales to be seen indoors.) Berlin was sunny and mellow, and had a street party on with grapefruit–beer cooler. Newcastle would do well to lift its game, and take some pointers from Berlin already. Though maybe not with the grapefruit–beer cooler. See if you can't get a better deal on gales, at least. Maybe move inland a bit, away from the North Sea. That's the ticket.

Ok, back to Berlin. Berlin has new glass buildings: this I knew already. The Central Rail Station, which was the first building after the 20 meters of Baden-Württemburg I saw, is a very recent construction—



—and lo, it was glass:



M'kay. Not to my taste, but whatever. I learn from Wikipedia that the 1882 Lehrter Metropolitan Rail Station (Statdbahnhof), which was a heritage listed building and had survived the war (unlike the Intercity station), was demolished to make way for the New Glass Building. This is my drive-by shooting commentary theme: Old Things get dealt with here more brusquely than I expected. It doesn't necessarily mean (as I'd assumed) that the past is denied. But it isn't necessarily kept around either.

The Rail Station is across the Wall from East Berlin, so it was not Ampelmänchen territory. But the tourists like that kind of thing, and tourists go to the Central Rail Station, so the hat-wearing pedestrian has made it across:




On the way from Central Rail Station to Kreuzberg: Anhalter Station. Or what's left of it: the facade has been left as bombed. I scooted by it quickly in the bus (as befits my drive-by social commentary); but it was a great facade. (This piece of the past, obviously, was kept around.)



Hm, this has gone on for a while. OK, break.

Berlin: A first report

The Berlin experience started with me getting off the plane, and into the ramp tunnel thingy they attach to the plane, manufactured by a company based in Baden–Württemberg. Krämer, I think. The company saw fit to advertise not just itself (Krämer Men installing lightbulbs, Krämer Men cleaning up a party, Krämer Men being Krämer Men), but also their home state.

• At the opposite side of the ramp tunnel thingy: "You are now stepping onto Twenty Metres of BADEN–WÜRTTEMBERG!"
  
• In the corner of one ad, "Now that you've arrived in Berlin Airport, log in to http://www.berlinairport.de , to find out how you can make a connecting flight to BADEN–WÜRTTEMBERG!" (... Connecting flight? Now? But I don't wanna go to Stuttgart; it was enough of a hassle moving to Berlin. Dale hasn't even come back to Heidelberg or anything.)
  

And the slogan tucked away in all the ads:

Baden–Württemberg. Wir können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch.

I was sure I missed something, but no, I read it correctly:

Baden–Würtemberg. We can do ANYTHING!!!1!!!

Except speak in Standard German.

I'm sure they think they're too cool to speak Standard German, or too busy building airplane ramps or something. Problem is, outside of some bits of Saxony-Anhalt, none of the states speaks standard German; so this does not exactly single Baden-Würtemberg out. Still, I can see huge LolCat potential here:




moar funny pictures

The executive summary of Berlin (which will be enhanced if and if I get time):

• My German sucks.
  
• Berlin has a lot of ugly hurried buldings. And they're not restricted to the East.
  
• Berlin has a few wonderful Roman buildings (Good thinking, Friderice Rex Borrusice!)
  
• Berlin, especially the East, has some amazingly jarring contrast, between the old, the new, and the rushed. Which gives it a lot of historical texture.
  
• There are bits of historical texture that get swept under the carpet still. Hitler's Bunker --- blink and you miss it. (At least there's an explanatory display on the site.) My friend Leslie saw how trashed The Stadium at Nuremberg is now. (I'll use the pics when I get to it.) And the rush to tear down the East German Palace of the Republic is unseemly. The photos will speak more to that.
  
• Bits of Berlin reminded me of Vienna (where I had been before). Other bits of Berlin, to my surprise, reminded me of Athens. Yes, the rushed bits of the landscape did; but also the interior layout of the apartment. Athens does not do back courtyards, though (let alone mutiply nested courtyards); and more's the pity for Athens.
  
• Ostalgie (nostalgia for the GDR) is alive and well. In fact, for tourist reasons, the Ampelmänchen (East German traffic light figure, with hat) is not only kept on in East Berlin, but is spreading to the West.
  
• It's World Cup season, so one of the few times in the decade when German flags are allowed in the open. It's a delight to see. Especially when the cars double up, reconciling their twin allegiances: German and Russian flags, or German and Turkish flags.
  
• My habitual greeting to Gert ("Auf Wiener Schnitzel!") was converted into a night of dining at the Austria Restaurant, Kreuzberg. The schnitzel was so huge, it would have had trouble landing at Heathrow. It blocked out the sun. It left the layers of potato salad and lemons beneath well shaded. You could eat off it for a month.
  
• Berlin has latterly embraced the street party as a neighbourhood institution. Kreuzberg was up for it that night: Kreuzberg jazzt!, the posters said. I didn't hear all that much jazz; I heard some Balkan gypsy music morph into Latin. Gert pointed out that after the first few street parties, the sequence of Food, Drink, and Couple of Bands got old; but it was novel to me.
  
• Grapefruit–Beer cooler. So very very wrong. So wrong in fact, it almost made sense. But it figures why Pilsner Urquell tried to get the Reinheitsgebot (the German Beer Purity Laws) enshrined in the German constitution. (Eh, ad campaign I'll come back to.)
  
• Laibach's rendering of Bach's Art of Fugue in Industrial Techno. (Gert played highlights to me as I fidgeted nervously about my departure to Athens.) So very very wrong in a different way, which again almost made sense. Not in the live concert, as he reported. But the album recording counterpoints Bach with their own techno noisemaking in an interestingly textured way. Much like downtown East Berlin, in fact.
  
• Laura's English is starting to have its own texturing with German interference. "You are in the near of it." Utterly cool; she is being be-Germaned.
  
• My German sucks. Thought I'd say so again. So I was not that be-Germaned --- despite protests to the contrary. The protests included the purchase of a Deutschland cap --- remember, it's only every four years you can wear such things publicly in Germany. (This will cause issues with my uncle tonight when he's watching the Euro soccer final tonight.)
  

Oh boy, does my German suck. Some examples:

• Austria Restaurant
  

  
  *Nick fails to eat a quarter of the Biggest Schnitzel in Christendom*
  
  HEIDI THE AUSTRIA RESTAURANT WAITRESS: You know, we make a hundred of these every day.
  
  GERT: Well, I think the gentleman would like another one.
  
  HEIDI: He'll have to finish this portion first.
  
  EVERYBODY BUT NICK: Heheheh
  

  
  
  
• Austria Restaurant, as understood at the time by Nick
  

  
  *Nick fails to eat a quarter of the Biggest Schnitzel in Christendom*
  
  HEIDI THE AUSTRIA RESTAURANT WAITRESS: Mein Hut hat drei Ecke hundred of these every day.
  
  GERT: Freude schöner Götterfunken another Tocher aus Elysium.
  
  HEIDI: Od und Leer finish das Meer first.
  
  EVERYBODY BUT NICK: Heheheh
  

  
  
  
• Kreuzberg Jazzt!
  

  
  *Nick buys Deutschland Football Cap*
  
  RANDOM GERMAN WOMAN: [in joyous recognition to Nick, sung to tune of Volare] Fi-nale!
  
  NICK: ... woah-oah (?)
  
  RANDOM GERMAN WOMAN TO HER KID: See, if you say "Fi-nale" to people, they will immediately understand what you mean.
  
  RANDOM GERMAN WOMAN TO HER KID, AS UNDERSTOOD BY NICK: Meine Ruh is hin, mein Herz understand ist schwer.
  

  
  
  
• Morning bus to airport
  

  
  *Gert buys ticket on bus*
  GERT: A single ticket, please.
  
  NICK: I also hases the single ticket, please you.
  
  *Coins worth €2.5 go on a tray*
  
  *Nick pops money into tray slots specific to each denomination. Because that's what they're there for, right?*
  
  BUS DRIVER WOMAN: No you don't do that. If you do that in the supermarket, they'll give you a slap on the wrist.
  
  *Bus driver woman mimes a slap on the wrist a bit close to an actual slap on the wrist*
  
  *Change pops out of other side of tray*
  
  *Nick tries to pop change back into the slots, because he thought the ticket was €2.50 and not €2.10
  
  *Bus driver woman issues sounds of consternation*
  
  *Bus passengers find this all very amusing, given how German they are supposed to be*
  
  *Gert retrieves the €0.40 change to put me out of my misery*
  
  *I follow after Gert*
  
  NICK: Uh... what just happened?
  

  
  

... What indeed.

Berlin: A chronography

It was quick, but very much worthwhile. In fact, reporting on Berlin will take up several days of Greek downtime.

Be warned, my German is a lot worse than my French, which impose a layer of haze in my interaction with the outside world. I was sublimely lucky that Gert and Laura were prepared to mediate with the world for me. As always, I am not worthy of the kindness of my friends. (Or so I keep telling them.)


Berlin itself? Well, there'll be much photography attached, but here was the sequence of events. (All times approximate to the nearest hour.)

Saturday 13:45

Arrive in Berlin.

14:30

Finally escape from passport control, which, in a fit of German efficiency, was brought right up to the airplane exit (past a strip of Baden–Württemburg, on which more below).

14:31

See Gert.

14:35

Make way to busstop.

14:38

Start asking Gert questions about Berlin for the next six hours, instead of bloody well buying a guidebook or looking it up online like sensible people do.

15:00

Change buses at Hauptbahnhof. Get introduced to annoying Berlin Bear figurine.

15:30

Make it to sunny downtown Kreuzberg.

15:35

Survive ascent up four flights of stairs with two immobile suitcases in tow.

15:36

See Laura.

15:37

Dump suitcases, beeline for coffee, start klatsching.

16:30

Leave with Gert for quick explore of the city.

17:00

Make it to Telephone Tower, where a bird's eye overview of Berlin is to be had.

17:20

Make it inside the Telephone Tower, negotiating tourist peak time.

17:25

Start gaining bird's eye overview of Berlin.

17:30

Realise am out of battery on my camera, start delegating photography to Gert.

17:50

Stop getting bird's eye overview of Berlin.

18:00

Start exploring Berlin on foot. The following sequence was involved, roughly:

• Dom
  
• Palast der Republik (about to be completely gone)
  
• State Library, Humbolt Uni, Opera House, Museum of Contemporary Art, and assorted Frederican buildings
  
• Frederic Statue
  
• Unter den Linden
  
• Brandenburg Gate
  
• Lame schlager concert on other side of Brandenburg Gate
  
• Holocaust memorial
  
• Conspicuously inconspicuous: The Bunker
  
• German Ministry of Finance, which use to be the GDR Hall of Ministries, which used to be Göring's Luftwaffe offices
  
• Chunk of the Wall
  
• Checkpoint Charlie
  
• Unattractive West Berlin streets; to Gert's disgust, one of them was named after E.T. Hoffman
  
• Somewhat ill-thought out Alley of Visionaries. You too can tread on multilingual platitudes. And if you're Turkish, be puzzled by the missing vowel of MERĦBA.
  

• OK, OK, I'll explain. Merhaba is Turkish for "hello". The word is originally Arabic, and also features in Maltese as merħba. If you're one of the many Turks of Berlin (and Alley of Visionaries is next to or in a Turkish suburb), the inclusion of MERĦBA in the multilingual salutations must look peculiarly askew.

19:30

Scheduled to meet Laura for Austrian dinner.

19:50

Actually make it to Austrian dinner.

20:20

Have the Biggest Schnitzel In Christendom delivered to table.

20:25

Pluck up the courage to start eating the Biggest Schnitzel In Christendom.

21:30

Emerge from Austrian dinner forswearing schnitzel for at least the next day.

21:35

Work way into Kreuzberg Jazzt! street party.

22:15

Make fatal acquaintance of Hefeweißen–Grapefruit beer cooler.

22:30

Make fateful purchase of Deutschland football cap. Start being accosted by merry German football fans, get struck dumb.

22:45

Get caught by sudden torrential downpour outside Döner Kebab shop. Be assured by proprietor: "German weather. Cannot trust him."

23:00

Make it back to Kreuzberg Apartments, shlep mattress up four flights of stairs.

23:10

Discover that Gert & Laura's neighbour Gabi, God bless her socks whoever she is, has left her wireless open to all comers. Abuse the privileges for the next quarter hour.

23:30

Zzzz.

Sunday 05:30

Oh God, am I *still* on Yerevan Time?

06:00

Wake up, abuse Gabi's internet connection some more.

06:30

Pretend to be asleep some more.

07:00

Give up trying.

08:00

Furtively shower.

9:00

Bid a good morning to Gert and Laura.

9:55

Get introduced to Laibach's techno/industrial rendering of The Art of Fugue.

10:10

Get the bus for the airport.

11:10

Get to airport with twenty minutes to spare before boarding.

11:15

Find I'm 7 kg overweight, because I didn't read the fine print on Olympic Airways baggage allowances. Because they made it so easy to find out what the baggage allowances were. Get told to pay €105 at Olympic Counter.

11:20

Clear security.

11:30

Realise that they actually meant the Olympic Counter back at the main building of Tegel.

11:31

"Could Mr Nick Nicholas please come to counter 73". (Dr, dammit, Dr Nicholas.)

11:33

Counter official relents and lets me pay her personally at the counter. I still need someone from Olympic to make her way over from the main building with my receipt.

11:37

While we're waiting, I help translate at the counter for some Albanians going back to Greece from Majorca, whose luggage has been misplaced. Counter chick asks me to confirm that their Greek visa is still valid. Who died and appointed you Greek border security already, I fail to exclaim.

11:38

"Please to excuses me, madam, is possible I can go to flight without the receipt?"
"Oh, no sir, there it comes now."

11:39

Guiltily abandon the Albanians to their fate, because I'm boarding already.

11:43

I'm not boarding yet (back of the queue), and two relieved Albanians join me. They had their luggage after all, they'd just misplaced the label.

11:45

Albanian dude offers to help with my suitcase. I am suitably mortified.

11:46

Nick tries to remember how to say "Where in Albania are you from" --- and fails. (So I do not utter the ungrammatical Nga ku në Shqiperi... uh... është?)

11:50

Board the Olympic flight to Athens scheduled to leave at 11:50.

11:55

Start smalltalk with German woman next to me. The fateful Deutschland football cap strikes again. To my surprise, I understand about 80% of what she is saying, as opposed to 20% in Kreuzberg.

12:15

The plane actually leaves; remember, they work on "Greek time".

12:30

I start writing up my Berlin blog.

13:00

Food arrives, and smalltalk resumes in earnest. I am still mostly (though not entirely) struck dumb by lack of German; but that's ok, she talks enough for both of us. :-) She has spent a lot of time in Greece, so on the rare occasions I let on that I'm not following, she annotates with Greek; English gets used only a couple of times. (My blog is behind, but I do have to do some living in order to have something to blog about.)

15:45

Arrive at Athens.

16:00

Find Athens has no facility for purchasing wireless access; you have to have roaming with one of about five European telcos. Retarded, seriously retarded. Am fearful that will not get on line for the next ten days.

16:20

Hello again, Costly And Immobile Suitcase. You'll pay for this. Coz I already did.

16:30

To relieve some weight, mail Notis' thesis to Australia. Greek Post Office staff indulge in customer service that is both lackadaisical and good-humoured.

*Chat among themselves for three minutes.*
*Start handing over stamps*.
"What star sign are you?"
"Uh, Virgo?"
"Have a Saggitarius stamp. We have plenty on offer."

16:40

Board Metro train for Athens. Next stop, Constitution Square. Next next stop, an uncle in Upper New Smyrna, who's going to be very disconcerted by my Deutschland football cap....