Saturday July 16, 2016
The day didn’t start out well. I thought I was going to the Lululemon Athletica yoga class Nicole had told me about. When I checked it last week it seemed close. This time it was 34 minutes away. M2 to Alex. S7 to Zoological Garden and a 13 minute walk. It is if you turn left on Fasanenstr. By mistake I took a right. When a friendly person made me aware I was going in the wrong direction, I turned around and part walked, part jogged and for a very short while actually ran in the opposite direction, not wanting to be late for the start of the class. I passed a Jewish Community Center which was guarded by a policeman and an ununiformed not so friendly guy who spoke English with an Israeli accent. Possibly Mossad. The site was a Reform Synagogue destroyed in Kristallnacht.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasanenstrasse_Synagogue
When I got to the corner of Fasenenstr and Kurfurstendamof, I realized I was in a very high end area. It is called City West.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_West
I have spent most of my time in East Berlin. The few parts of West Berlin I have seen are noticeably more upscale. The block Lululemon was on was tree-lined and had many art galleries and small shops, such as one that had Art Deco jewelry and silverware. So I get to Lululemon City West at 10:30 when the class is supposed to begin and no one is inside the store. I started walking back and saw some people sitting at tables and chairs under umbrellas on beautiful grounds and a lovely house. It said Wintergarten LiteraturhausBerlin. I decided to have breakfast there. Although it was quite crowded I was able to choose a table on the porch out of the sun but with a lovely outside view where I could enjoy the 68 degree outside temperature.. Coffee, bacon, eggs, a roll and the German version of hash browns which they call hash browns. It was well served, tasty and the aura of the place was very calming. I inquired about the Literaturhaus and I was directed through a door to the interior of a lovely old home and up the stairs. A young woman greeted me and told me it was an exhibition of the work of Anselm Gluck who began as a writer and became an artist. She said he was born in 1950. Was that supposed to make me think he was old? She said it was free and invited me to go through the exhibition and gave me a free postcard.
I enjoyed the exhibition.
Then I walked back to Lululemon which opened at noon and was told the yoga wasn’t at the City West store but indeed the Mitte store which is much closer to me. Oh, well. Not the first time I’ve made that kind of mistake and not the only mistake I will have made today. I continued back along Fasanenstr. And came to the Kathe Kollwitz Museum.
https://www.berlin.de/en/museums/3109548-3104050-kaethekollwitzmuseum-berlin.en.html
I went in and said there is a Kollwitz Street near where I’m staying in Prezlauer Berg. I was told by the young man at the counter that the street was named for her and there Kollwitz Platz is named for her which contains a reproduction of a large sculpture. By the time I write this I went there the next day.
http://www.visitberlin.de/en/spot/kollwitzplatz-schoenhauser-allee
Knowing the street could not always have had that name, I decided to look up when the name was changed and also other names that I have passed nearly daily. The street was renamed to Kollwitz October 7, 1947 in honor and memory (she died after the war in 1945 in her ‘80‘s) of Kathe Kollwitz, “a socially committed artist.” Rosa Luxemburg Platz and Karl-Liebknecht were artists and friends of Kollwitz. They were murdered in 1919 because they were communists. In 1947 the East German government named a plaza was named for Luxemberg and a major thoroughfare named Karl-Liebknecht Strasse (it is the continuation Prenzlauer Allee, which is a few steps from my apartment, which has had its current name since 1879), which runs to Alexanderplatz (East German President Walter Umbricht’s hokey tallest structure in Berlin but it is my beacon) and beyond.
So, moving right along, I stopped at a Starbucks on Kurfurstendamof and Fasenenstr. It gave me a chance to relax, have a cold brew and check things out the very thorough list of things my friend Bobbie had given me of things to do in Berlin. Two, Kaiser Wilhelm’s church and KaDaWe, the famed department store, were short walks away down Kurfurstendamof. The closer I got, the more densely commercial it got. The front of the church is magnificent but the side is still bombed out. I made a quick stop in on the next to top floor of KaDaWe to get some salami and wurst and cheese to take with me and ate a quick bratwurst. I wasn’t hungry but as the saying from Other People’s Money goes, you don’t have to be hungry to . . . .
My guess is I will return to the top floor and dine.
The U2 station was just outside KaDeWe and in a short time I was off the train at Senenfelder Str., my stop, but as I got off the train I became aware of my second mistake of the day. I realized I had not taken the key to the apartment with me. I would not be able to get in. I called Gritta the Airbnb hostess/landlady. She said she was in Basel and would be returning in a day. I said I was desperate. She said she would call a friend with a key. As I walked to a park bench to wait to hear from her, I noticed a hotel on Senenfelder Str. I sat on the park bench (Berlin is full of parks and especially Prenzlauer Berg). I had brought with me a portable charger and began to recharge my Skyroam portable wifi. I had a Mophie to charge the phone. I was calculating checking into the hotel, getting to the Berliner Ensemble Theater to see The Three Penny Opera and determining whether I would have to make a stop at Saturn (the Best Buy of Germany) for any electronics to tide me over and thinking about plans for Sunday to meet friends from Houston who are also visiting. I saw a text. Gritta had a friend who could meet me if I could get there in ten minutes. I called him and met him in five minutes. He had the key and let me in. I will wear it around my neck at all times from now on.
The point I guess is if you go with the flow and you are open your best laid plans can go awry and you can still have a wonderful time. Go where the green light in your mind tells you the intersection might be interesting.
Marc's Berlin Diaries 