Author: Marc's Berlin Diaries

In the wee small hours of  Saturday, July 30, 2016

Maybe Berlin Is A City That Never Sleeps as well

That first Sunday brunch in Berlin at Pasternak (Wi-Fi password Perestroika), I asked the waitress about going to clubs.  She looked at me (gray-bearded me) and laughed and said, “You want to go clubbing?”  I said, “Sure, why not?”  She smiled and wrote down a list of clubs for me.  I kept it but didn’t really think about going until I was in my last few days and wondered what I hadn’t done yet that I should do before I left.  Clubbing came to mind and what I took to be a challenge by the very young waitress.  I went on the Internet and saw a list of the top ten clubs in Berlin.

http://berlinclubs.com/

Nearly all the clubs on her list were in the top ten.  And  #1  was Berghain & Panorama Bar – “The Church of Techno.”

Berghain was not the only one that looked like a fun place to go that didn’t have any dire warnings such as the description of KitKat.  Sysyphos looked good and I liked the name but physical access didn’t look so easy at night in an area I wasn’t sure I was familiar with.  So it came to a coin toss between Berghain and Tresor (“Berlin’s Techno Legend”), which was number 10.  Why not go with number 1?  It was a good choice.

I guess this really is a Saturday, July 30, 2016 adventure because I didn’t leave the apartment until after 12:30 a.m.  According to the website, it didn’t get started until 11:59 pm.  Also it said don’t wear your best clothes.  I wore dark Joe’s Jeans and an old thin round neck black sweater  (Okay, it was Armani cashmere but who would know). I got to Berghain about 12:45 a.m.  I was thinking that when A took me  to Urban Spree on a Sunday night the reason it was so dead is that it was too early.

Berghain is in a building that was a former power plant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berghain

There wasn’t a line and I entered easily.  The first guy who checked me was a big black guy from New York.  Michael.  He was very nice.  He told me apologetically he had to put dots over the camera holes in my phone.  No pictures.  I guess what happens at Berghain stays at Berghain.  I’m also very sure a lot happens that I missed, but I had a great time.  Michael told me to go up to the third floor.  I noticed there was one more floor.

When I walked in it wasn’t very crowded and no one was dancing.  A DJ was playing.  I remember the website had them changing DJs at 2:00 am 4:00 am, 6:00 am and 8:00 am.  I got a beer and chatted with a nice couple from Manchester.  Young.  She didn’t look like the Oxford type, mod haircut, tattoos,  but she’s going to Oxford studying medical imaging.  She brushed against my sweater and then touched my arm.  It wasn’t me, it was the cashmere. The place began to fill and the dance floor began to get crowded.  After two beers (one with a shot of tequila) or was it three, I ventured on to the dance floor.    There was not a single overweight person on the  dance floor and I don’t think in the whole club.  Berliners asked me if everyone in America was fat.  Indoor smoking is not prohibited.  There were lots of smokers.  Occasionally I smelled weed.  I went to the bathroom and I saw four peoplem three young men and a young woman come, out of a stall.   Then, I noticed couples coming out of stalls, some adjusting their clothing.  I thought, hmmm.  As I stood at a trough to pee (it was against the back wall but a couple was sitting on a bench facing the trough.  Oh, well.).  I recalled someone mentioning to me the KitKat – was it when I was at Kaffe Burger (which doesn’t serve coffee or burgers but instead serves alcohol and has live music) – saying they probably won’t let you in.  In the list of bars, Berghain was first and KitKat was four.  The write up said, “it’s a sex club.”   Gay sex there.  I passed on that as an option, so I won’t know if I would have been rejected. It was not for me, but I don’t judge others. As to Berghain, it was mostly heterosexual, but there was this one young guy who seemed to be protected by a small, young Asian woman.  He was wearing a very tight body suit, so tight that but for the fact it was bright green (green enough for color blind me to recognize the color) it looked like he didn’t have anything on from behind.  He also had very skillfully applied eye make-up.  He really looked smashing.  I told him so.  He thanked me.  Later on he saw me again and kissed me on the cheek.  There were probably other people there besides me who were over 30, but I didn’t see even one of them.  For the entire time I was there, the techno beat was insistent, pulsating, unrelenting, unbroken and at times hypnotic.  I danced, from time to time having a partner (actually twirled a few) but basically people dance without touching.  Each time the DJ changed there was a cheer so each DJ must have his following.  The crowd was getting larger and larger and many were wearing backpacks so the dance floor got really jammed.  I headed downstairs after 4:30 because I started getting tired and I knew today, I should get packing first.  I made my way back down to where I had entered.  Michael, the bouncer, told me that Saturday night (Sunday morning) they have the big speakers on the top floor (we were on the next to top floor) and that I should come back.  I wouldn’t have to stand in line.  Pointing to some white bruisers who resembled skinheads, he said, “Just come right up here.  They knew you now.”  Studio 54 passed through my mind.  I said I have a flight out at noon.  He said, just come for an hour or two.  It’s cool.

When I left Berghain, the sun was rising and I was tired.  I walked, thinking I was going in the direction of the train.  After walking a while, I realized I was not walking in the direction of the train I took to get there, if any train at all. I was really feeling tired, so I said, what the hell, hailed a taxi and got a ride back to Prenzlauer Allee and Belforterstr.

I got home and felt exhausted. I took off my clothes.  My sweater smelled of cigarettes.  My jeans smelled of cigarettes.  I have no idea how or even why I noticed but even my underwear smelled of cigarettes.  The one thing that didn’t smell of cigarettes was my SmartWool merino wool socks.  They are as good as advertised.  I crashed.  Woke up a few hours later because I hadn’t closed the sunblockers on the windows and the bright sun awakened me.  But I went back to sleep.  I woke up at about ten.  Soon enough to make Lululemon yoga if I rushed but I wasn’t about to rush.  I knew I should start packing.  But then I wrote this before I started.  I didn’t want to lose it.

Prenzlauer Berg Redux

“I still stand on that hill, the Prenzlauer Berg is called. From here I went in all directions, driven, flown. Subheadings I keep coming back. From some encounters there fixed links have emerged. From other fine threads have been preserved. Some are parallels. Some intersect. Many I’ve even interwoven. Here the friendly associated collaborators make new threads in the power of cooperation, take on organic forms, interpret them, they continue to – organismo universalis.”

Gee, I wish I had written that.  Instead I have lifted it from the brochure describing the Threads of Connection exhibition

http://www.museumsportal-berlin.de/en/exhibitions/organische-verbindungen-threads-of-connection/

at the Pankow Museum

http://www.museumsportal-berlin.de/en/museums/museumsverbund-pankow-prenzlauer-allee-227/

So once again I talk about Prenzlauer Berg.

Having passed many times both the front entrance of the museum on Prenzlauer Allee and its back entrance on Kolmarer Str. across from Wasserturm park, this week I decided I had to go in before I left.  Both the exhibition in the main building, which tracks the neighborhood, especially the Jewish community and the Rykestrasse Synagogue,

 

The pictures are of Jewish life and the map of the area before the removal of the Jews.  The legend below the two girls says they were departed to Lodz and died in 1941.

the Threads of Connection exhibition, from which the quote came, is in the small building across the plaza on the museum grounds

Both were stirring, thought provoking and entertaining.   The museum, which has all its signs and exhibitions in German and no English speaking volunteers or workers that I found, is a gem I would guess most visitors to Berlin would miss.

I have been so fortunate in my random choices on this trip.

I’ll make this a short one.  I should be finishing my packing.  My last two meals on my last day in Berlin were breakfast at Hilde and dinner at Masel Topf (the Malibu ice cream parlor on Knaackstrasse facing Wassertum part was about to close so I had dessert first).  It hasn’t been my process to repeat on my journeys because that is contrary to the neophilia but I make exceptions.  Hilde and Masel Topf were wonderful exceptions.

Hilde is on the cornder of Prenzlauer Allee and Metzer Str., where the M2 stops.  The owner of Hilde is an admirer of the actress and singer Hildegard Knef (in the US the spelling was Neff) and named her café for her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_Knef

Masel Topf is a Russian Jewish restaurant, on Rykestrasse across from the synagogue and a stones throw from the Wasserturm.  It’s Pulka is the best dish I’ve eaten in Berlin.

Both are in the neighborhood and I feel so fortunate to have randomly chose Berlin and this neighborhood.  It has become home.

I was able to walk to most things because of the proximity of the apartment to most things I did and wanted to do and when I didn’t walk, the transit system stops were so close it was never a problem.  So even though I borrowed from The Book of Clouds and made the t.v. tower at Alexanderplatz my sign in the sky that if I could see it I could get home, I think it was the Wassserturm that was my real security blanket.

“I still stand on that hill, the Prenzlauer Berg is called. From here I went in all directions, driven, flown. Subheadings I keep coming back. From some encounters there fixed links have emerged. From other fine threads have been preserved. Some are parallels. Some intersect. Many I’ve even interwoven. Here the friendly associated collaborators make new threads in the power of cooperation, take on organic forms, interpret them, they continue to – organismo universalis.”

I just can’t say it any better.  It would be hard for me to believe that I will not return.

The Berlin Stories and Goodbye to Berlin (almost but not quite yet)

The title of this blog is Marc’s Berlin Diaries,  an intentional but slightly off allusion to the Christopher Isherwood works The Berlin Stories and Goodbye to Berlin, usually published together in recent decades and from which the play and film “Cabaret” was adapted.  The play, “I am a Camera” was an earlier, non-musical adaptation.  Walter Kerr, the renowned theater critic reviewed “I am a Camera” with three words, “Me, No Leica.”

So I thought it no small coincidence when I saw on a poster advertising das musical “Cabaret.”  Better than that was I happened on to the Berliner Ensemble’s production of the Robert Wilson production of Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Three Penny Opera which surely was in some part an inspiration for the musical Cabaret.  They were the only two theatrical productions I went to.  I wasn’t disappointed.

First Cabaret

“Life is a Cabaret my friends.”  Or maybe it’s not.   I did enjoy the performance very much. Except for three of the songs being sung in English (go figure), it was all in German. The venue, Tipi am Kanzleramt,  was an actual cabaret under a permanent circus-style tent.   In the front is an outside bar (and an interior one) on the edge of the Tiergarten with a view across the Spree of the new government administration building. (according to Google Translate “kanzlerampt” means “chancellery.”)  Seeing Cabaret was also a logical extension of having seen The Three Penny Opera (in which the only English I recognized was “Scotland Yard” – since it was adapted from the English “Beggar’s Opera,” I not totally surprised).  Three Penny Opera was a stronger performance, Broadway quality from cast to orchestra, sets, choreography, but Cabaret is worth seeing and it is having a long run. If you know the dark and jaded story set in and the music, you don’t have to know German to enjoy. The leads were great and so was the supporting cast. A man played the tallest chorus girl.  It wasn’t notable and he was tied with one of the other three for most beautiful (at least until I realized he was a man was really a man 0 actually even then he was beautiful but . . .  (think “Kinky Boots” if you’ve seen it). The band was wonderful. It was quite risqué. A woman with her husband and two grandchildren left with the grandchildren after a pretty raunchy scene feigning some scandalous sex.  I note that her husband stayed until the show was over.

Here is my YouTube posting of the curtain call

http://www.tipi-am-kanzleramt.de/en/programme/overview/cabaret-musical-berlin.html

But the Best was The Three Penny Opera

At the Berliner Ensemble, Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, founded by Berthold Brecht

“An artistic destiny fulfilled, visionary director Robert Wilson joins the world-renowned Berliner Ensemble in a bold production of Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Three Penny Opera – a seminal work of 20th-century music theater.  Wilson’s production recasts the story of Peachum, Polly, and Macheath in a bewitching setting informed equally by the striking designs of German Expressionist cinema and the shattering, seductive world of Weimar-era cabaret.”

I called the theater and asked if it was playing.  The good news was that it was.  The bad news was it was sold out.  I responded by asking please let me know if there was a ticket available.  They contacted me.  I took the ticket.  The seat was on the third and last row of the second balcony but higher than the third balcony. I think it’s possible there are no seats in that classic opera-house that were not good.  I saw a performance of Three Penny Opera by the Berliner Ensemble in a grand theater located at Berthold Brecht Platz 1.  A bronze sculpture of Brecht is in a plaza across from the theater.  The theater company was established by  Brecht.  I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I have no German (the bissel Yiddish I know isn’t helping). Of course it helped that I knew most of the music and the story (and there’s an English synopsis handed out),  My guess is when it premiered in 1928 it caused a sensation and since the house was sold out tonight (and all three performances) it sure has legs.  The production I saw was the creation of American director Robert Wilson, which he did in 2007 .  The sets and lighting were astounding, echos of Bauhaus, Art Deco, clean lines with neon that was switched of and on, just very stylized as was the acting.

One can see that it inspired Cabaret and even Edith Piaf and perhaps Pee Wee Herman although it is possible that that particular character was in spired by Paul Ruebens/Pee Wee Herman.  The sets were amazing, part bauhaus, art deco, many clean lines that sometimes were switched on to neon.  The actors were terrific.   A woman who played McHeath (a/k/a Mack the knife),

 

After writing the above, I did an internet search and read the October 5, 2011 review by Ben Brantly in the NYT of the performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (oh, I had such a glorious time last year living in South Williamsburg in Brooklyn) by the Berliner Ensemble (including Stefan Kurt, the woman who played MacHeath).  Our impressions were very similar, including the parallels to Cabaret (Cabaret being influenced by Three Penny Opera, but Robert Wilson perhaps influenced by Cabaret and Joel Gray) although his were more articulate and informed.  But then that’s why the NYT employs him and not me.  Unlike,  Walter Kerr and “I Am A Camera, “  He Leica.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/theater/reviews/threepenny-opera-with-berliner-ensemble-at-bam-review.html?_r=0

From August 1961 to November 1989, the Berlin wall stood between East Berlin and West Berlin.  The falling of the Wall was for me one of the most important moments of the twentieth century.   To me it has been a symbol of the fall of totalitarianism and the triumph of the human spirit.  During this month in Berlin, my perspective expanded.  I was able to feel the pain that the existence of the Wall had on the lives of the Berliners, families and friends separated overnight, some not to see each other again for 18 years, if they lived that long, if their lives had not become so unconnected.  When my friend spoke of having left the Russia in the ‘90’s “for political reasons,” she mentioned Gorbachev and a look of reverence came to her face.  “He was Russian Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln greatest American President.”   That was perhaps my most candid  conversation with someone who had lived on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Wednesday, July 28, 2016

This morning when I got up, I wondered if I should go see the memorial to the Wall.  I had been to East Side Gallery (twice) and wondered what it could add.  But I hadn’t anything planned for the day, and Google Maps told me it was only a thirty minute walk and I’m trying to walk at least five miles a day, so I said why not.  I took the route that didn’t re-trace much of anything I’ve already walked so that added the adventure of seeing new things and the ever-present possibility of getting lost.  I can follow the transit guidance quite well.  It is the walking directions that often confuse me.  The day was noticeably cooler then the previous three days.  Sunday and Monday were quite hot.   I stopped at a bakery and bought a delicious roll, justifying the carbs by my walking and wondering how the small shops stay open with cheap prices and what appears to be low volume.  I passed a beautiful classical Evangeliste (Lutheran) church called Zionskirche.  I turned right on Ackerstr. And as I reached the corner at Bernauer Straβe, I saw a long, rectangular simple granite memorial.  I walked the length and stepped behind it and saw a section of the wall and a watchtower and wondered, “Is that all there is?”  (Understand that on the one hand I’m adventurous and on the other hand I don’t always plan ahead or in this case read ahead).

Then I noticed a building across the street that turned out to be a wonderful museum of life before the wall, life during the wall and the coming down of the wall.  It was very well done.  I really urge anyone who goes to Berlin (or who is from Berlin) to visit.

But that’s not all.  There’s more‼!  Back across the street to the side I was on before, for several blocks there are more sections of the wall and open spaces.  In an eerily surreal fashion rebar (reinforcing steel bars) have been placed parallel to the sections of the wall facing the street.  Forty yards or so behind them are sections of the wall.

The wall itself is not thick.  The reason is that the distance between the two walls is known as “The Death Strip.”  At Bernauer Strasse 4, 10115 Berlin, a part of this long area dedicated to the Wall, there is “The Rye Field at the Chapel of Reconciliation.”  After the Wall was torn down, this space was returned to it’s former use and rye was planted.  There is a good chance I would have not paid much attention to it or contemplated much about it but as I reached it, what had been a light mist became a heavy rain.  I sat at a table and waited until the rain abated.  As I was leaving I made a small donation and the friendly woman at the desk thanked me and handed me a small sack with rye.  The said it had a recipe in it.  I said maybe I’ll try to make some rye bread.  She laughed and said, not enough to make a bread.  Maybe a cookie I said.

In between the wall which is close to Bernauer Strasse  is now mostly green area, with stations that give information and sculptures.

There is little more symbolic of the failure of totalitarianism and the victory of the human spirit than the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall. A Russian friend here. Now a Berliner, said Gorbachev is Russian Abraham Lincoln.

Earlier

The East Side Gallery is a much different experience.  I think I went my fourth day.  The colorful graffiti represents a celebration of the joy and freedom of expression after the wall came down.

Here there was no Death Strip.  The river Spree was the barrier.  It’s wonderful, but it doesn’t capture the experience of what life must have been like when the Wall was up.  What really enhanced the experience was, after I had walked up and down the length of the East Side Gallery was going to the Museum of the Wall.  As I initially approached the beginning of the East Gallery, a young girl who spoke English in an Italian accent  handed me a flyer for the Museum of the Wall.  I learned that for 6,50€ (senior discount price) I would get admission,  1/2 off at the restaurant (certain items) and a piece of the wall (my sister had given me a piece of the wall long ago).  I walked all the way to the end, kept going and went in to the S train station at the stop before the one for the East Side Gallery and had a cold brew from Starbucks one of those you gotta have at least once in Berlin, Currywurst.  It was good but not over the top good like the Döner chicken thing I had yesterday at Alexander Platz.  I walked back along the East Gallery, taking many, many photos of wall sections and then came back to the beginning.  I decided to try the Museum of the Wall, assuming it would be cheesy but what the heck.  I walked up the stairs to the museum, paid,  got a piece of the wall and entered the exhibition.   I went in to the exhibition and was immediately taken.  I had lived through the entire period and read the newspaper and watched the news reels and later the television news, from the end of the war, and the division of German, to the “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech of JFK in Berlin to the building of the Wall, and how easy it was to despise the puppet WalterUlbricht, to the tearing down of the wall.  The exhibition was so tastefully informative, emotional and entertaining.  I didn’t really appreciate that families and friends were separated overnight and then for 18 years.  The last exhibit room had a video of a concert at Potsdamer Platz (where yesterday I saw Bastille Day on Independence Day at the Cinemax at the Sony Center [not knowing of the horror that would come on Bastille Day 2016)) with Pink Floyd, joined by Cindy Lauper and Bryan Addams and others, singing “Just another brick in the wall.”   “We don’t want no thought control.”  The fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the most important and memorable events of my lifetime (there have been many but I’ve lived a while) .It was a very powerful experience.

My video of the concert video is at this link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP5b7fPPaVE

And for what must be the full 8+ minute version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e7X9m9QC3k

but it doesn’t show the wall they made coming down.  I haven’t been able to track down the full version.  The one at the museum shows the wall built for the concert brick by brick coming down.

My guess is most people don’t go to the Wall Museum because they think it is a tourist trap, as I did but I went anyway.  Do it!  The flyer proclaiming “The man who changed our world MIKHAIL GORBACHEV presents The Wall Museum East Side Gallery.  And sadly Gorbachev is, I read, very unpopular in Russia.

http://www.thewallmuseum.com/en/

 

I passed a plaque in the Jewish section that had a quote from Martin Luther King made in a sermon at a Baptist church on the evening of September 13, 1964 when he was on an official visit to Berlin:

“No man-made barrier can erase the fact that God’s children live on both sides of the Wall.”  Those in attendance responded by singing verses of the hymn inspired by the story of Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt,  “Let My People Go.”

I returned to the Wall Museum for just one reason.  To buy pieces of the Wall.  They are for my children and grandchildren and are the only presents I bought on this trip.

When you’re in an unfamiliar place, you need a mobile phone that is connected to a system so you can call someone, anyone, and so you can have access to Google Maps and an app dedicated to the transit system of your location.  If you’re in a foreign country, you probably need Google Translate or another translation app.  If you are without this at an inconvenient time you are, as they sing in Spring Awakening, “Totally F—ked.”

But connectivity comes at a price.  I have learned it is not enough to plan ahead with your provider to have a plan so you won’t be spending a fortune on minutes and data usage, which you should do.  You should also have a mobile Wi-Fi device so you are connected, theoretically, wherever you go.  I’d never thought about it before because in the US wherever I stayed had Wi-Fi and there were no usage problems in the US.  Here in Germany, my apartment does not have Wi-Fi, something I didn’t focus on until I was walking to my gate in the Houston airport to depart for Berlin.  Just about at that moment, I passed a store that sold a portable Wi-Fi.  I called Verizon my carrier and although they have a device, I didn’t understand what they told me other than they couldn’t FedEx their device to me.  I called my Verizon store and they couldn’t either and I got information that conflicted with the information I got from the Verizon international guy  If I had focused on the issue before I was at the airport there is a good chance I would have gotten Verizon’s device.  However, I didn’t.  I saw a store at the airport and they had a device.    I bought a Skyroam for about $120 and that included five free days.  Each five days after that would be $40.  Single days would be $10.  I would figure it out later in Berlin because I had bought a one day, use as much as you want wherever you are arrangement from Verizon that would start when I got to Berlin on July 1.  As I came to understand it, Wi-Fi allows you to make calls with WhatsApp (very popular with the Germans I have met), FaceTime and other similar apps over the internet and not using your phone plan   I think even if you are staying somewhere that has Wi-Fi, if you are going to be out and about walking and using a transit system, a portable Wi-Fi is certainly something to consider.  Ah, but just having it is not enough.  It has to be fed and there are not just one thing on its diet, but two.  Skyroam coverage sometimes is idiosyncratic, but their support is pretty good.

Be sure to charge your portable Wi-Fi device

Take it with you

Have the service day in effect (watch for when the day has expired and take another day – you can do it on the fly with the device)

Have a portable charger to keep it charged (a long day and the device will lose its charge, so recharge, if possible before it runs out.

Have a Mophie or other portable phone charger to keep your phone charged.

I think it is always a good idea to wear cargo pants or cargo shorts or have some sort of a pack.  In addition to the phone, mobile device and charger, I carry a camera, money, credit cards and sometimes a jacket for rain or cooler weather.

And, if you are sometimes unfocused, bring an extra of anything you think is essential – like eye glasses.

 

 

July 13, 2016

So if I told you that part of the highlight of today was going the Final Lecture of a professor of theology at Humboldt University and the lecture was entirely in German (of which I speak none, not even a bissel), you would say “What?” Get out of here!   But so it was.

Sometimes being part of an event transcends the specifics.

Antje is a theology student at Humboldt University, studying to become an Evangelical minister.  In German, Evangelical (unlike in the United States) means Lutheran.  In our somewhat brief discussions about religion, she and the school generally are very liberal in their approach to religion – inclusive, not rigid.  The Old and New Testaments were not written in German or English, they were written a long time ago in languages whose then-meaning can’t be known for sure, so even though she is studying Hebrew, Greek and Latin, no one can know what the exact true meaning is, yet people insist theirs is the word of God and do hateful things to people who don’t agree with them.

As I mentioned in a previous post (The Kindness of Strangers), she asked me to meet her at her office for coffee.  She had told me she wanted me to attend the final lecture of a favored professor who was retiring.  Part of her job is to help make sure that a woman is given fair consideration in the selection of his replacement. The address was Burgstrasse 36.  It was so easy for me to find the location that I arrived an hour early.  When I arrived, I was amazed.  Humboldt University school of theology I was stunned by the location.  The building is across from Museum Island. It only took me 13 minutes to get there by train (Hackescher Markt station).  I strolled around a bit.  Initially, because I didn’t want to barge in on her early but soon because I was fascinated by what was before me.  I found out some information about taking a river cruise, saw a bronze sculpture of a boy at a desk with an armadillo on it (and I am still wondering about that).

She has four jobs (and she is a watchmaker).  One of her jobs is director of gender diversity at the school of theology.  With that job comes an office.

I just sort of took in the scene, the river, people in the park, people sitting at outside cafes, people walking around, no one in a hurry, people, people, wonderful people surrounded by beautiful architecture and a river.

About ten to three, I got a WhatsApp chat that Antje had seen me from the street, so I went to her office. She has four jobs (and she is a watchmaker).  One of her jobs is director of gender diversity at the school of theology.  With that job comes an office.

It a room with a view –  a dramatic view overlooking the Berliner Dom.

 

 

We had coffee in the student center, a modest place with a long counter, a small foosball table, with two teams of two jammed together, in furious competition, several couches, on one of which a student was fast asleep, and one large window, admitting the sun.  All the students, including her, take turns working there, making and serving coffee, cleaning up, etc. When we finished getting my train tickets to Hamburg (previous post), we took a train to Friederickstrasse.  Close to the station is an underground grocery store, Reve, that had about a million beers.  She picked hers out and helped me pick out two dark beers.

Then she said “we will take a walk, drink our beer and go to the final lecture.”  I asked her if she was sure she wanted me to go, she would be among all her fellow students and maybe something else (sort of looking for an excuse to back out).

She said “Absolutely I want you to come and see.  It’s my reality.”

That was heavy.  How could I say no.

The first of my beers which she said was a secret beer, Schwarzer ABT, was simply delicious.  I would say it is the best beer I ever had, but I’ve said that before about other beers.  Clown Shoes Unleaded comes to mind.  But I was loving Schwarzer ABT and like the song says, “Love the One You’re With.”  We sat drinking our beers on a stone bench facing the Alte Museum and then walked to where the lecture was given, which was in the main Humboldt University building, a stately stone structure and not so close to the building the school of theology is in.

https://www.hu-berlin.de/de/ueberblick/campus/mitte

By the time we got there, a few minutes before the scheduled starting time of 6:00 p.m., to A’s surprise, it was standing room only.  We took our places along the wall opposite the door and next to a window overlooking a beautiful plaza.  There were four introductions (40 minutes, all in German except one) including one by Prof. Dr. Sabine Kunst, the President of Humboldt University, a woman, the only woman president of a university in Germany.

One of the presenters was in English, a person from South Africa.  He wasn’t that easy to understand either.

Then the professor, Prof. Dr. Cilliers Breytenbach gave his lecture.

None of which I understood but I could tell he was an enlightened person and a good lecturer.  It was quite well received.  At one point my friend said the retiring professor was specifically critical of the headmaster of the Lutheran Church in Germany, who isn’t open enough.  She and others responded very favorably to his criticism.

When it was over there was long enthusiastic applause but it was a while before people stood.  I asked and was told that is German.  As people left the lecture hall, the professor greeted people smiling and shaking there hands as if each was his best friend.  A reception in the hall outside the lecture hall.  Wine and hot pretzels were served.  In the hall were photographs and descriptions in German and English of physics professors who taught at Humboldt.  These included Max Planck, Schroedinger, Heisinger, Otto Warburg and Albert Einstein.  Can you imagine?  Just walking along the walls and seeing the photographs and the descriptions was thrilling.

And consider the influence of Humboldt, not just in Germany, but America (e.g. Humboldt University in California, Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s gift, elsewhere.

• Born: 22nd June 1767 · Potsdam, Germany
• Died: . 8 April 1835 · Berlin, Germany

I had  a fascinating time.  It was the event obviously since I didn’t understand a word of the lecture.    Earlier this summer,  I took my granddaughter Carly to her first outdoor concert in Wilmington NC.  The band was a Led Zeppelin cover band called Red Zeppelin and they were pretty good, but the crowd was many and friendly and nice and in to it.  Some danced and there were food trucks.  I told her that sometimes it the entire event is that is thrilling and memorable and the whole scene was greater than the parts.

And that’s how the Final Lecture was.  So what if it was in German and I didn’t understand a word.

July 23

Got up early for lululemon yoga.  It was difficult, having gotten in about 1:30 a.m. after watching jazz at B Flat ( a very good cool jazz quartet, Ott, the saxophone player and leader, Hornung, the pianist and had almost equal time with Ott, Berkman, the bassist, and Rupping the drummer.   Both Ott and Hornung are very talented.  As a whole they were very good, the pieces weren’t too long, the sharing of the spotlight was natural.

If I can figure out how to get a video, I will insert it later.

Before I went to B Flat last night I walked to Münzstraβe 20, 10178 Berlin to the lululemon Ʊ (that’s the lululemon trademark upside down – the symbol symbol) athletica store Mitte location, to make sure I would get to the right place.  I had the experience the previous Saturday of going to the lululemon CityWest location (which has its classes on Thursday evenings). So I got there plenty early, 9:30 for a 10:30 class.  The early person gets the mat, said the sign on painted on the door.  A young German couple showed up after I did.  Then a German woman, Nicole A, in between in age between them and me.  She was excited to know I was from Houston.  She knew it well because her son had worked in Houston for Deloitte and lived in Montrose.  Her first lululemon experience was in Houston.  As the time got closer, many people gathered.  The doors opened and we all went upstairs and grabbed mats.  Then we marched from the store to Montbijoupark (the Strand Bar where I had seen people dancing the tango is very close) to do our class . The experience was amazing.  Apparently, each class is different.  Our instructor said she was from the store in London and spoke no German.  That didn’t bother me.

We did a number of exercises which, for the most part I was surprised to discover I could follow pretty well.  Then my heart sank as the leader said they were warm-ups and we would be doing flying yoga with partners.  The first exercise was for two. The instructor was tiny and one of the women working with her was bigger.  I was thinking size mattered.  Nicole, partnered with a woman named Julia O.  I saw one woman by herself and we did the exercises sort of.  They were easy.  Then it was for three and I rejoined Nicole and Julia.  These were more complicated.  At a certain point, I saw the woman I had partnered with originally by herself and motioned for her to join us because four could participate.  Her name was a German name and I never got it right.  But for the results, see the photographs on Facebook.

Julia had been to Costa Rica for a one or two week yoga class and had done the flying yoga before.  Neither Julia nor I had.  I was most comfortable being on the bottom holding people up, much like the catcher in a trapeze act.    When it was over we repaired to the lululemon store and Nicole and I exchanged photographs from our phones which were taken during the yoga.

I left.  Looking to replace my lost glasses, I found a store named Found, near a store named Closed, which was open.  Found said  they could make glasses to my prescription in 20 minutes.  The cost was 119€.  I asked the other customers in the store to help me pick out frames.  I’m told the one I selected is green.  It is what it is but at least I can see street names at night and station destinations from the train clearly so I can know when to get off.  I walked out of the store on Alte Schöenhauerstrasse which curved to become Neue Schöenhauerstrasse to the ATM to replace the euros I used to pay for the glasses because the internet wasn’t working for their credit card, then returned, got my glasses and began walking back home, having decided to have a coffee at Hilde’s before I went home and resisting all the alternatives along the way.   When I got to Torstrasse, where I would turn right to return home the way I came, I decided I would continue on Schöenhauerstrasse  which at this point I believe becomes Schöenhauerstrasseallee.  (Actually, the repetitive use of the name is better than when the same street changes names which happens frequently here – in Houston think Elgin becomes Westheimer).   I felt pretty confident that going this way would lead me to the U  Senefelderplatz Station, not that I didn’t have a few moments of doubt  It is a wide street with lots of shops and places to eat and buildings.  I turned  to get to Straβburgerstr., my objective being to turn on Metzer to get to Hilde’s, which is on the corner of Metzer and Prenzlauer Allee.  I had walked only a short distance when I heard some wonderful music coming out of a low window.  Thinking it was a place of business, I bent down, peered through the window and saw a woman and asked if it was a café.  She said no it is an artists studio.  She invited me in.  I stepped down.   It was a combination gallery, studio and living quarters, sort of like an efficiency.  The woman was very attractive and, thankfully, spoke excellent English.  She introduced herself as Gudrun Boiar.  Website is http://www.gudrun-boiar.de/  The music playing that drew me in was Todo Sobre Mi Madre Alberto Iglesias https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQVrNkfL8DY&list=PLqrb2w5uU-TuEbygV0WQMOBthYjIKO0Hu  which means All About My Mother and is from the soundtrack of the Almadovar film.  She is a portrait artist.  What I saw was mostly watercolor.  I think she makes a living doing families and children but she told me about two series.  One is the Gray Series of 20 women writers persecuted by the Nazis – “Strong Women of Burned Literature” and the second is the Blue Series of women persecuted by the East German regime – “Strong Women of the Peaceful Revolution.”   I think her work may be very important.  Based on the reproductions I saw the two series are well done and compelling.  I would like to see originals of the Blue Series and the Gray Series that I believe have been exhibited in important museums.  I wonder how her work could get broader attention.  She said it was her birthday and she had to be ready in an hour but didn’t rush me.  I stayed to look through some of her portfolio.  I took a quick look at her website.  I think at least one of her pieces was or is in the Alte National Gallerie.  I told her I had to leave and she gave me some information about her work.  I proceeded to Hilde’s, ordered a Flammkuchen and ice coffee with milk and no eis, and sat in a beach chair facing Metzer. The Flammkuchen is a thin-crusted German version of pizza.  I had been intending to try it and I very much like it.

When I got to the apartment, I felt an overwhelming exhaustion.   It had been hot for Berlin and I’d walked, according to my phone, 6.5 miles, the same as the previous day and evening, plus the yoga.  I fell asleep for a few hours, got up, took the computer, the left over Flammkuchen and a Schwarzer ABT beer ( pictured with my new Found glasses) on the terrace and wrote this. 

This is the first time in my life I’ve ever drunk a beer by myself.  3.1% alcohol.  It’s delicious, like a coffee root beer.

A Day in the Life.

 

 

Where I live in Prenzlauer Berg

 

Pictures to be added

Prenzlauer Berg is a relatively large district in East Berlin.  Once a place where artists and poor people found a place to live, like so many parts of New York (and Midtown and the Heights in Houston), at least in the area around my apartment,  the yuppies moved in,  is a lovely area.  My address is Belforterstrasse 20.  It is a few steps from Prenzlauer Allee, where the chain discount grocery store Netto is located on the corner.  It is definitely yuppie-ville.  Sometimes I think there are more baby carriages than people.  Nicely dressed women, most of whom appear to be  in their thirties, are walking the children around.  Sometimes the fathers are along.  I heard two voices singing a beautiful semi-operatic song and saw a mother and a grandmother pushing a carriage and singing to the child.  I said that’s beautiful and the grandmother said, it’s the only thing that makes her quiet.  There are also many dogs.

My building is one of the few newer buildings, built after 1990.  It has a modern look, a modern elevator and a very attractive, wide and easy to use stairway.  It was a small clothes washer.  The dryer is the one my mother had on Rosedale and Charleston streets.  I use clothes pins on the balcony.

If I go opposite Prenzlauer Allee then the street on the next corner is Kolmarer Str.,  which is where Wasserturm Park begins.  (The Wasserturm became an SA barracks and concentration camp after the rise of Hitler.  Berlin has embraced its past so well that I don’t feel uncomfortable in the places where such unimaginable horrible things took place.) A short distance down is the intersection of Knaackstrasse and Rykestrasse where the park ends and the main steps up the park are.  For the semifinals of the soccer championship  the neighbors set up a large screen television at the base of the steps to watch the game.  They invited me to join them.  I thanked them and said I needed to get some beer first.  I had lost my Astros 2005 championship cap the day I went to the East Side Gallery so I had purchased a Deutschland cap.  It was appreciated, but Germany isn’t up for nationalistic expressions so you don’t see shirts with Germany on them as you would in the USA with nationalistic.  I walked down Knaackstrasse to KulturBraueri, the oldest brewery in Berlin, joined what seemed like 2,000 people standing in a large area with others standing above from the buildings.  I watched the first half and had two beers and headed back.  It was nice to be with the neighbors.  My guess is there were 50 of them, a mix of families and young people in their ‘20’s, lots of beer, lots of cigarettes and an occasional aroma of marijuana.  I’m told Berlin is quire tolerant of its use.  Ultimately,  there was no joy in Mudville, mighty Germany had struck out.

Facing the park is a series of restaurants, Paskernak and Gagarin for breakfast and lunch, are next to each other.  A few steps from Gagarin is the Rykestrasse Synagogue, the synagogue with the most number of members in Berlin.  So far I haven’t figured out when visitors can enter.  Across from the synagogue is Masel Topf, a restaurant that serves a fabulous dish of Pulke.  And across from Pasternak, also facing the park is Umami, an Asian restaruant that is also very good.  By the name you can tell they are Russian.  The password for the Wifi at Pasternak is perestroika.  I like the food at Gagarin better than Pasternak so when friends from Houston came for a Sunday brunch I took them there.  But my first Sunday brunch was at Pasternak and it ended up being six hours long, visiting with four people one of whom has become a friend.

If I step out of the building and turn to the left, passing Netto, then to the right on the next corner is Metzer, where Hilde’s is where I often have coffee and watched the victorious semi-fimanl game.  In the middle of the street is the place to catch the M2 train (Prenzlauer Allee/Metzer stop), which they call a tram.  It runs on rails and electricity from overhead.  Berlin is a very inviting city with plenty to do and an extensive mass transit system of underground, over ground and street level trains and buses, that can get one around the city quickly and easily and it’s pretty easy to figure out.  It’s so easy I’m having to force myself to walk.  There’s a place called Alexanderplatz, a giant East German built television tower, that looms in the sky and if I can see it, I know that if I can get there I can get home.  I frequently take the M2 to get to Alexanderplatz, frequently to get a S train or a U train to another location.  If I step out of the building and turn right, I walk pass the park and several restaurants, getting two short blocks down to the corner on Kollwitzstrasser I turn left, passing sotres, shop and bars to head to the U Senenfelderstrasse station where the U2 underground train, subway that sometimes goes overground, quickly takes me to places.  A reminder that the neighborhood is a yuppy area is the LPG BioMarkt, a not so small version of a Whole Foods grocery store.

Before I arrived in Berlin, I read about bicycle tours and thought perhaps I would rent a bike.  Nein!!!  The bicycle riders here are more aggressive and dangerous than the cars.  I have to look both ways at all times I am on the sidewalk.  Even though there are bicycle lanes, they think the whole sidewalk is theirs.  Most don’t wear helmets.  And, where there are no bike lanes, they go in the bus lanes helter skelter.

What I call my neighborhood would be bordered by Metzer at Prenzlauer Allee, down Prenzlauer Allee to Knaackstrasse (left turn). Knaackstrasse (left turn) (passing Wasserturm and the café’s at the intersection of Rykestrasse to Kollwitz Str. (passing Kathe Kollwitz Platz) left on Kollwitz Str. To the U2 station then back on Kollwitz Str. To Bellforter Strasse (right turn).  If I get outside the neighborhood, my beacon is Alexanderplatz.  If I see it, I know how to get home.

 

 

July 13, 2016

I made plans to visit  cousin Adrienne in Hamburg Friday.  One of my new friends in Berlin, Antje, and I had made plans to meet for coffee.  I asked her if she would assist me in getting tickets for the train to Hamburg.  She said sure.  Antje said to meet her at her office at Humboldt University school of theology.   I will explain that in another entry.

We went to the student’s lounge for a coffee and then took off to get the tickets.   The ticket machine at Hackesher Markt didn’t have a schedule so she said let’s go to the one at Alexanderplatz where they have people to assist you.  Off to Alex we went.  The times that fit my cousin’s schedule were for the fast train.  Pricey but why not.  Then Antje said,  now we will go to the station where you will be catching the train to Hamburg so you will know exactly how to get there Friday morning.  We took the  S 5 or 7 or 75 (all go to some key stations) to Hauptbahnhof (Hbf), Berlin’s new (built on an historic location) central train station.  Then we went to Track 8 to see where I would get on the train to Hamburg.  But that was not enough.  She made sure for me to know what boarding station I should stand at by Track 8 (it was C) so that I would board on to the right railway car.  Then, to make sure I would know how to get back home, we worked our way backward.

So think about that.  Would  you do that for someone?

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.