Marc's Berlin Diaries

Went to the Xfinity NBC News website this July 11 Monday morning for the first time since arriving in Berlin and remembered how tired I’ve become of the 24-7 News Cycle – talking heads [someones with credentials to allow a network to make them be pontificating experts] – The Dallas Tragedy and black/white black/police relationships  (and it is a tragic landscape that perhaps shocks us enough to do what we can to alter the climate in whatever our own part of the universe is) – Donald Trump, Donald Trump and did I say Donald Trump.  I admit the 30 seconds spent in awe of NASA’s Juno probe orbiting Jupiter within one second of the predicted arrival time made it worthwhile.  How much NASA has done to embolden the human spirit.  Brexit is MIA – apparently sooo last fortnight.   It’s good to know the Astros are at 48 and 41 and that Andy Murray won Wimbledon and that the stock market – the ultimate in legalized gambling (but where else does one find liquidity and increase possibilities) – is up, but I’m just fine with uninterrupted appreciation of what is around me Now and my family and friends.  To the extent I can do something about what is wrong with the world, then I want more information so maybe I can make a small difference.  To the extent I can’t, then it’s TMI.

Friday evening, July 8, 2016.

Since it was Friday night, even though I wasn’t hungry I decided to have a Shabbat meal at Mazel Topf, a restaurant across from the Ryksestrasse Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Germany.

http://www.jg-berlin.org/en/judaism/synagogues/rykestrasse.html  Masel Topf is owned by Russian Jews.  I met the owner the other day after breakfast at Gagarin, which is next to Pasternak (which is better than Gagarin and where I had a six-hour brunch last Sunday to be discussed later) and which is across the street from Unami, an Asian, mostly Vietnamese restaurant which is very good – the four restaurants are within two blocks from my apartment and all face Wassersturm Park which is part of another story.  But, I digressed.  Masel Topf  isn’t kosher but doesn’t serve tref.  It did have challah (which was okay but I like mine underdone and it wasn’t) and delicious brown bread.  I was at a table next to three women.  The one facing me was not friendly at all, the only unfriendly person I’ve encountered in Berlin.  I was not expecting the food to be very good and even though I was thinking of getting the rack of lamb or the rib eye (because I haven’t had a steak since I got here), I ordered what the waiter said was their specialty, pulke, the Yiddish word for chicken, stuffed chicken leg, which was minced chicken meat and seasoning and chopped vegetables stuffed back into the skin of the leg of the chicken.  It was a taste from my childhood and amazingly delicious.  The portion was generous and I kept thinking I would take half home and eat it another day, but, as full as I was, I finished it all.  It had two gravies, one was apple flavored.  The side dishes were a salad with a good vinegar dressing and a fried potato dish, which they called a latke.  It was okay, but the pulke, oy vey vas dat gut.  Anyway, the pulke was so good I felt I had been rewarded for my remembrance of the Sabbath.

Earlier Friday July 8

So I’ve been saying “what we have is now” and a graffiti I passed today which is pictured in the FaceBook version of this entry, asks “How Long Is Now.”   Today, when I finally got going about three, my initial quest was to buy a book on German English phrases.  A German English dictionary just gives one a word at a time.  Too cumbersome.  I looked up a book store on Yelp, took a train and a walk to get there, but the only book they had was phrases for artists (huh?  Well, as it turned out, it was in the heart of area where many art galleries are located.). They gave me directions to another book store.  Dussman.  I decided to walk.  I realized I had been on the street I was on, Auguststrasse, the day before with my tour guide, Gabriella of Milk and Honey Tours.  It was in the Jewish section and had many galleries.  I visited many of them.  One of the galleries had a Lyonel Feininger drawing going up for auction on August 6.  The day before I had seen much finer examples of Feininger’s work at the Bauhaus Gallery (though perhaps not so fine as the wonderful piece I saw last summer at the Whitney).  Augustrasse to Friederichstrasse, I continued on to the bookstore, but when I crossed the Spee, maybe at the Oranienburger Str.  I felt a small pang of hunger.  I saw the outside café at Hotel Melia.  Smart looking people were sitting at the tables.  I looked at the menu and it was tapas.  I thought, this is a stop to make.  Maybe I’ll get to the bookstore.  Maybe I won’t.  I had (too much) sangria, stuffed dates wrapped in bacon and an octopus’ garden of octopus and shrimp and marinated onions and olives. Maybe I’ll get to the bookstore I thought.

I did get to the bookstore.  It was just a few blocks further.  Dussman is a book store four stories tall and had many choices for me to make for a German English phrase book.  I chose the Langenscheidt Pocket Phrasebook.  I hope it’s helpful.  Then I took the 75 to Alex and the M2 to the Prenzlauer Allee/Metzer Str. Stop and walked the few steps home.

So what was the point of all that?  Follow in Berlin the mantra I had set for myself in New York last summer, Going Where My Green Light Tells Me The Intersection Might Be Interesting, and walk whenever possible and my Now is enriched.

I celebrated the Fourth of July on July 1 in Berlin at Tempelhofer  Freiheit,  a huge open space  that had once been an airfield.  with thousands of people, most of whom were German and none of whom I knew, at a giant outdoor party with food and beer and music and fireworks .  The party was put on by U.S. Ambassador to Germany John Emerson and his wife, Kimberly.  At first I felt a bit overwhelmed but after getting a Milk Stout  or two under my belt, I started chatting with people and got comfortable.  People were having a good time.  Just as the sun set,  the music This is My Country was piped out  and  dazzling fireworks began to light up the sky.   I found myself getting emotional and it continued with Bruce Springsteen’s  Born in the USA.   I reflected on my life long appreciation of  my country, not the least reason being if I had been born any of the places my great grandparents left to come to the United States before the beginning of the 20^th century it is unlikely that I would have lived to be five years old.  I don’t know that it was being in Germany.  I think participating in a Fourth of July celebration (even if it was on July 1) in a foreign country had an effect on me.  Of course, this is sentimental stuff, but sentimentality in the love of one’s country is no sin.   So I invite you to go to the two YouTube links below and allow yourself a few minutes to be absorbed by them.

The link to This is My Country with fireworks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heMgiD0xKxI

The link to Born in the USA with fireworks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nys6YThUWI

I arrived on time this morning, but my luggage did not.  I reported it at lost and found at TXL, the Berlin airport.  I was intending to take Uber or a taxi to my new digs even though my airbnb hostess Gritta had given me meticulous instructions on how to get t0 Belforte Str. 20 with public transportation.  I called her and she challenged me to take the public transportation.  Since I only had a backpack and no luggage I accepted the challenge.  The acceptance was reluctant.  The feeling of accomplishment of getting there, even though I had several communications with her and inquires of others was pretty good.  It took about an hour.  I got on a TXL bus, but not the right one.  Although it headed in the right direction, It didn’t go as far as the as the one I was supposed to take (and then take a train).  I took the M10 train to Alexanderplatz then the M2 but in the wrong direction and then finally in the right direction and a short walk to the building.  The building is relatively modern amidst older structures.  I followed someone inside the door and called Gritta and met her on the 6^th floor, apartment 6/8.  The apartment is nice with a terrace overlooking other buildings.  It is spare but appears to be completely adequate.  Gritta gave me pointers on the apartment and the Prenzlauer District (there is no central district she repeated.  Berlin was once 24 small towns and now is comprised of districts.).  She has that national characteristic of being insistent about things she thinks she is sure of.  Her apartment has been with airbnb since 2008.  She’s married, slim, athletic, attractive, helpful in an efficient but not particularly effusive way – other than a breakfast place she insists I try – Bar Gargarin (like the Cosmonaut).  She does temp work and acts as an agent for others renting apartments (that is she competes with airbnb).  After she left I sort of settled in, took a nap, showered and went to Netto’s, then back and felt the need for a coffee to keep me going until night time to get adjusted to the time change.

Hilde’s  on Prenzlauer Allee at Metzer is a block from the apartment.  It is a small, relaxed coffee bar with free wi-fi, something very important until  I figured out how to use the hot spot device I purchased at IAH when I adverted to the fact there is no wi-fi in the apartment.  Had I known just six hours sooner I could have gotten a device from Verizon that cost less to buy and use than the one I did buy but being able to use wi-fi for phone and texting should more than make up for the data charges I would I have been to the small grocery store Netto, next to the apartment.  Netto has more versions of wurst than it has versions of soft drinks, shampoo but no conditioner, lots of things there with which I’m not familiar and things not there to which I’m used to being able to buy.

If my luggage doesn’t arrive on time, I’ll have to buy clothes for the party at the embassy tomorrow night, not to mention underwear.  I think I can do without my meds.

This evening I walked to Alexanderplatz, the site of the giant television tower that is a landmark for one having an idea of where one is at in Prenzlauer Berg.  I got a converter plug in case the luggage doesn’t arrive timely so all my electronic devices can stay juiced.  I have spent an inordinate amount of time and angst on electronic communication.  It’s most important purpose is for me to know where I am and where I’m going and to communicate by phone, text and email but of course I use it for other purposes such as this entry.

I wasn’t hungry for dinner,  I wanted to go to a roof top bar named Izaio that offers, I was told by a woman walking a sweet Dalmation, a wonderful view of eastern Berlin but they were closed for a private party.  I asked the bouncer who prevented my entering  where to go for live music.  He said Kaffee Burger, which serves alcohol and music but neither coffee nor burger.  I was walking  on Torstrasse which apparently is where the live music scene is that is close to where I’m staying.  A woman was putting up small posters on lamp posts and traffic signals.  I looked at the poster and it was promoting a Sound Design, a band playing at, where else, Kaffee Burger.  There weren’t many people when I arrived at about 9:15 but the place was totally full by the time the band was ready to start, about ten.  The band featuring an electric violinist who wore a tee with a six pointed star on it and a mandolin player, two guitars and a timpanist who played an outsized instrument that looked like a giant tambourine.  They played what the violinist described as Oriental music (his accent was Russian but it seems to me that is a term Israelis use) but I would call Middle Eastern music, a fusion of Turkish, Iranian, Syrian, Egyptian, etc. music that sounded pretty good, sometimes with a bit of an Irish jig to it.  I’ll post a short video to get the flavor if I can figure out how to do that.  I left after the first set so I missed the singer and music which the violinist said would get the crowd dancing.  I should be tired from the 7 hour extension of the day, but I’m not.

My phone showed I walked 5+ miles.

This small part of the Prenzlauer Berg district I’ve invaded so far seems old and new, more young people than old and also vibrant.  Other than Alexanderplatz, part of Stalin’s vision of the GDR, I haven’t hit any of the tourist spots yet, but I’m sure I will.  Lots of people on bicycles.  The people seem nice and friendly and the streets, day and night, safe.  So far most of the people I’ve spoken to are friendly and have a good enough command of English to compensate for my nearly non-existent German.  One person to whom I spoke, the promoter of the band I saw, asked if I was from Australian.  Since her English was without any discernible accent, So far my Yiddish hasn’t really helped.   I cannot yet make JFK’s claim: Ich bin ein Berliner, but nothing so far has made me think I should have chosen somewhere else.

For those of you who read these posts, I’m not intending to do one every day but the first day with its angst and everything being new was something I put down.

 

 

I am in the air on my way to Berlin where I’ve never been, know no one, don’t speak the language and have made no plans beyond the first two full days.  That combination of ingredients  has brought my neophilia  into full bloom.  May the flowers of Berlin smell sweet.

My new passport arrived today.

Monday I got an invitation to attend the 240th anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America on July 1 at the American Embassy in Berlin.

I’m getting pumped!

I’m going to Berlin on June 30th and staying for a month.  I know no one, I don’t speak German, I’ve never been to Berlin and I’ve made no plans other than to go to the American Embassy on July 4.

Last summer I spent a month in the West Village and a month in South Williamsburg in Brooklyn with the same amount of planning but a little more familiarity with the territory and the language.  My mantra was to “go where my green light told me the intersection might be interesting.”  And so that will continue in Berlin.