Follow the Berlin map as we go along!
Berlin is for Breeders
Someone told me that there are more babies being born per capita in Mitte than anywhere else in Europe. I don't know if it's true, but it certainly feels true. There's a park on every corner, and a playground in every park -- to the point where we were all complaining about the noise of playing children waking us up too early everyday. It feels safe. I didn't see a drug epidemic. Granted, I was staying and hanging in pretty nice areas. Still, one Ghana-born cab driver we met said this:
CABBIE: It's very safe here. I NEVER worry about driving late at night. Not like New York. I moved here when I was 13. At the time, I hated it. I spoke English, nobody else spoke English. Now I've been everywhere -- New York, Chicago, London, whatever -- but Berlin is home to me.
Berlin is for All-Nighters
So truth be told, I didn't partake of the nightlife as much as I thought I would. I was just too excited to wake up in the morning and see the city on my bike. I think La Doug did enough dancing for the both of us, though. I got a headache and stayed home the first night everyone went out. When I woke up and realized that Doug was still out, I knew I missed something special.
Doormen at all clubs enforce a strict no-groups rule, so your best bet for gaining entry is by pairing up with a friend and pretending not to know your other friends. Who you know, what you're wearing, how big your tits are all don't seem to matter. If you stand in line, and you don't act like a total asshole, you'll eventually get in. The prevailing sound is the minimalist techno Francis and Shannon are most fond of.
The one night I did go out, we started off at Club der Visionaire, drinking whiskeys and bottles of Bionade on these huge wooden rafts which bobbed a little every time someone got up or sat down. We didn't get there until about 10 and it didn't really get bumping until about midnight. At that point, we decided to try and hit a Kreuzberg club. We wound up at 103 Club, right next door to Watergate, which I suspect is kind of like going to the Time Warner Center and saying, hey, there's Masa! Let's go eat sushi downstairs at Whole Foods! (According to everyone else, Watergate is a gorgeous club right on the water. It's fairly small, with a wall of windows where you can watch the sun rise over the water if you stick around long enough. They'd just gone two nights before, though, and didn't want to go again.)
Still, it was super fun to dance on a raised platform with our crazy little clique. Our dance styles ranged from calisthenic abandon to peek-behind-the-bangs cool to shoulder shrug bouncy. There were some people around us downing glass bottles of mineral water and tweaking on E -- two flirtatious guys dancing close, a crew of rice rocket gangstas and their touchy-feely girlfriends -- but most, like us, were buoyed only by the energy of the crowd.
I'll have to sample more of the nightlife on my next visit. Techno's not really my thing, but I could find plenty of my thing if I looked. I'd love to observe the wild bacchanal that Berghain supposedly is. But maybe I should start by going out dancing more often here at home. (Does anyone go out dancing here anymore? Are there any places worth going to? I have no idea.)
Berlin is for Afternoon Lushes
One habit I wish I could incorporate into my everyday life is the afternoon glass of wine. Riesling, Grauburgunder, Sekt, I loved it all. If you want a really ideal afternoon glass in Mitte, go for a light lunch at the Cafe Altes Europa on Gipstrasse.
Bespectacled German gallery types in summery beige arguing and sharing a bottle of rosé -- CHIC!
There's indoor seating, but the experience is best in the little tiny island across the street from the shop, on the corner of yet another little park, where they've set up a bunch of mismatched tables under the shade of one skinny, pre-pubescent oak tree. I loved my light lunch of tomato fennel soup, topped with brunoise yellow and red watermelon, with sturdy white bread for dipping. But oh, that glass of riesling in the sun, so cold on the tongue, melting my limbs onto the chair...the only thing better was putting my sunglasses on and pedaling away on my little green frog immediately after.
It became my daily routine -- get on the bike, explore, park it, drink a glass of cold white wine or two at a cafe, get back on the bike, ride it off til naptime, be sober by dinner.
The bottle we shared at Cafe Einstein was particularly good -- a cold, crisp 2004 Chablis Montmains AC from Domaine Des Malandes, Bourgogne. We went through 1 1/2 bottles between the three of us. I love those white burgundies. La Doug thought it was the best white wine he'd ever had.
Wouldn't life be so much better if we could bring a bottle of wine to Prospect Park and drink in the sun without shame or fear?
Berlin is for Historians
If you go to Berlin, you've got to do the bike tour. I found one through Fahrradstation, which started at the Friedrichstrasse branch, just north of Unter den Linden. Heej, Francis and I met up there at 2:30pm, and because we were the only folks to show up that day, it was like having our own personal tour. At 10 Euros (15 if you need the bike, too), it's a steal. Helga, our guide and a native who grew up close to the wall in west Berlin, had the most ideal, chill disposition. She wore a T-shirt that said, in front, "I BELIEVE IN MAKING TROUBLE"; on the back, "I DON'T NEED A REASON". I had a total girl crush on her.
FRANCIS: So how long does the tour go?
HELGA: It's three hours.
FRANCIS: Three hours?!
HELGA: Yes, but it can be shorter or longer, just depends on what you want.
When I talked about the Berlin leg of the trip with some of the Danes at the wedding, they were like, "Oh, that's so exciting! Berlin really is the heart of Europe, and it's so amazing to see all of these places you've only read about in history books." I never considered myself much of a history buff, but it was really amazing to understand the rich history of the city in the context of the actual sites where everything took place.
Berlin is like a constantly renewing Tetris board, with new buildings growing on top of old buildings, with spots that were razed and built upon, then cleared again and rebuilt. But what great stories!
Here, the government held a competition to find the perfect design for the new Parliament building. The winner was a young, totally unknown architect and the results were stunning. Helga says that at sundown, you can stand on one end of the set of buildings and see right through them -- the glass structures are meant to represent transparency in government.
And the story of the Reichstag, the fire that gave the Nazis the moral imperative to purge the communists, and the subsequent debate over whether or not the Dutchman Marinus van der Lubbe was the arsonist to blame. (Helga said no, arson specialists say it would have been impossible for the building to burn as it did by the hand of one man.)
And here, in front of the TV tower, the construction site of what was once the Berlin City Palace. The communists felt it was a gross representation of Prussian excess and elitism, so they tore it down and built the Palace of the Republic, a sort of shopping and social center for all. When asbestos was discovered in the walls, the people of Berlin were asked whether or not they wanted to keep the Palace of the People. Though 70% of Berliners thought they'd like to keep the old structure (it was the palace they'd come to know, after all), some west Berliners decided it would be a much better idea to restore the area's grandeur and build...a replica of the old City Palace.
And here, the facade of an old hotel, the only standing memory of the glory of Weimar Republic era Potsdamer Platz, is preserved and consumed by the monstrous 80s steel and glass tower that is the Sony Centre.
Here's the Brandenburg Gate. Up at the top is the Quadriga, originally designed as a goddess of peace with oak leaves. She was kidnapped by Napoleon, successfully stolen back by the Germans, renamed the goddess of victory with an iron cross, stripped of the cross by the communists, then had the iron cross and eagle were restored to her during unification. But she probably would have been just as happy to remain the goddess of peace.
Helga also told us the story of her own youth as we stood by the only piece of the wall left standing in the center of town. As a child, Helga could peer into the death strip over the bit of west wall near her house. She showed us a picture she took at that time of an active tower guard, well within sniping distance.
While we were in front of the Staatsoper, we saw an unwieldy amoeba of a bike group, 20-deep, being led by a slight British girl. We saw an even bigger foot tour being yelled at by an American asshole.
ANNOYING AMERICAN TOUR GUIDE: So Berlin now is like New York was in the 80s, okay? The only people who can afford to live in New York now are trust fund kids.
I wanted to give him a big, hearty NYC fuck you, but I didn't want to contribute to the annoying Americanness already on display. We were so very glad we were not stuck with that guy. Anyway, go to Fahrradstation for the tour, ask for Helga.
Later:
ME: You know how they say Berlin now is like New York was in the 80s?
MATTY: God, if I hear that one more time, I'm going to shoot somebody.
Berlin is for Art Lovers
Hamburger Bahnhof. Not a hamburger, not a bahnhof.
The museums are pretty great, but they're spread out all over town. Once the wall went up, all the State museums were blocked off in the east. The west Berliners had to build twin houses for all of their art. So while many of the imposing, old official state museum buildings are on the east side, the great contemporary stuff tends to be in the west. I liked the Mies van der Rohe-designed New National Gallery and the deceptively ginormous Hamburger Bahnhof, a converted train station lit up with neon fluorescents. The only other museum I hit up during evening hours was the Pergamon, which had some pretty impressive installations of totally lifted altars and gates. I liked the way they were unafraid to mix contemporary representations of Babylon with actual Babylonian art.
Berlin is for Dessert
Luisa told me that cafe culture in Berlin was amazing, better even than Parisian cafe culture; I don't know from Paris, but I loved what Berlin had to offer. The Germans love their cake and they love their coffee. And I love their cake and coffee. The names are such a mouthful -- here's Kaiserschmarrn, a sort of torn pancake with vanilla sauce, sour cherries and cinnamon sugar.
Here's a Pflaumenkuchen, a crunchy plum tart:
There's something so Berlin about the hot bitterness of the coffee with the sturdy, substantial sweet. The combination is fortifying. And like the city, I think what I enjoy is the refrain from preciousness, from delicateness. Berlin feels like a city that can stand up to me, the way coffee stands up to cake. I can't wait to come back and experience all the Berlins I missed this time around.
Berlin is for Breeders
Someone told me that there are more babies being born per capita in Mitte than anywhere else in Europe. I don't know if it's true, but it certainly feels true. There's a park on every corner, and a playground in every park -- to the point where we were all complaining about the noise of playing children waking us up too early everyday. It feels safe. I didn't see a drug epidemic. Granted, I was staying and hanging in pretty nice areas. Still, one Ghana-born cab driver we met said this:
CABBIE: It's very safe here. I NEVER worry about driving late at night. Not like New York. I moved here when I was 13. At the time, I hated it. I spoke English, nobody else spoke English. Now I've been everywhere -- New York, Chicago, London, whatever -- but Berlin is home to me.
Berlin is for All-Nighters
So truth be told, I didn't partake of the nightlife as much as I thought I would. I was just too excited to wake up in the morning and see the city on my bike. I think La Doug did enough dancing for the both of us, though. I got a headache and stayed home the first night everyone went out. When I woke up and realized that Doug was still out, I knew I missed something special.
Doormen at all clubs enforce a strict no-groups rule, so your best bet for gaining entry is by pairing up with a friend and pretending not to know your other friends. Who you know, what you're wearing, how big your tits are all don't seem to matter. If you stand in line, and you don't act like a total asshole, you'll eventually get in. The prevailing sound is the minimalist techno Francis and Shannon are most fond of.
The one night I did go out, we started off at Club der Visionaire, drinking whiskeys and bottles of Bionade on these huge wooden rafts which bobbed a little every time someone got up or sat down. We didn't get there until about 10 and it didn't really get bumping until about midnight. At that point, we decided to try and hit a Kreuzberg club. We wound up at 103 Club, right next door to Watergate, which I suspect is kind of like going to the Time Warner Center and saying, hey, there's Masa! Let's go eat sushi downstairs at Whole Foods! (According to everyone else, Watergate is a gorgeous club right on the water. It's fairly small, with a wall of windows where you can watch the sun rise over the water if you stick around long enough. They'd just gone two nights before, though, and didn't want to go again.)
Still, it was super fun to dance on a raised platform with our crazy little clique. Our dance styles ranged from calisthenic abandon to peek-behind-the-bangs cool to shoulder shrug bouncy. There were some people around us downing glass bottles of mineral water and tweaking on E -- two flirtatious guys dancing close, a crew of rice rocket gangstas and their touchy-feely girlfriends -- but most, like us, were buoyed only by the energy of the crowd.
I'll have to sample more of the nightlife on my next visit. Techno's not really my thing, but I could find plenty of my thing if I looked. I'd love to observe the wild bacchanal that Berghain supposedly is. But maybe I should start by going out dancing more often here at home. (Does anyone go out dancing here anymore? Are there any places worth going to? I have no idea.)
Berlin is for Afternoon Lushes
One habit I wish I could incorporate into my everyday life is the afternoon glass of wine. Riesling, Grauburgunder, Sekt, I loved it all. If you want a really ideal afternoon glass in Mitte, go for a light lunch at the Cafe Altes Europa on Gipstrasse.
Bespectacled German gallery types in summery beige arguing and sharing a bottle of rosé -- CHIC!
There's indoor seating, but the experience is best in the little tiny island across the street from the shop, on the corner of yet another little park, where they've set up a bunch of mismatched tables under the shade of one skinny, pre-pubescent oak tree. I loved my light lunch of tomato fennel soup, topped with brunoise yellow and red watermelon, with sturdy white bread for dipping. But oh, that glass of riesling in the sun, so cold on the tongue, melting my limbs onto the chair...the only thing better was putting my sunglasses on and pedaling away on my little green frog immediately after.
It became my daily routine -- get on the bike, explore, park it, drink a glass of cold white wine or two at a cafe, get back on the bike, ride it off til naptime, be sober by dinner.
The bottle we shared at Cafe Einstein was particularly good -- a cold, crisp 2004 Chablis Montmains AC from Domaine Des Malandes, Bourgogne. We went through 1 1/2 bottles between the three of us. I love those white burgundies. La Doug thought it was the best white wine he'd ever had.
Wouldn't life be so much better if we could bring a bottle of wine to Prospect Park and drink in the sun without shame or fear?
Berlin is for Historians
If you go to Berlin, you've got to do the bike tour. I found one through Fahrradstation, which started at the Friedrichstrasse branch, just north of Unter den Linden. Heej, Francis and I met up there at 2:30pm, and because we were the only folks to show up that day, it was like having our own personal tour. At 10 Euros (15 if you need the bike, too), it's a steal. Helga, our guide and a native who grew up close to the wall in west Berlin, had the most ideal, chill disposition. She wore a T-shirt that said, in front, "I BELIEVE IN MAKING TROUBLE"; on the back, "I DON'T NEED A REASON". I had a total girl crush on her.
FRANCIS: So how long does the tour go?
HELGA: It's three hours.
FRANCIS: Three hours?!
HELGA: Yes, but it can be shorter or longer, just depends on what you want.
When I talked about the Berlin leg of the trip with some of the Danes at the wedding, they were like, "Oh, that's so exciting! Berlin really is the heart of Europe, and it's so amazing to see all of these places you've only read about in history books." I never considered myself much of a history buff, but it was really amazing to understand the rich history of the city in the context of the actual sites where everything took place.
Berlin is like a constantly renewing Tetris board, with new buildings growing on top of old buildings, with spots that were razed and built upon, then cleared again and rebuilt. But what great stories!
Here, the government held a competition to find the perfect design for the new Parliament building. The winner was a young, totally unknown architect and the results were stunning. Helga says that at sundown, you can stand on one end of the set of buildings and see right through them -- the glass structures are meant to represent transparency in government.
And the story of the Reichstag, the fire that gave the Nazis the moral imperative to purge the communists, and the subsequent debate over whether or not the Dutchman Marinus van der Lubbe was the arsonist to blame. (Helga said no, arson specialists say it would have been impossible for the building to burn as it did by the hand of one man.)
And here, in front of the TV tower, the construction site of what was once the Berlin City Palace. The communists felt it was a gross representation of Prussian excess and elitism, so they tore it down and built the Palace of the Republic, a sort of shopping and social center for all. When asbestos was discovered in the walls, the people of Berlin were asked whether or not they wanted to keep the Palace of the People. Though 70% of Berliners thought they'd like to keep the old structure (it was the palace they'd come to know, after all), some west Berliners decided it would be a much better idea to restore the area's grandeur and build...a replica of the old City Palace.
And here, the facade of an old hotel, the only standing memory of the glory of Weimar Republic era Potsdamer Platz, is preserved and consumed by the monstrous 80s steel and glass tower that is the Sony Centre.
Here's the Brandenburg Gate. Up at the top is the Quadriga, originally designed as a goddess of peace with oak leaves. She was kidnapped by Napoleon, successfully stolen back by the Germans, renamed the goddess of victory with an iron cross, stripped of the cross by the communists, then had the iron cross and eagle were restored to her during unification. But she probably would have been just as happy to remain the goddess of peace.
Helga also told us the story of her own youth as we stood by the only piece of the wall left standing in the center of town. As a child, Helga could peer into the death strip over the bit of west wall near her house. She showed us a picture she took at that time of an active tower guard, well within sniping distance.
While we were in front of the Staatsoper, we saw an unwieldy amoeba of a bike group, 20-deep, being led by a slight British girl. We saw an even bigger foot tour being yelled at by an American asshole.
ANNOYING AMERICAN TOUR GUIDE: So Berlin now is like New York was in the 80s, okay? The only people who can afford to live in New York now are trust fund kids.
I wanted to give him a big, hearty NYC fuck you, but I didn't want to contribute to the annoying Americanness already on display. We were so very glad we were not stuck with that guy. Anyway, go to Fahrradstation for the tour, ask for Helga.
Later:
ME: You know how they say Berlin now is like New York was in the 80s?
MATTY: God, if I hear that one more time, I'm going to shoot somebody.
Berlin is for Art Lovers
Hamburger Bahnhof. Not a hamburger, not a bahnhof.
The museums are pretty great, but they're spread out all over town. Once the wall went up, all the State museums were blocked off in the east. The west Berliners had to build twin houses for all of their art. So while many of the imposing, old official state museum buildings are on the east side, the great contemporary stuff tends to be in the west. I liked the Mies van der Rohe-designed New National Gallery and the deceptively ginormous Hamburger Bahnhof, a converted train station lit up with neon fluorescents. The only other museum I hit up during evening hours was the Pergamon, which had some pretty impressive installations of totally lifted altars and gates. I liked the way they were unafraid to mix contemporary representations of Babylon with actual Babylonian art.
Berlin is for Dessert
Luisa told me that cafe culture in Berlin was amazing, better even than Parisian cafe culture; I don't know from Paris, but I loved what Berlin had to offer. The Germans love their cake and they love their coffee. And I love their cake and coffee. The names are such a mouthful -- here's Kaiserschmarrn, a sort of torn pancake with vanilla sauce, sour cherries and cinnamon sugar.
Here's a Pflaumenkuchen, a crunchy plum tart:
There's something so Berlin about the hot bitterness of the coffee with the sturdy, substantial sweet. The combination is fortifying. And like the city, I think what I enjoy is the refrain from preciousness, from delicateness. Berlin feels like a city that can stand up to me, the way coffee stands up to cake. I can't wait to come back and experience all the Berlins I missed this time around.
Ganda, I'm in Berlin as I write this, on my way to do a show with Nous Non Plus in Frankfurt (Oder). I'll check out some of your suggestions on my way back on Sunday! Cheers, J
deconstructed plum tart? looks amazing. wonder if you can find it stateside or, specifically, nyc-side.
Fun Berlin roundup. A rich slice of the varied late summer offerings!
i am going to live in berlin for a few months and i just did a quick search for blog posts on Berlin and found yours...i loved it! Thanks for sharing your experience and your humor, it was great.