The fascinating thing about Berlin and other big cities is that you can have plenty of intercultural experiences within a one country. Looking from this point of view, globalisation can be seen as a positive, mind-opening phenomenon. When there is so much choice available, one cannot but help herself a couple of sushi or a sizzling falafel every now and then. A part from German, I hear a lot of French, Italian, English and Turkish been spoken all around me. It’s not rare to spot Finnish when walking in a busy crowd. Germany has also a big Turkish minority and that shows on the streets of Berlin.
Kira, Caterina and I spent our Sunday evening at the Turkish sauna, Hamam. The spa was only for women and was meant to be a luxury relaxation experience for those people who had little money to spare on a day in a spa - splashing around with water playing nymphs. The main room of the spa had marble floors, with a large marble stone in the middle to lie on. There were porcelain water basins around the room you would fill with warm and cold water and afterwards use golden bowls to pour the water on top of you. The soft heat of the room surrounded us and the rooms were lightly scented.
There was also a Finnish sauna which was heated properly but had little space for all women who wanted to lie on their backs quietly. In Finland people often have an amicable conversation in the sauna but there the sauna and the spa in general were for individual or at least for quiet experience. Caterina was even told to be quieter after she got a little bit too excited about a story she was telling.
We washed ourselves with soap from head to toe and even put some coconut oil, which I had brought, into our hair. No wonder that the Hamams have a spiritual atmosphere since in Turkey they used to be an annex for the mosques.
Today letters, words and phrases fell down from the sky in fluttering whirls, like a flock of lost falling butterflies. A helicopter was sent into the sky above Lustgarten* to bombard the waiting crowds. It was the Lange Nacht der Museen and the park was full of enthusiastic museum visitors. I walked towards the park when the first flying pieces of paper started whirling in the air. At first, I didn't like the idea of a noisy helicopter delivering some art for people. But when more and more poems kept pouring down from the sky and people were fishing them almost in a frantic but playful way I started laughing by myself. The delivery of the art was this time even better than the art itself. I catched three poems from the poem rain.
Now I’m more or less in the middle of my stay here in Berlin and by now I should have formed some kind of idea of the spirit of the place. To me Paris was elegant, beautiful and impudent. People where in general groomed and had natural, even minimalistic style. But the Parisian style was not axiomatic: it was a product of careful calculation. The days of Marie Antoinette flounce and frill were over. The idea was to look and seem sophisticated.
Berlin lacks that kind of orderliness. Ask anyone abroad the question “How is a typical German?” and you’ll probably get an answer saying something like: “Organized, rich, industrious, professional and confident.” What comes to Berlin, I would leave everything else out of the definition except for perhaps confident. Even people abroad, especially young people, might already have an image of Berlin as a hip and trendy place. But for sure it is not rich or industrious. Even the Former Governing Mayor Willy Brandt said in the eighties that Berlin ist arm, aber sexy.” Berlin has no significant industry. The unemployment is much bigger than in the rest of the Germany (Berlin 14%, German average 8%)). It is not the capital of finance, like Frankfurt or London. It is neither a place for business like Hamburg, Munich or Stuttgart. But Berlin is hip - there is no doubt about that.
Berlin is an absolute place for young (partying) adults. It’s almost like a paradise for groups of friends: you can take your beer bottle to the metro and sit there going around the ring (the S-Bahn train which goes around the whole city) if you feel like it. You can have picnic in one of the many parks in Berlin. Tiergarten itself covers 210 hectares of the whole city. You can pick up a bar from hundreds of different choices or go to Warschauer Strasse, where people often tend to end (for some reason). And when you come back, there is always a Currywurst or falafel kiosk open.
A word, which keeps popping into my head here, is ‘alternative’. Berlin is also supposed to be alternative. You have bio food shops and vegan restaurants all around. You will find cool design shops and graffiti walls überall. You may spend your Sunday at the hippy neighbourhood Prenzlauerberg (somebody at our work said that she managed to live in Prenzlauerberg without getting pregnant this being a little miracle since the place has a reputation of being the place for young adults) or go to the present ‘it’ place Kreuzberg in search for alternative new. And (what I loooove) you can do your shopping at flea markets and second hand shops. So Berlin seems very alternative, doesn’t it?
Not.
In fact, when you take a closer look at things you’ll find out that actually being alternative seems to start becoming a norm here, at least for young people. In Mauerpark, for instance, people are searching for similar kind of stuff that makes the prices either go up (e.g. vintage leather bags) or produce mass production of cheep goodies (e.g. geeky glasses). The geek look (see Buddy Holly) is, for that matter, also hip in Berlin. You can’t simply go to a metro without meeting a hipster listening to some hipster music with his/her hipster iPod and carrying his/her hipster camera. I thought that I had found the coolest and most original bike from Mauerpark but when I look around I see billions of these bikes, yet again, everywhere (mine is perhaps a little bit more worn-out than the rest). The intelligence factor is part of this all alternative movement and you can definitely find a political group in Berlin to sign up for. But, like before, also the kind of thinking here has a certain trend factor: the more leftist and anti-capitalistic the ideology is, the better.
As a conclusion, I might proclaim that yes, Berlin is indeed alternative but within the norms of trendiness. Well, now that it’s all said and done I don’t actually care that much. As long as I have my veggie burger, can enjoy my Sunday flea markets and feel like I’m here and not some other capital in Europe, the Berlin sun keeps shining.
Last night I paid a visit to one of the most famous museums in Berlin - the Pergamon museum. The name to the museum comes from the monumental altar at the very beginnig of the tour. The treasures of three ancient worlds were present: Classical Antiquities, Ancient Near East and Medieval Islamic World.
Did you know that Babylonia used to flourish in the lands of the present Iraq?
Sometimes museums might be a bore but this is what I do to make the visits more agreeable:
- The basic needs need to be fulfilled. Don't even think of going to museum if you are either hungry, tired, nauseous etc. Otherwise you'll regret it. -Preferably go alone, if you don't especially want to discuss the art with someone (which is also nice). Often people are interested in different things and thus have different paces. -Take the audio guide and listen to the stories behind the works of art. If you aren't particularly interested in some piece of art, you can ruthlessly skip it. It also covers the noise of the crowded museum. -Go to a museum when you know it's going to be more or less empty. Or do like I did and queue for half an hour to get into a crammed museum on Thursday nights for free. Patience and good humour is needed but perhaps with the saved money you can buy a nice poster from the museum shop. -Take some no-flash photos from the most exciting pieces, if it's allowed. But only from the most exciting. -Get inspired (if you can). This time I wasn't so much drawn towards the Classics but for some reason all the bright blue and red things catched my attention.
Today on the seminar program at work we had a visit to the Reichstagsgebäude, which is the German Parliament building. I had seen people making long queues in the hot weather in front of the majestic building before so I didn’t even think I would want to go in. This time we slid through the back door and up to a congress room to listen a lecture about EU’s politics. After the yawning experience we got to visit the balcony and that’s when I started to get more interested. A spiral staircase rose up inside a modern glass cupola. The audio guide led me all the way up and the panorama view of Berlin was surrounding me.
Five interesting things about the Reichstagsgebäude:
The cupola of the Parliament building got burned in the 1933 after Hitler acceded to the “throne” and the Nazis blamed (who else than) the communists for the misdeed thus having an excuse to start smothering the leftist fire.
In the II World War the maternity ward of the bombed but famous clinic Charité worked in the building.
During the cold war the GDR fighter planes often disturbed the sessions inside the building, which at that time was narrowly on the West German side. Michael Jackson performed on the stage outside the Reichstag in 1988. The pop concerts must have irritated the GDR folks.
The official ceremony of the unification of the Germans was held 3.10.1990 in the Reichstag, not in Bonn, which used to be the capital of West Germany.
The new glass cupola collects water to funnels and sun light is reflected through the mirrors in to the main floor of the parliament.
(Sources: Wikipedia and Eyewitness Travel Berlin 2009)
The breakfast collective of the year has been exposed!
I had the most amazing brunch at one o'clock today at Kastanienallee 85. It seems that Berliners are fond of having brunch outdoors on Sundays.
A big glass of juice, different types of buns and tartins (Streichkäse), differently seasoned tofu, bean salad, berry joghurt and much much more.
The place is very fair and sympathetic. The rules of market economy aren't valid anymore when the customer can decide on the price according to her/his wealth circumstances. I decided to pay 4,50€ + the drink today. And of course you can eat as much as you like.
What a lovely way to start the day!
Believe me, the food tasted so much better than it looks in this piture
Jenni is an earth-dwelling creature native to Finland, where it inhabits dense forest-like area. It is around 163 centimetres long and capable of soft and humming human speech. Jenni is a peaceful, mostly herbivorous beast, something like a graceful ape in appearance, with small, greenish eyes and blond hair. Jenni is flesh coloured but being an extremely vain creature, it covers itself up in vivid plumage or jewelled shell. It interests itself about other creatures outside of its own habitus and has been spotted migrating out of its comfort zone generally once in two years.
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