Berlin

Celeb sighting at Karaoke


The awkward U-Bahn ride to the Halloween party


Not a poster one would expect to see in Berlin


Saturday brunch

Second visits to cities are always the best. The first round is full of the must-do touristy stuff - first time in Paris, go to the Eiffel Tower. First time in Rome, go to St. Peter's... First time in Berlin, well, that was quite a challenge. The city is so packed with layers of history that it's almost as if you could get as much walking down a random street than you can walking down Unter der Linden. But on my second visit to the German capital, I had the pleasure of enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and late late late night party scene with good friends.

Before I go off on a Berlin rant (as I tend to do), allow me to explain. Part of my family comes from Germany. Actually, the Jewish part of my family. So you can see the conflict of interest falling in love with a German city. But alas, like all the best love affairs, it is a forbidden and complicated one. Berlin is a city that raises so many fascinating questions about society, art, architecture, politics, and especially national identity. In the past decade, flocks of artists (both of the real and hipster kinds) have invaded Berlin and turned it into an artistic Mecca. Yet well over a quarter of the population is unemployed and living off welfare the otherwise prosperous German state provides. So basically, to sum up, it was torn apart in multiple wars, rebuilt hastily in the 90s, and is now made up of incredibly cheap apartments occupied (or squatted in by) very creative individuals who feed off the city's history in order to build up a new chapter. Berlin is basically the place to be.

When I got back from London, I felt the stress of this city like never before. In Berlin, I kept feeling like I had something terribly wrong with me - something on my face, jacket inside out, could they tell I was foreign?! - because everybody I passed on the street stared right at me. Coming from a city where I could probably get arrested or at least questioned for making eye contact with a stranger, I was quite taken aback.

The whole pace of Berlin reminds me very much of my hometown of Montreal, where it is okay to walk down the street smoking a joint as if it's a cigarette (not that I'm endorsing it), or having a beer in a park, or joining a tam tam circle on a Sunday afternoon. Berlin takes the Sunday afternoon ritual a notch up though, I have to say. Au lieu de medieval fighting in a forest, Berliners take to the hill at Mauerpark for a giant Karaoke show. I was fortunate enough to witness an amazing surprise performance by Erlend Øye, of Whitest Boy Alive and Kings of Convenience, both based in Berlin.

And just to prove how up and coming Berlin is, Halloween is FINALLY catching on. About time. On Saturday night, my host was kind enough to have a Halloween party, followed by a brief excursion to a bar which was also hosting a party literally in their dungeon of a cellar with loud scary music. Leave it to Berliners... At about 2am we wandered over to a club in the South. The ex-pats could clearly be marked out in the crowd, as we were the only ones in costume. Give it another year and I swear Halloween will be a big deal! The sweetest thing though was sitting in a restaurant Sunday evening and watching the kids come in asking for food/drinks/whatever they expected to get in a restaurant. If I knew enough German, I would have explained to them that Halloween is not about going to bars and restaurants, but to residential doors that will then open up and hand out small loot bags. Instead, I watched these kids walk away with day-old croissants. But, like I said, give it a year.

One last interesting thing to note: a Hitler exhibition at the Deutsches Historisches Museum! First ever Hitler exhibition in Germany, so my friends and I felt a duty to attend. Unfortunately half of it was in German, and being a Canadian with a Brit, a Swede, and a Russian, we were pretty hopeless. But from what we could gather, the exhibition started off with a series of questions. To quote the curator, it "delves into teh interrelationship between Hitler's charismatic 'Fuhrer power' and the expectations and behaviour of the 'people.'" Well, I would have to describe it as 'Hitler-lite'. The exhibition skirted around making any major claims or actually placing any blame on the 'people' and instead repeated the history lessons we've all had explaining economic crises, political repercussions of WW1, etc etc. I was hoping for a bit more umph, but was impressed with the amount of Nazi propaganda they were able to display - from boardgames to toy soldiers to posters once hung around Berlin.

I could (and will) write a thesis on Berlin, but for tonight I'll spare you. I'm only 2 days into my 15 day work week (yes, I am officially back in London...) so excuse any more long delays in blogging!