You may not have heard, but Barack Obama was in town last week. I won’t recap his speech or the visit at length, since so many others have done so. Basically his speech was about how arrogant he is to prefer political to military victory, unless it’s a Prussian military victory, in which case he’s a secret Muslim named Osama Hussein Hitler. The crowd was ‘mixed,’ which apparently is an evocative adjective if you’re an American journalist. Aside from starting chants with America’s expat youth, one of whom does not yet know how to say ‘yellow,’ the highlight of the evening was the girl in American flag pants who might have been in this video (is that racist or post-racial?). U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!!
One of Brett’s primary recommendations for me in Berlin was to get a bike. Bicycle’s are ubiquitous here. Berlin is an extremely flat city, and, though large, is very bike-able. I don’t know if there are any formal share-the-road rules, but on smaller streets especially cars seem to expect and accept the presence of bikers. The sidewalks of the larger streets have bike lanes, and sidewalks in general are large and fine to bike on if you can manage to avoid hitting any kinder.
The first week I was here it was very sunny and I was very jealous seeing everyone on their bike while I walked, even though I like to walk. The GI is a 30 min walk or a very easy 10 min bike ride from my place. So that weekend after brunch the Bode crew and I went to the Mauer Park Flohmarkt (flea market), which is the best of three flea markets that I’ve been to here. As soon as I walked in I saw a good looking road bike, but it was for 80 euro and being the deliberate shopper that I am, decided to look around.
It is clear at this point in my life that I am not very good at buying things. By that I mean, I’m not very good at spontaneously buying things. If I see something I like in a store my first impulse is to note where the store is and come back another day. If I need to make a decision right away, my usual routine is to stare at the object in question for 20-30 minutes while considering all the possible ramifications of my potential purchasing decision. Do I really like this t-shirt? Am I sure that this t-shirt fits me the right way? Is $8 too much to spend on a t-shirt? What else could I buy with $8? etc. On the other hand, I’m a very good shopper if I have 10-20 hours to kill and an internet connection. This is the method I use for anything over $25. (The only time this didn’t work is when I was interested a couple years ago in buying a mattress. Judging from the comments on the many mattress forums, I am convinced that shopping for a mattress makes people go crazy.)
Back to Mauer park, while there were many bicycles at this flohmarkt many of them were not in very good condition, or were single speeds, or girl’s bikes, or some combination thereof. I ended up paying 70 euro for a blue road bike that was functional and kind of nice looking but had clearly seen better days.
I wouldn’t mind riding around a crappy bike so long as it worked ok, but the brakes on this particular vehicle started failing within days of taking it home. Even then, it wasn’t a big issue and was slightly comical, and having a bike was more a convenience than a liability. However, eventually the brake got stuck in one position, a position too close to the wheel so that the brake and wheel were rubbing against each other. It still sort of works, but as the guy at Fahrrad Linke said, if the wheel wears through it will just blow out while I’m riding, which would not be very good. The woman at Fahrrad Linke just laughed at me.
To add further insult, I locked my bike up on the street the other day, and when I got back to the spot, someone had broken my lock! Of all the bikes not just in that one spot, but all over the city, many of which have much crappier and easier-to-break locks than mine, someone decided to cut mine. Why is that an insult? Because fortunately (?), while they broke the lock, they decided to not take the bike! Perhaps they cut the lock out of general spite, or maybe they just wanted to borrow the bicycle for a while, but I’m thinking they rode 10 feet and realized that this bicycle is a piece of crap.
Yesterday evening Arthur, Brien and I went to see Woyzeck, a Werner Herzog film based on the Georg Büchner play. It was playing at the Lightblick Kino on Kastanienallee, which is doing a Klaus Kinski retrospective this month (in addition to a Jim Jarmusch retrospective). It’s difficult to really evaluate the film because it was in German and I, you know, don’t really understand German. Arthur had filled me in on the story before the movie, so I could follow along with the plot generally, but none of the specifics.
The film has some beautiful shots, many of which seem to linger a little bit too long. Maybe this was the most interesting for me given my lack of comprehension, because these scenes or parts of scenes exist almost outside the plot, or at least are not strictly necessary for the action of the film. I suppose many directors do this; the one I can think of now is Antonioni.
After the movie we went over to w-imbiss where I got a pretty good burrito.
Yesterday I headed over to west berlin to hang out with Chris and Danielle and their son Bode. I met up with them plus Tamara and Brien at their quite large and nice apartment. The area is maybe not as hopping as some parts of east berlin but they have a pretty nice space. We went over to the Schloss Charlottenburg and walked around the gardens in the back while talking about birds. Chris is a neuroscientist that works with birds, and Danielle is a science teacher. It’s nice to have scientist friends who break into monologues about birds rather than Agamben.
After that they made us a wonderful dinner, all the more wonderful because I think it was the first real home cooked meal I’ve had since I’ve been here. I don’t know if it’s because Berliners eat out a lot, or if my roommates just aren’t into cooking, but the kitchen in my apartment isn’t really set up well for cooking. I get by ok, but a lot of normal kitchen things I’m used to are absent, like a can opener (though C and D had an extra one and so generously gave it to me).
It’s also nice to sit around a table with people who are more in my age range. I’ve met some good people through the GI, but many of them are college aged, 20 or 21. This past year I’ve begun to notice a separation between myself and people who are that age, that I never really noticed when I was, say, 24. It’s not anything extreme – it’s not that I’m super-mature myself and I still find a minimal amount of energy to keep with things like new music – but I do find that I have less boundless energy and maybe a little more perspective.
That being said, after finishing dinner with the grown-ups I promptly headed back on the u-bahn to the “Bang Bang Club” and joined said 21 year olds to dance to indie-electro until 3am or so. The only difference was that, having been too many times to Blow Up SF/LA, I had considerably lower expectations about the club than they did.
I’ve wanted to start a blog for sometime now, but of course never have time or initiative. So this is intending to be more than just a travel blog, but we’ll see if it keeps up after I get back. Anyway, I’ve been in Berlin for three weeks already now. I’ve been anticipating coming here and learning German for a quite a while now – at least since I graduated from college four years ago (!). So it’s good to be here. It’s also good to be in a real place after spending 9 months in Irvine.
The only time I’ve been here was 9 or 10 years ago with Brett. I remember walking into random connecting courtyards throughout the city, and finding parties in odd semi-abandoned places in east Berlin. As I expected, Berlin has changed quite a bit from then and is more developed. For example I remember sitting in Hackescher Markt with Brett and Les and walking around in that area, and it certainly wasn’t the high fashion center that it is now. I live in Prenzlauer Berg, in the former east. To compare it to something more familiar, it has a very ‘park slope’ feel to it. As my roommate Henning, who moved here in 1993, explained: “at first everything was very cheap and there were a lot of open spaces. Then it seemed that every woman in Western Europe came here to have a baby.” There are babies everywhere, including at the sushi bars and beer gardens. I live above a second-hand, vintage children’s clothing store.
I don’t mind this at all; in fact I really like Prenzlauer Berg. Everyday I walk or bike down Kollwitz Str to go the Goethe Institut (GI), and the sight of cafes and parks and people is great. Helmholtz Platz too is surrounded by a number of cafes, bars, restaurants, many of which have great brunch specials.
Anyway, I am off to meet Chris, whom I met through the GI, his wife Danielle, and their two-year-old Bode for dinner and hanging out, but I will try to catch up on what I’ve been up to in posts over the weekend. This may include: classes, tourist stuff, art, Berlin myths, losing/finding my keys, and other thoughts.
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