[in medias res] Schloß Charlottenburg

[in medias res] boat tour of the landwerkanal

the pretty little famous bridge whose name i don't know, the raisin bomber, and some ugly ducklings.

day 13 - august 17th

today corinna and I went out touristing again, first taking another great boat tour along the landwehrkanal, which is a very pretty narrow canal right through the middle of town, which is excellent because it provides parkfront and waterfront for many many neighborhoods. berlin also has lots of really neat buildings, and makes very cool architectural choices about incorporating the old with the new. (I have no idea what these buildings are; the tour was in german and corinna said it was mostly boring.)

some of the old buildings have super cool details, too. one of the things I liked best about the city was all the neat design details just for the sake of design. I don’t think we do that in the US – form and efficiency often trumps artistic sensibilities

you can also see the amazing clouds following us on the boat. we sat out at least two downpours on the deck, which was nice because I got a better view without all the other people!

there were lots of things to make the city nice and to make the canal accessible all the way along. I saw these cut out stairs going down into ports or canals all over, and in the Czech republic, maybe a carryover from when access to the water was necessary.

here’s a side bit of the canal, where houseboats are parked.

and public park and bike paths all along: and the ubiquitous “beach” bar where you can sip your beer in the sand

classic berlin:

and berlin had amazing graffiti. here’s a bit of the still-standing wall, where artists are encouraged:

and another shot, taken the next day from the bridge

now we’re getting into kreuzberg, a neat neighborhood with lots of Turkish immigrants and a very punk feel.

i saw these head-cut-off fish (sharks?) all over the city - would like to know what their story is.

the canal took us past the museum of (technology? something like that), which has an American plane hanging outside, the “raisin bomber”.

I never knew the story of how the Americans dropped food to the west Berliners when they were cut off from the rest of the west. they seemed to think it was a good thing, even though we were forcing germans to eat American chocolate. go figure. after the boat, we walked to charlottenburg castle, which was my first german castle and very very pretty. another picture here.

Sunday night we had reservations at a “dunkel-restaurant” where everything was dark dark dark, and you ordered by meal: beef, pork, poultry, or vegetarian, and then they served you 4 courses. we went to the unsicht-bar, which purports to be the first of the kind, and which boasts blind servers. (that’s an interesting issue in itself … ) anyway, it was a bit overpriced, but very fun, and not nearly as hard as it sounds to navigate your table, and the food was very good. Daniel and i both wondered whether it would be a good place for a date – maybe not a first date, but an early one. I kind of think so. Corinna didn't.

[in medias res] amazing

germany has both ice cream cafes - pics soon - and toilets that have 2 different flush buttons to let you choose how much water is used. that may be worth a picture too.

day 12 - august 16th

corinna and daniel made me a real spread of a german breakfast, with lots of meats and cheeses and fresh rolls and tea and juice. and they introduced me to soft-boiled eggs! there are, apparently, 2 ways to eat one, the proper/dainty/slow way, and the aggressive way - chopping off its head. we all got out the chopping blocks.

then she and i went off to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the new one by the brandenburg gate, which was very intense, a really well-done monument and gallery below. i felt weird taking pictures there even though a lot of people were. we walked through the tiergarten to the sony center, a HUGE new mall and condo complex, where i found a german kitchen store with a sale ... trouble!

then we met daniel at an ice cream cafe, which apparently are all over the place there. the whole menu was ice cream concoctions, including a plate of "spaghetti" or "lasagna" all made out of ice cream. yum. and expensive - 6-10 euros for one of these. it's the breakfast dilemma in a different form: usually savory-or-sweet?!?! (which is solved by getting a monte cristo), but here chocolate-or-fruit?!?! (which corinna solves by getting fruit but ordering chocolate for daniel).

mine, with some kind of egg cream liquer on top.

daniel took us on a driving tour next, including karl marx allee with its big box apartments leftover from communism, and then we had a spanish dinner in prenzlauerberg (where they live) followed by good drinks at Tarot, one of corinna's favorite bars, where i learned what "longdrinks" are. rather, i learned that the germans have a term for a category i didn't know had a name. we walked through the kulturbrauerei, which i posted about here. another pic:

meanwhile, my nice little swollen jellyfish imprint had turned into an oozing burn. you can see the outline more than the ooze here. luckily i was staying with 2 doctors who set me up.

day 11 - aug 15th

today corinna & daniel both went off to their day jobs saving lives, and i slept in and then had a minor meltdown that i was by myself, in a country where i didn't speak the language, less than halfway through my trip and very ready to be home. corinna had bought be a book the night before on berlin, so i read it and plotted out my attack on the city, did laundry, sorted email, and took it easy thinking it might be the only day i had to relax the whole trip. i was right, actually. plus it was raining. corinna came home early, before i even made it out of the house, and she took me on a nice driving tour of the parts of the city we hadn't seen the night before, and then we and her cousin went to her favorite restaurant, a pub-style place which had a huge menu. i tried a drink i could never get in the U.S. - a "bananenweizen" which is wheat beer with banana juice. they thought i was crazy, but it wasn't too bad! forgot that last night with the schnitzel i had a local favorite, a wheat beer with red flavoring (strawberry maybe?). they also make green. it was yummy. no pics from today.

[in medias res] to germany

now arrived in berlin, spent yesterday seeing the sights from a boat on the spree. me & corinna in aleksanderplatz:


super grafitti art on the side of the tacheles kunsthaus. wish my inside pics had come out better, cause it was cool.