#ampelman

[rachel-blue]

December 9th, 2022.

Berlin reminded me a lot of London, and also very much its own city of all the places we visited on this trip.

[burning-in-white]

[dvoenakabriolete]

Только немцы ожидают с распростертыми объятиями. #ampelman

[spainwhatup]

Berlin: startups and techno and yoga, oh my!

Berlin! Burrlin is more like it, in the winter at least. I had scheduled my trip around the itinerary of Carla, who is not always in the city, which I why I found myself braving subzero Celsius temperatures while my sunny Barcelona was already leaning on the side of shorts weather. This place was colder that Russia was in December, and it was the kind of cold that leached the strength out of your bones and made you think long and hard before venturing out of any establishment. But enough complaining – I had a great time regardless – although for would be travellers I would recommend avoiding Berlin in the winter, simply because you miss out on a lot of the city’s best offerings as a result.

For example, it is one of the greenest cities in Europe, with parks just about every other block, and much larger expanses creeping in towards the city center from the suburbs, like the massive Grundewald that looked more like the middle of the Black Forest than it did seven metro stops from central Berlin. I had a great time wandering through these silent, snowy landscapes on more than one occasion – but there is no doubt that they have much more to offer in the summer – like impromptu karaoke sessions in the Mauerpark, nudist fields in Tiergarten, and lakes that you actually want to swim in.

There are so many facets of this city that it’s hard to choose just one to highlight. History, abandoned buildings, street art, vibrant culture, strong startup hub, delicious street food – if it weren’t for the cold it might have BCN beat. I was struck by the amount of cranes in the city – the government seems to still be filling in the prime real estate in the center of the city that used to be the no-mans-land around the Wall with shiny new big buildings. The former east side has become the new de facto center of the city, due to cheap housing, while the former west side is now the fancy shopping district.

I, Silicon Valley prodigal son that I am, was most excited by the startup culture. On my first morning I had breakfast at the Betahaus, a co-operative officesharing building overflowing with passionate young people who have big ideas. From the jovialfont style on the café blackboard to the myriad digital tie-ins strewn about the walls (QR codes, hashtag prompts, and the like), to the cute little company logos, I felt like I was right back in San Francisco. Except that these post industrial office spaces are decidedly Communist in their architecture, and overlook snowy courtyards rather than the SF bay.

The breakfast included a few speakers, including an experienced business lawyer who gave us a talk about negotiation, a Silicon Valley expat who gave advice on how to migrate your business to the states (heh, that one was fun for me to listen to), and an energetic Startup Olympics cofounder who showed us how he designed his current lifestyle. I had found the event through Gidsy, which looks to be a great travel/event resource no matter what city.. I bonded with an app developer who had recently moved from Barcelona and turned me on to the nascent startup culture there, as well as a friendly Dutch couchsurfer (aren’t they all?)” who traded tips with me on both hitchhiking and GoPro harnesses. It was so great to talk with people who have passions and ambition for the near future – while I love my Barcelona buddies, the truth is most of them don’t seem to be planning their future past the next party destination. Can’t blame em, but why not do both at once?

Speaking of Couchsurfing, my host this stay was another startup man with a plan, Sebastian, and his Russian girlfriend Ksenia. Both were incredibly friendly and I daresay we become friends even more than just hosts – their sweet loft apartment just made the deal better. The only catch was that his fusebox wasn’t entirely operational, so you had to diddle with it in order to choose which two of the following three options you wanted: (you couldn’t get all three at once) lights in the apartment, hot water in the bathroom, or wifi access/refrigerator power.  Internet junkie that I am, I skipped the shower the first few days in favor of web access for more attraction research ;). Ksenia told me I could just try the Russian method – heat up several pots of water on the stove and then wash yourself with that. Hardcore.

My first day was spent wandering around the Berlin sights with Carla and Lukas (the professional model I mentioned before in November). I was struck by the Holocaust memorial, which is composed of a sea of black square stones of varying heights, and the East Side Gallery, a still standing part of the Berlin Wall that has several blocks of restored graffiti murals on it. 

Alas, Sebastian could not host me the whole trip, so I rendezvoused with my second host, the 43 year old portly Thomas, that night in order to pick up the keys to his apartment, since he was leaving for the weekend. I was taken aback at his generosity, especially when I saw his bachelor pad penthouse apartment stuffed with electronics, but I sure wasn’t going to complain. I guess I earned his trust commiserating about our mutual love for techno as we cruised around Berlin at night in his BMW pumping electronic music while in search of currywurst.

Currywurst is a Berlin specialty that is basically a sausage with skin cut up and doused in tangy ketchup, with fries along the side. Good drunk food. Apparently the other late-night-staple, the doner kebab, was invented here, although I must say even after trying the supposedly-best Mustafas doner, I have had better examples in Barcelona. Not that it wasn’t delicious. The other standout edible from the trip was a MeisterBurger from BurgerMeister, a tiny uber hip sticker covered burger stand housed in a former U-bahn bathroom under a metro stop.

I met up with Sebastian again that night to go out to one of his friend’s open mic nights, which was housed in one of the temporary, not-strictly-legal pop up club/bars that appear for a few months at a time in disused commercial space. We paid two euros to the hipster at the door, then went backdoor and literally entered a hole in the ground to find a basement that could have been that of a German teenager’s, albeit with an added makeshift bar on one side. We listened to a few dudes jam out what can best be described as “gypsy music” for an hour or so, which was largely unexceptional until some unassuming neckbeard with a guitar and an incredible mezzo-soprano voice took the mic and belted out several tunes that would not be out of place in an opera. Authentic Berlin for sure.

The next few days blur together, but they all entailed me getting incredibly footsore wandering around some section of the city for hours in the cold, taking in sights, followed by a rendezvous with friend in the city (again, many found by chance through FB). Some highlights include Teufelsberg, an abandoned former NSA listening station on top of a hill, Tempelhof Airport, built by Hitler and formerly the biggest airport building in the world, now a public park (super fun to watch windsurfers fly around the empty runways), the Olympia Stadion, also built by Hitler but now home to huge soccer matches, and Kreuzberg, the super graffiti-ed alternative heart of the city, filled with street art, pubs, and bars. I was amused that the laid back café/bar I went to there that had a live DJ in the corner spinning records, even though nobody was really paying attention and the music was nothing more than background ambience.

The DDR Museum that covers life in the former eastern block of the city wasn’t all that exciting, to be honest. It had an interesting layout, with exhibits that you pull out of the wall, but was very small. Go instead to the Ampelman store nearby, that has just about every tchotchke related to the lovable Berlin icon that you can think of. For those who don’t know, the ampelman is the eastern Berlin green man that tells you when you can cross the street – he looks quite different from the boring androgynous silhouette you find elsewhere in the Western world, with a spring in his step and his own little hat. 

The only negative of the city is that nowhere accepts credit cards. Even Subway, an incredibly American chain, told me they only take cash. WTF? Get with the times, Berlin.

On Sunday Carla, Lukas and I made plans to go to Berghain, the world famous hard techno club in a former electrical plant that is notorious for starting Friday night and going nonstop until Monday morning. We took advantage of this by going Sunday at noon, which is actually quite civilized now that I think about it. Normally my desire to go out is competing with my desire to sleep, and even on good nights around 3 am I start not caring and thinking about my bed. During the day, however, that’s not a problem, and why not? It doesn’t have to be dark outside to go clubbing. However, the other famous thing about Bergain is that its door policy is incredibly strict, and they will turn you away after two hours of waiting with no explanation why. Luckily for us, there was no line at noon on a Sunday, but alas, we were not cool enough to pass the bouncer’s inspection and were turned away with nothing more than a shake of the head.

It teaches you the importance of constructive criticism, that’s for sure. Since they don’t tell you why, your mind races and you think of every possible reason why not – wearing uncool clothes, wearing too fashionable clothes, who you are with, if you spoke too much in the line, etcetera. But you simply don’t know, so you just have to accept it. I tried again that night at 8 pm with a different friend (also German, so I was doing it all by the book!) but still no dice. Heh, guess I’ll try again when I visit the city in some future summer.

The area outside Berghain at night was a freakshow, however. Comatose girls with their dresses pulled up, some guy wearing nothing but what appeared to be a fashionable rug and a beanie, some other guy wearing a huge pimp coat with skinny silk pants and not much else. Berlin is full of characters, like the tattooed neo Nazi looking guys with black irises on the metro, but there were even more here.

Overall, I had a great (chilly) time, but again, visit in summer when you can see the full vibrancy of the city on display. Probably my second favorite city in Europe.