It's not just the World Cup that's Big in Berlin

A few weekends back, ok, quite a few, I spent yet another day exploring Berlin. Wonderfully, this is almost always a rewarding way to spend a day, even if I'm beginning to feel quite guilty and neglectful about not getting away more. The long list of trips I planned to take, constructed in September 05, remains almost fingerprint free.

Still, it's hard to feel too bad, when there is so much to see here. For those who might not notice the small details that make this a great city, Berlin obliges with several larger than life nudges.

The car is part of the "Berlin, City of Ideas" exhibition, which highlights the wide spectrum of innovation (with some creative license) born of Berlin.

There's also a huge Bayer aspirin in the middle of the government sector. Hey, when you're trying to fill a quota, you can't always be selective, but you can be ironic.

As far as I know, Rietveld never slept here, but an enterprising store still took the opportunity to trumpet one of his greatest (one of the greatest?) furniture designs, the Red Blue chair. Click the pic for a post-modern discussion of it's iconicity.

While I'm short, I promise you I was standing when I took both pictures. The objects were BIG.

I mentioned earlier that, while not quite consistently summer, the weather did finally turn. Berlin has a reputation as a green city, and an even stronger one as a city whose residents enjoy being outdoors. I can officially confirm both.

Apparently, some official agency with a very long name sent a letter to all Berliners: this is now officially the time to sit outside at cafes (even if it's cold and rainy), jog, bike, and sunbathe. I once had an argument with a good friend about whether it is necessary to know pain to enjoy pleasure. To Bear, I say: I still believe pleasure has its own independent power, but there's no question that a long, grey winter adds a certain halo effect to the sunshine and flowers.

It has also done wonders for the view out my window. I may move this fall. I am beginning to suspect that to truly appreciate the space I live in, I will have to design it myself. That said, mornings and evenings on the balcony are pretty decadent these days.

Now, if you don't mind, Germany just tied Argentina in the World Cup quarter finals, so I need to prepare my expat-to-expat victory blog, just in case. Keep an eye peeled, Ian. "Berlin, Berlin, we're going to Berlin!" Oh. Wait. We're already here.

Spargel and Sightseeing

Note: One of the reasons for the gap in my posting activity is that I have been struggling with uploading pics. I also wanted to preserve some of these in larger size. (Trust me, they come out of the camera at 5 MB each, so even the large ones have still be rescaled.)
So, I have used thumbnails here, linking to a larger picture. Just click em. Although, those with slow connections might be happier just enjoying the thumbnails. And, I know, it's not an ideal solution, so any suggestions (including detailed instructions!) are welcome.

As many of you know, my mom came to visit in May. We had -- and I feel pretty confident speaking for both of us -- a wonderful, though exhausting, time exploring Berlin and, on a three-day side trip, Prague.



It took a few cups of coffee to pull together a fairly complete list of our adventures, and a few glasses of red wine to polish it up.

Here's the end result.

For posterity, as well as to erase any lingering fear in my mom's mind that we might have missed something on her list, we:

• Did a long walking tour of my neighborhood, Charlottenburg
• Took half a bus tour of the city
• Dashed into the Berlin Dom (Cathedral) and its crypt
• Checked out the Gates of Ishtar and Pergamon at the Pergamon Museum

• Had coffee on Unter den Linden
• Admired the Brandenburger Tor
• Were struck by the solmenity of the austere Holocaust Memorial
• Had dinner at Lutter and Wegner at Gendamenmarkt while the orchestra rehearsed across the street
• Went to the top of the Reichstag to gape at the view and Sir Norman Foster's dome

• Explored the interconnected passageways of the Hackescher Hof, using the shops to strategically duck the rain
• Wandered the Disneyesque Nikolaiviertel (Christmas shop open year round!)
• Joined the students boning up on Gropius at the Bauhaus Archive
• Sampled quiche in the food market at KaDeWe
• Hopped a train to Prague, which has the added bonus of running alongside the Elbe much of the way

• Gazed in awe from the Charles Bridge as the sun set over the Prague Castle

• Ate breakfast in Old Town Square
• Explored the Prague Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral, and Rampart Gardens, then hunted for a mysterious monument we'd noted from above, before giving up to enjoy snacks at two different cafes in a row on the banks of the Spree

• Slept at the quite decent and incredibly well-located Iron Gates Hotel

• Were underimpressed by Frank Gehry's Dancing House
• Had a gourmet meal (didn't count as a third snack) on the Spree
• Patronized my local Italian restaurant back in Berlin
• Checked out the contemporary art at the Hamburger Bahnhof (no food involved)

• Had lunch at a biergarten on a lake and then meandered through the Tiergarten

• Had another gourmet dinner
• Found our way to the airport where my mom, I expect, crashed gratefully into her seat and slept the whole way home!

And, oh yes:

• Consumed a collective 8.4 kilos of spargel, also known as asparagus. Mom's trip coincided with its short season, during which Berliners go crazy for the white stuff.

An incredible week for me, and it's only fitting to have shared it with the woman who introduced me to Europe. (For those who don't know the story, some years ago my mom developed the twisted notion that a 16 year old California boy would certainly enjoy leaving his friends behind and being hauled off to a strange Italian city named after an old lady. Well...I did enjoy it, and the rest is history.)

World Cup Fever Begins (and Other Tidbits)

My initiation to World Cup fever got off to a pleasant start last weekend. A friend from work clued me in to an open air viewing location on the edge of the water in Potsdam where we, along with his wife and a neighbor couple of theirs, watched the opening game of Germany against Costa Rica. As befits the host country, Germany won the first game.

On Saturday, I then got up early to join a contigent who had won tickets from work for a six hour bus ride to Dortmund, where I attended a live game: Trinidad/Tobago vs. Sweden.

The 0-0 draw was widely acclaimed as a victory for Trinidad, the decided underdog, and at the Soca-themed town party afterwards, thousands who had traveled all the way from the islands and thousands more who just know how to find a good party celebrated in lively style.

As did I and two colleagues from work. As the oldest of the crowd from work (and therefore the wisest and most responsible), we had decided during the game that it would be a prefectly rationale undertaking to skip the bus ride home and catch the train at 3:00 am instead, so that we could join the Caribbean (and Swedish) crowd in their celebrations.

This, by the way, is exactly the same collegiate logic that leads one to pipe up: "Hey, let's drive to Vegas/Tijuana!" (West Coast) and "Hey, let's drive to Canada!" (East Coast).

While I survived the ride home (if one does try to get away with this at our age, a first class train reservation certainly makes it much more palatable), and even the next day. On Monday, however, I lost my voice completely.

It will be fascinating to see how the frenzy escalates over the next month. Mind you, we are only at the qualifying stages right now...not even the "eighth finals" (a word which I think is missing in English).

Now, some housekeeping: between my last post in February and now, life obviously continued. Spring finally sprung, then ducked right back into its cave, reverting to three more weeks of winter. We have now skipped directly to summer.

Also in the interim, my mother came for a wonderful weeklong visit -- during which we hit every hot spot in Berlin and Prague -- one of my very good friends got married, another got a new job and is in the process of relocating his family, and yet another is, I assume, discovering the sub-equatorial winter while deciding how to decorate the nursery.

And I got my German Driving License. Valid for life, you know!

So, I obviously need to catch up. Watch here for updates on -- at a bare minimum -- the visit from my mom.