Berlin in 2000 words

On the train from the airport to the city centre, two guys sat down in the seats next to me and opened two bottles of Beck’s beer. The split-second SSSSSSSssssss….. of the releasing carbonation interrupted my contemplation of suburban Berlin’s landscape. A clink as glass meets glass, then they looked at each other and said, “Prost,” with that unique German smile: slight tightening of the outer lips, an almost imperceptible elevation of corners of the eyes, no teeth showing. In some countries, it might be interpreted as a look of ambivalence or slight satisfaction, but the zest with which the Germans guzzled the first half of the pilsners, and their contented, hearty exhalations informed me that this mysterious “Prost” was a joyous, meaningful well-wishing. After two contented sighs, they resumed their conversation with rapidity and excitement. At the next stop, four more youths boarded the carriage. The two men had shaved heads, tattoos running down their arms and up their necks, and more piercings than I could count. Both girls were pink-haired, similarly pierced, and scantily clad in miniskirts, fishnet leggings, and leather tops. All four were completely tanked and stumbling around the end of the car as the train bounced through a sharp turn. Suddenly, one of the girls grabbed two of the ceiling’s support handles, lifted herself up and wrapped her legs around the larger guy’s waist. They proceeded to dry-hump for about thirty seconds while the Beck’s drinkers rolled their eyes, a Chinese woman in the corner stared pointedly at the floor, and I tried not to look too creeped out.

A feeling of absurd un-reality hit me suddenly: I knew absolutely no German apart from the mysterious “prost” and the first three numbers I’d learned from Cool Runnings. I had lost the directions to my hostel, my map of public transportation was 5 years out of date, my phone was on the verge of dying, and I was sitting serenely on a train while four punks showed me why Berlin was called the hedonistic capital of the world. I shook my head in amazement, felt my anxiety melt away, and began to chuckle to myself. Absurd. My laughter grew and I was shaking in my seat. I laughed with excitement at the possibility of the unknown; with the release of being shaken out of comfort. I laughed with loving madness because I was entering a crazy city. I looked up from my revelry, flashed my American smile to everyone in the train, picked up my bags, and walked out into Alexanderplatz station. Wilkkomen in Berlin!

...

The first thing I noticed about Berlin was how unguarded the people are. In cities like New York, London, or Paris, the natives stride along at a brisk pace, heads down or looking straight ahead, and would never deign to meet the gaze of a passerby. Not so in Berlin. Everywhere I went, people looked at me. At first, I though I must have been conspicuously dressed, but on after a while it was clear that most people got the same open scrutiny. Instead of being closed off, Berliners were always looking around and responding to the people around them. If I smiled, they smiled back to me. I had no trouble asking directions from someone on the street, or discussing differences between German and American beer with a bartender. At no point did I feel unwelcome, though of course I didn’t really blend in: my white sneakers immediately betrayed me as a foreigner.

I know I stuck out like a sore thumb because the Gypsies always came straight up to me in a crowd. On Unter den Linden, the city’s main thoroughfare, thousands of people walked the streets, but I was always singled out for Gypsy begging. One kid spotted me from fifty yards away and made a beeline right to the spot where I would emerge from a crowd. I always wondered how they timed it that well.

“’’Scuse me?” he said with a decent British accent. “Do you speak English?”
“No” I replied.

“Deutsch?”
“Nein” (this invariably generated some laughter. I must have a terrible German accent)

“Francais?”
“No”

“Ruski?” Surprised, I nodded assent just to see if he could speak Russian, though of course I knew not a word. He started jabbering away in a language that sounded vaguely Slavic. Impressed, I gave him a Euro for his language skills.

My generosity was a terrible idea. The little gremlins must have signals to point out the sucker tourists because after the money left my hand, thousands of the munchkins converged on me. They poured out of the subways, the alleys, the buildings, even the high-rise apartments. I was surrounded! I had to use a modified version of my favorite game, which I now dub, “Avoid the Persistent Gypsy Child” in order to scamper away from certain destruction. I had visions of being torn apart by colorfully-clad olive-skinned child-thieves, all the while surrounded by a sea of “Scuse me!!” harassments. Nightmarish, I tell you.

…

The years after the wall fell were a tumultuous time for the city. Reunification was supposed to be a triumphant, joyous occasion. Families brought together again. East Germany lifted out of oppression. The triumph of freedom over tyranny. Etc. Etc. In some ways it was true, but there remained the very real problem of integrating two societies that had radically diverged since 1963, when guard towers, concrete, and Kalashnikov machine guns split the city in two. Economic disparity, political disagreements, and even infrastructural differences made for a less than picturesque reality of the reunion. Freed from emigration restrictions, many residents of the former DDR fled to higher ground in the prosperous West, abandoning entire neighborhoods. Poor Turkish immigrants filled the empty space. As happens all to often in these situations, civil services, police presence, and other aspects of government involvement waned, and some of these zones fell into disrepair and crime.

Interesting things began to happen in subsequent years. Attracted by the low rents and spacious flats, poor artists began to move into the abandoned warehouses, factories, and housing projects. They set their studios in the tall East German drudgery, with a view of factory stacks, barbed wire, and Soviet-style monochromatism. One would hardly think that creativity would thrive in such an atmosphere, but thrive it did. Berlin became a haven for artists driven out of New York and Paris by gentrification, and the media began to change to reflect this new environment. With its high, bare brick walls, Berlin street art flourished.

When I think of graffiti, the first thing that comes to mind is a gang sign; crude, angry messages. By definition, the paint on Berlin’s buildings might be classified as graffiti. If so, a new definition is needed.

In 1992, Kreutzberg was one of the poorest districts in the city. By the Kotbusser Tor metro station stood a seven story, 400-room housing project: boarded windows and broken glass, surrounded by a dying landscape. The ground floor of the project is exposed to the elements, with doors separating the wind from dark, narrow stairwells. Large stand-alone concrete walls support the building. It was a hot-spot for drug trafficking and the violence that came with it. No police kept watch at night; garbage crews were infrequent and often left heaps of trash to rot in the summer sun or to freeze in cold of winter. Though plenty of people lived in the project, it was completely and utterly abandoned by the rest of German society.

A group of painters had moved into an empty department store down the street, and they decided to try an experiment. Young and idealistic, they believed they could rejuvenate the neighborhood with their craft. So they began painting murals directly on the walls of the housing project. The idea was, maybe beauty was enough to change people. If instead of looking everyday at decrepitude, being reminded of their own worthlessness, if the people saw vibrancy and life through the art, maybe it could make a difference, calm the anger. In effect, the artists were trying to say, “look, here is something you can be proud of. This wall, once bare and broken, is now alive.. Take it.”

Kreuzberg’s transformation didn’t happen overnight, and it surely had more causes than a bunch of hippie painters trying to change the world with peace, love, and art. However, as I climbed the stairs out of the Kotbusser Tor metro station, heard the story from our guide, I was amazed at how unblemished the murals were. Bright colors shone from the drab beige undertone like sunlight through a prism, spilling onto the street and infecting the adjoining square with a vitality that made it hard not to smile. I wonder what it was like to watch this be born, a diamond slowly growing in this harsh, pained rough. Though the murals are exposed and unguarded, defacement is almost nonexistent. Did the art make it easier for the people of Kreutzberg to not settle for the short, brutal life? Who knows, but it probably didn’t’ hurt.

…

Being American, I thought I knew all about fireworks, but New Year’s Eve shamed my pitiful knowledge of recreational explosives. There were plenty of sparklers, shimmering fountains, and other benign, colorful things, but the diversity, density, and danger of Berlin’s fireworks overwhelmed the eyes and the eardrums.

I stood on a bridge over railroad tracks, a bottle of cheap champagne in my hand, warm from the mass of people despite the freezing temperatures. My newfound friends laughed and smoked around me, and together we staggered to and fro the length of the bridge, wishing happy New Year’s to all.

Cars crawled past the revelry, slowed by thick snow and thicker crowds. The rails of the bridge were crowded with bottle rockets. When room on the ledges ran out, people held the rockets aloft, or let them scream down to the iron abyss or up to the clouded sky. Large explosions all around us. Worry and caution were trampled by jubilation and inebriation. Without an official clock, ten different midnight countdowns began asynchronously. New Year’s day came gradually that night, with small groups of people entering 2010 one after another. The cheers built over the course of about 30 seconds, and the embraces spread down the line of people on the bridge. I was caught up in a riveting (and incomprehensible) half-sign-language-conversation with three Dutch girls, before being dragged off by my hosts. Another bottle was put in my hand.

Spotty memories the rest of the night: Snowball fights. Loud, pulsing, electronic music. Playful wrestling on a sidewalk. A brief New Year’s kiss. A smile. Goodnight, Berlin.

…

things to do/see/eat/experience in Berlin:

Jewish Museum
Alternative Berlin Tour (google it)
Walk down Unter den Linten
Go to a night club (Panorama, Watergate, or others).
Museum Island
Beer gardens in the summer
Gluwein
KEBABS IN KREUTZGERG!!!!
Smile at people
Street art
Currywurst (sausage with curry on it)
Art that isn’t in museums
EAST SIDE GALLERY
the bar/restaurant called “White Trash Fast Food”

Overrated things:

Checkpoint Charlie
ALL the stores on Unter den Linten (unless you’re in the market for a Lamborghini)
Pergamon Museum
KaDeWe shopping center
Food in the metro stations