Category: Places
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Somebody has to do it
A man in a puffy tan jacket stops in front of the memorial commemorating the night the wall fell. It is difficult to determine his age under his white knit hat, but bits of gray hair and a roughness to his cold-chapped skin mark him as old enough to remember the night the barricades had…
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Wanted: A new political left
After four years of uncomfortable Grand Coalition, Germany’s center-right party — or more exactly, Angela Merkel, the only really popular politician here — is finally getting to lead more or less the way it wants. This has fairly widely been dubbed the most boring election in history. Which — aren’t we in the middle of…
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How to find a bus in Bucharest
We arrive in Bucharest at midday. We are only passing through; we have two options for catching a bus north to Sibiu, over the Făgăraş mountains. One option is very soon, the other gives us slightly more time. It seems simple: A taxi driver waves to us after we have found our ATM machine, and…
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Observations 3: (Kopenhagener Str.)
A red station wagon screeches to a halt in the middle of the intersection. A young man leans out the driver’s window, shouting furious English-language obscenities at the top of his lungs. “You goddamn bitch, you fucking piece of fucking.… I should fucking…aaaaAAAHHHHHH…” He pulls his head back inside, throwing the car into reverse. A…
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Problems from the right
The first time I saw a new-Nazi march here, right past our window on Bornholmer, it was more amusing than appalling. There were maybe 30 people involved, more than half evidently from out of town, surrounded by hundreds of police and probably thousands of protestors. Before it happened, locals distributed flyers asking people along the…
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New look at old sculptures
I worried when I first heard of the Egyptian Museum’s curatorial mash-up, sprinkling Alberto Giacometti sculptures into the ancient collection. A modernist and the ancients — potentially interesting, I thought, like seeing Picasso’s work next to the African art he drew on, but plenty of room for over-curated fluff. We stopped by today. I shouldn’t…
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Latte-sipping liberals in my latte
Seen at Bonanza Coffee Heroes, where they make a rich, flavorful brew with geopolitical relevance. Americans: If you haven’t voted already, send that ballot in now! (Cross-posted at Hungry in Berlin.)
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To be fair, we can see Canada from the States
From a McCain staffer today (via Huffington Post): MIAMI — Move over, Al Gore. You may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain helped create the BlackBerry. At least that’s the contention of a top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain’s work as a senator, he…
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A kind of springy beginning
I think I’ve spent the last six months entirely inside. It wasn’t a cold winter, but the dark and cold-enough of it seemed to get under my skin more than I expected this year. Though it’s possible that staring at a laptop screen for 29 hours a day every day has something to do with…
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Running to stay in place, thankfully
After a bit of swearing and frowning and several trips down to a part of Wedding which I don’t ordinarily see (but we all should, because there’s quite interesting African Lebensmittel shops there), the Ausländerbehördenites have at last given me a permission slip to stay in this part of the world for a bit longer.…
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Some say the year will end in fire…
A good way to swap the years in and out. The streets of Berlin on Silvesternacht (New Years Eve night) were as always marked by heavy artillery. Even after describing it a hundred times to people in the States, I had forgotten the visceral effect of letting everybody in the city have dozens of rockets…
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At the Weihnachtsmarkt, or through the Gate of The Time
Unter den Linden today, or more specifically, the few hundred meters between the Schlossplatz and the Opera House, offers a lovely contrast in Christmas concepts. One of the biggest, or at least most elaborate, Weihnachtsmarkts is hosted every year on the empty Schlossplatz, a parking lot in more ordinary times. For non-German readers, a Weihnachtsmarkt…
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The original cool Berlin
Here’s the New York Times with yet another entry in their strikingly finely described, spot-on series on Why Berlin is Super-Groovy. This was the original cool Berlin, with its own brand of gloomy, spooky glamour, well before East Berlin’s Mitte and Friedrichshain districts were on the tourist map. Another Weimar love letter, right? Caberet and…
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Will Durst on the falling dollar
From this column here, which sorta gets inflation and falling currency valuations mixed up, but it’s funny anyway: Dubyah has turned us into a third world banana republic. We’re Costa Rica to the rest of the World. With lousier snorkeling. Who can blame the hordes of Eurotrash from clogging the aisles of our Tiffany franchises…
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On the season’s sloshiness
I don’t mind the rain so much. I grew up near Seattle, and I’m pretty sure I can’t remember a single instance when the near-constant drizzle got me down. It lends itself to reading, cups of coffee, jazz on the speakers. I don’t even mind so much the lack of light. Don’t get me wrong,…