And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
--Frost, "Mending Wall"
Berlin seemed like a weedy vacant lot that someone is trying to garden. Along with the modern hotels, comfortable neighborhoods, and world-class galleries are areas that look as if damage from World War II was carted away only yesterday. The walls now are of wood, and they are around endless construction sites. So often in Europe's cities I feel in touch with centuries past, but in Berlin it is decades. It is a cemetery of bad memories that is being built over, and it is an eclectic hodgepodge. In Berlin it seemed perfectly normal to see old churches with rooster-shaped weather vanes atop the steeples. The city's mix of history--very recent history--and ideology, as well as of ethnicity, seemed like no other.
We could not have asked for more generous hosts or more knowledgeable tour guides. After a 9-hour train ride from Vienna, we arrived at Berlin's Sudkreuz Bahnhof and were met by my college friend Russ and his partner Hubertus. An S-Bahn ride and a busride later we arrived at the apartment they generously gave us to use for the next three days. Our hosts, it seemed, knew the history of every block and every large building, and Berlin's 20th-century history as well as its singular mix of ethnicity soon became apparent--here there are no walls. On our first evening, our hosts treated us to dinner in a Greek restaurant across the street from our apartment; afterward, they retired to their other lodgings, and we slept peacefully in ours, in this quiet urban neighborhood. Up before Linda the next morning, I headed for the Habanero coffee shop next to our building. There a 60ish Cuban man, whose thick Spanish accent turned German's gentle gutterals to slush, took my order. As he prepared my coffee to-go, he offered to sell me as well some fresh rolls, made by his wife, who was most likely a resident of East Germany when that state was one of the few friends of Fidel Castro. Above the coffee shop counter, telling more than just the current time, a large clock with a red face and the stenciled visage of Che Guevara gazed out, perhaps at the past--and onto the limoncello bottles across the aisle. The next night, at another restaurant across the street, I chatted in Italian with a waiter from Naples.
Although we greatly enjoyed the national gallery, the scenic walk along the Spree River, and much of the restored old architecture, the echoes of Hitler at the Bundestag and the Brandenburg Gate brought another kind of depth to the history of the city. However, because so much that was Berlin in 1945 has been destroyed and never rebuilt, the Cold War seemed more in evidence than the Hitler era and World War II.
No-Man's Land
Checkpoint Charlie and the memorialized path of the Wall were for us the essence of the Cold War history. The stuff of spy novels and prisoner exchanges as well as of escape attempts, Checkpoint Charlie is as unassuming as a newspaper kiosk--a small white frame structure in the middle of a crowded, littered street. The past dignifies it; the present exploits it. It is a stroll through an East European flea market set in a cemetery.
And set the wall between us once again.
--Frost, "Mending Wall"
Berlin seemed like a weedy vacant lot that someone is trying to garden. Along with the modern hotels, comfortable neighborhoods, and world-class galleries are areas that look as if damage from World War II was carted away only yesterday. The walls now are of wood, and they are around endless construction sites. So often in Europe's cities I feel in touch with centuries past, but in Berlin it is decades. It is a cemetery of bad memories that is being built over, and it is an eclectic hodgepodge. In Berlin it seemed perfectly normal to see old churches with rooster-shaped weather vanes atop the steeples. The city's mix of history--very recent history--and ideology, as well as of ethnicity, seemed like no other.
We could not have asked for more generous hosts or more knowledgeable tour guides. After a 9-hour train ride from Vienna, we arrived at Berlin's Sudkreuz Bahnhof and were met by my college friend Russ and his partner Hubertus. An S-Bahn ride and a busride later we arrived at the apartment they generously gave us to use for the next three days. Our hosts, it seemed, knew the history of every block and every large building, and Berlin's 20th-century history as well as its singular mix of ethnicity soon became apparent--here there are no walls. On our first evening, our hosts treated us to dinner in a Greek restaurant across the street from our apartment; afterward, they retired to their other lodgings, and we slept peacefully in ours, in this quiet urban neighborhood. Up before Linda the next morning, I headed for the Habanero coffee shop next to our building. There a 60ish Cuban man, whose thick Spanish accent turned German's gentle gutterals to slush, took my order. As he prepared my coffee to-go, he offered to sell me as well some fresh rolls, made by his wife, who was most likely a resident of East Germany when that state was one of the few friends of Fidel Castro. Above the coffee shop counter, telling more than just the current time, a large clock with a red face and the stenciled visage of Che Guevara gazed out, perhaps at the past--and onto the limoncello bottles across the aisle. The next night, at another restaurant across the street, I chatted in Italian with a waiter from Naples.
Although we greatly enjoyed the national gallery, the scenic walk along the Spree River, and much of the restored old architecture, the echoes of Hitler at the Bundestag and the Brandenburg Gate brought another kind of depth to the history of the city. However, because so much that was Berlin in 1945 has been destroyed and never rebuilt, the Cold War seemed more in evidence than the Hitler era and World War II.
No-Man's Land
Checkpoint Charlie and the memorialized path of the Wall were for us the essence of the Cold War history. The stuff of spy novels and prisoner exchanges as well as of escape attempts, Checkpoint Charlie is as unassuming as a newspaper kiosk--a small white frame structure in the middle of a crowded, littered street. The past dignifies it; the present exploits it. It is a stroll through an East European flea market set in a cemetery.
The checkpoint is a magnet for beggars and con men, for pickpockets and hawkers of cheap souvenirs. Lots of languages were in the air; I could detect Russian and other Slavic tongues as well as German, Italian, English, and French. Shops needing a coat of paint on their doorways offered keychains, magnets, T-shirts, and military insignia and caps from different countries. In front of the checkpoint itself, facing east, two young men stood, one dressed in a US Army uniform and the other in a Soviet uniform; behind them on a stack of sandbags were piled perhaps 20 hats with bands and insignia from different military forces and nations. Tourists ventured up from the crowd and chose from among the hats, put them on, and then were photographed between the two men.
A double row of bricks runs through the area to mark where the Wall once stood near the checkpoint. On that marker, a small group of men clustered around another man who was running a shell game. McDonald's golden arches rose on the opposite side of the street. A bottle-collector in a wheel chair slowly rolled past dirty, unshaven young men slouching against store fronts; a gypsy woman in an ankle-length dirty gown, hooded by a colorful headscarf, slumped past holding out a paper cup, singing her beggar's plaint. In the mass of shuffling feet on the sidewalk were paper wrappers, half-crushed plastic bottles, cigarette butts, and dark spit stains. Lining the sidewalks are fences with posters recounting the often sad stories of those who sought to cross the Wall. In their time these attempts--each inspirational in its own way--commanded global attention. Amid the sidewalk bustle, I turned to see three teenage girls, laughing loudly, holding onto each other by their extended arms. Simultaneously they jumped over the double-brick row--the Wall--while a fourth took their picture. The Wall is still there, I thought, but now it is between generations.
Filler
-- Since I am wont to comment from time to time on Teutonic cuisine featuring pig, starch, and cabbage, it is only fair that I mention as well the excellent lunch we had at a restaurant in Berlin operated by Sarah Wiener, who prepares French and Italian as well as specifically German and Austrian dishes. Last fall we watched on Austrian tv a season of her Reisen und Speisen (Travel and Dining) series and were pleased to have an opportunity to try her establishment. I had a savory risotto with mushrooms, and hot apple strudel with vanilla sauce for dessert. Linda had sausages and ice cream. Delightful.
-- Since I am wont to comment from time to time on Teutonic cuisine featuring pig, starch, and cabbage, it is only fair that I mention as well the excellent lunch we had at a restaurant in Berlin operated by Sarah Wiener, who prepares French and Italian as well as specifically German and Austrian dishes. Last fall we watched on Austrian tv a season of her Reisen und Speisen (Travel and Dining) series and were pleased to have an opportunity to try her establishment. I had a savory risotto with mushrooms, and hot apple strudel with vanilla sauce for dessert. Linda had sausages and ice cream. Delightful.
--
As I have mentioned before, my favorite local cooking show, which I
watch in the mornings when I am at the fitness center, is Freshly Cooked.
I find it fascinating that people will actually eat some of the recipes
and appear to enjoy them. Last week chefs Alex and Andi prepared a
pizza with large slices of
potato for the topping; then, before popping the pizza in the oven, they
liberally
sprinkled on two more of Teutonia's favorite vegetables: grated cheese
and salt.
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