GOODBYE, BERLIN!

  July 14, 2014 - September 23, 2015

(with a three-week interruption back to the US for the wedding):

Most importantly, we welcomed two beautiful and strong women, Jelena and Klara, into our family circle.  Our first grandchild Klara was born on July 18 in Berlin this past summer, in between Alex and Jelena's wedding celebrations on July 11, August 1 and August 8.  We were so delighted by these events that the ensuing air travel over two continents did not faze us at all.

Just a few of our Berlin impressions:

Construction sites, cranes, closed streets and sidewalks are everywhere. Even Berlin's most famous street "Unter den Linden" is cluttered by construction equipment ... to build an extension of the U2 subway from Biesdorf in the East to the main train station (Haupt-Bahnhof) in Berlin Mitte;  

Wherever one goes there is construction:  public buildings, new tracks for trains and streetcars, new sewers, new phone and internet lines, renovation and construction of government and rental buildings and private homes.  Like other cities world-wide certain parts of Berlin are in the throes of gentrification ---- great for investors, but difficult for long-term tenants who have to find housing further away from the city center and the posh neighborhoods.  Once construction is finished in a certain area, and local Berliners sigh a sigh of relief --- when puff, another construction site has sprung up.   

The buildings on the "Museum Island", like the Pergamon Museum, are surrounded by the river Spree on three sides, meaning they are standing in water. I have seen a photo of workers renovating the orchestra pit of the Deutsche Oper.... standing in water up to their shoulders. The renovations are accordingly difficult and expensive, tend to run over cost and take much longer than planned.  

  View of Potsdam 

The Schloss is being re-built from scratch. Note the cupola is now started.

                                                       Construction in front of the Rote Rathaus (Red Townhall).

Not all large pipes are for construction. The hugest ones are part of an efficient central heating system that heats most of East Berlin's apartment buildings (a positive remnant from Communist times).


What do we remember next?  The fact that The Wall is almost completely gone.  The only site left worth visiting is the Eastside Gallery. The wall paintings have changed over the years.  Once paintings of protest by East and West Berliners, depicting the yearning for freedom and peace, they now are truly international, painted by people from all over the world with messages in many different languages. Many are artsy craftsy, some are true art.

 

 Original painting with graffitti

 

Most of all we remember the many people who made us feel welcome:  Thank you to all of you, most of all those mentioned below:

They kindly and patiently introduced us to the "ins and outs" of Berlin, Brandenburg, and the Freiburg/Baden area in south-west Germany where we also spent a lot of time.

We made friends with East Berliners who us told their moving live stories from as long ago as World War II, others what life was like under Communism, and how their lives have changed since the Fall of the Wall (not all for the better, especially for older people and women).  We got to know some of the owners of our most favorite local restaurants --- Turkish (a Kurd), Vietnamese, Russian-Jewish, and Corsican; our Bulgarian drycleaner, my Japanese hairdresser who speaks English only; our East Berlin hairdresser, a stunning looker with ivory skin, long hair tinted red-black, a nose ring, and blue eyes. Bill loved the football, soccer, and baseball chats with the Americans at the local English-language bookstore.  He also fell for his good-looking East Berlin dentist (I almost checked her out -- for her looks not dentistry).  It was difficult to converse with the proprietors of the flower stores; between my Vietnamese and their German/English it was pretty much hit or miss to get the flowers I wanted. This lack of conversation was made up in the local bookstores that have sprouted up all over the place - the owners liked talking, a chat and slow sales preferable to no sales and boredom.

Besides our daughter Senta and her husband Stefan  Norbert und Hanni, Stefan's parents, gave plenty support.  Every time we needed anything for the kitchen they invited us into their basement to look for pots, plates, glasses, you name it.... they freely shared their possessions with us.  They also cooked some of the best dinners in all of Berlin, and surrounded us with a warm and heartfelt hospitality unparalleled anywhere.  In their little Merzedes they took us to places, lakes, villages in and around Berlin that we would never have found on our own.



We made friends with the people in the building where we rented the apartment.  Ingrid B helped us in many, many ways, informing us of sights to visit, chatting about the other building residents, watering our flowers when we were gone, and helping whenever we needed it.  She has become a good friend.
 Here were are with Ingrid (R) in the Deutsche Theater.

Sophie and Utz live in Weissensee only 15 minutes by bike.  We found their life stories particularly fascinating, especially their childhood memories of World War II and also what happened to them after the unification of the two Germanies.  They opened up our understanding of other worlds and times.

Our friends Barbara P-S and Klaus S  also were very instrumental for us to get to know Berlin, especially the area west of Berlin. They invited us for delicious dinners, took us out to famous restaurants, like Café Einstein and other haunts where Klaus used to dine during his government career. 

Barbara gave us plenty of invaluable info on where to go, which restaurants to visit, where to stay overnight in and around Berlin and along the Baltic coast.  She is an old friend from school, and like I she loves to ride a bike and explore areas unknown to her.  We took several interesting rides in Brandenburg, the State surrounding Berlin. 

 Here we are at Hollie's Maerchen-Cafe (Hollie's fairytale café... Hollie, legally blind, supports her family by baking the world's best cakes and tortes for bike riders on their way from the Check Republic and Dresden to Berlin). 
Barbara, her cousin Steffi, and I took a 10-day fun bike ride in Denmark and Sweden:

On the Ferry from Rostock to Denmark. And on the ramp to the Ferry back from Sweden.
 In Copenhagen we stayed for two nights.

Barbara and Klaus took pity on us non-car owners and invited us out to various interesting and fun treats, like this September 2014 wine tasting in a small town west of Berlin:



One day Barbara and her son Felix drove us to the little village of Linum where up to 60,000 cranes (and probably equally many wild geese) stop on their annual flight from Sweden to the south of France for the winter. Here we're visiting the Linum church that is maintained almost entirely by one 80-year-old Protestant nun.

I met Beatrix M in an East German hospital where we shared a room after the same operation that required an overnight stay.  She turned out to be one of those East Berliners every tourist dreams of,  she knew simply everything a stranger needs to know:  How to get around downtown Berlin the quickest, shortest, cheapest, best, most scenic way;  how to get the best and least expensive tickets to all kinds of performances; where to take our bikes by train, subway, ferry; which exhibits to go to, which restaurants.... you get the picture.  Here Beatrix and I stop at a former hunting castle on a ride around Wannsee (one of the many lakes where we had to take the subway and ferry).  


Uschi and Willy R  showed us Guestrow, a town west 2 hours of Berlin by train, where they have lived and worked their entire adult lives.  As committed Catholics they did not fare well under the Communist regime, but, like many others, found conditions after the unification of Germany different, but not much better than before. They introduced us also to the sculptures of Ernst Barlach.

 

                                                                                             Ernst Barlach's Angel 

During a rainy afternoon bike ride in wind, pouring rain, and on sandy paths, we found out that we are not the only crazy bikers.  Everyone else would have turned around.  Not Willy or Uschi (nor you know who).  Drenched and wheels stuck in the sand, they kept calling us "crazy Americans" and we, not to be undone, kept calling them "crazy Germans".         Later that evening with a bottle of wine both couples agreed that no one in their right mind would ride in such conditions.

Once a month Yuette (the one with the yellow top), the cheerleader of a Women's Group, took us to theater plays, Gaerten der Welt (Gardens of the World, a huge park in Marzahn), restaurants, small unknown museums...)           The members, and especially Dorothea O, were very helpful with any questions I had.

On an outing with the Womens Group; Yuette (second from right) always comes up with the best ideas of little-known, but interesting museums, parks, restaurants, plays. After or during the outings we always had a pleasant coffee and cake or dinner...

We are also grateful to my siblings, their spouses and children, Ruediger, Dietmar, Daggi, Ulrike, Ulla, Oliver and Katha, Nele, Isaak, Lisa, for all the good times we spent together and the very special things they did for us.

     

Bill and I loved Berlin's rich theatre and music scene.  There are literally hundreds of performances every day.  We tried out many different types of theatres, from tiny experimental to the grand concert halls and theatres Berlin is famous for.  The Berlin Symphony is the orchestra sine qua non, and now we have to get adjusted to the sound of other orchestras.  Most outstanding of all the plays we saw were "Himbeerreich", a play about the 2008 crash at the Frankfurt equivalent of Wall Street, and Mameloshn, a play about three generations of German-Jewish women, grandmother, mother and daughter living in Berlin.

And every day we enjoyed the international character of Berlin, the "Multi-Kulti" people (as Berliners call people from abroad) who live in Kreuzberg, Wedding, Friedrichshain, etc who originate from Eastern Europe and Russia to Turkey (Berlin has many Turkish residents), Africa, France, the United States and just about everywhere else.  Walking or riding bikes through those areas makes for a stimulating day, especially when one stops at the colorful markets or one of the many bistros and restaurants and samples their exotic cuisines. 

Goodbye Berlin! 



ALEXANDERPLATZ "Our" Subway/Train station  

We will return!