Beginning in Berlin

So as you've seen Berlin was a bit of a sobering trip for me. I'm really glad I went; I did have some fun, but a lot of my time was very somber.

I flew out Friday morning - after almost missing the flight. My alarm that was supposed to go off at 4am so I could pack my clothes that were still drying when I went to sleep 3 hours earlier never went off. I woke up at 6:25 for my 7:45 flight. I threw clothes into my bag and ran out the door to the airport express bus ten minutes away, waited anxiously for the bus and ran into a couple other NYU kids (whose flights weren't until 9) and made it to the airport at about 7:05. Ran through security, rushed to the gate, and made it onto the plane, somehow landing a window seat in the 9th row even though I was in the last ten percent of people to board the plane. I slept most of the way to Berlin, an almost three hour flight.

Upon arrival at Schönefeld Flughafen (I cannot take a language seriously with words like that), I got to start following the page-long essay of directions sent to me by my friend Jessica, with whom I was staying. She gave great directions but unfortunately didn't know about some construction that affected one of the trains I had to take, so as I was watching for Warschauer Strasse, I ended up at the other end of the line in Pankow. So then I tried to understand the Berlin metro map, took a train halfway back to the airport, changed trains, went one stop, changed to a different train, and finally arrived at Jessica's apartment a mere two and a half hours after the plane landed. On the bright side this meant Jessica was already home from school and I didn't have to find a cafe to hang out at in the meantime. I was also really lucky that it was fairly sunny and in the 60s the whole time I was there. This was the weekend it snowed in New York and elsewhere, and it had previously been a lot colder in Berlin, but I got a weekend of beautiful fall weather.

Jessica went to PHTS for a year and a half, then did a semester abroad in South Africa, and has been living in Berlin since March. Her mother is German and she grew up speaking the language right along with English, so Germany is an easy place for her to be and study theatre for cheap. Fortunately for me it meant I had a free place to stay for five days (ouch, potential hostel fees), and a theatre person to chat with. This also meant she was really busy and didn't have much time to show me around, but we spent Friday together, grocery shopping, planning my weekend, and that night we went to a senior showcase of scenes at the so-called best acting school in Berlin. It was all in German, so I can't say too much, but there was a lot of yelling, and not healthy yelling, which made my throat hurt in sympathy. I also got to meet a few of Jessica's theatre friends from school, and it was really fun to be around crazy actor types for a bit.

One great thing about Berlin was getting to eat food that doesn't exist in Madrid - my first food of the day on Friday was cheap noodles from a place called Asia Box right around the corner from Jessica's apartment. With the exception of that vaguely-fancy-French-Japanese food in Paris, I hadn't had Asian food since August. Normally I get cheap Chinese food in NYC all the time, so it was so great to get a box of take out noodles for 2.50. I also got salami at the grocery store for sandwiches, because while they've got a lot of meat here in Spain, they don't seem to have salami. So there's that.

Saturday I did the New Europe walking tour of Berlin, but didn't run into Arnaud, my tour guide from Paris. My guide was named Rob, who is originally from Manchester, England (England, across the Atlantic Sea... sorry, Hair moment.) The tour was really interesting, again almost four hours long with a coffee break in the middle, and though it felt shorter than the Paris one I didn't like it as much. It seemed like a lot of what we saw was at a distance, and, of course, there's no way to make the history of Berlin less depressing than it is. We saw parts of the wall, the parking lot that is over where Hitler's Bunker is (it still exists but is sealed off), a memorial to all the books that got burned on my birthday in 1933, lots of architecture I can't remember, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Berliner Dome, the Holocaust memorial, the lust gardens, Checkpoint Charlie, and lots of squares and parks.

After the walking tour I did a lot of wandering around, happened upon a march that I think was shouting about freeing Libya and/or Syria, checked out the Berliner Ensemble (founded by Bertolt Brecht), decided there was no way in hell I was watching a Chekhov play in German (as it's hard enough in English), and eventually worked my way back to the Holocaust memorial because I wanted to go to the exhibit that we had skipped on the tour. It was fascinating and, of course, depressing. But very well done.

I then went to the English Berlin Theatre and bought a ticket to a new play called The Man of Shadows, performed by a Berlin theatre company comprised of English actors. Before the show I then walked to what the guidebook (and later, Jessica) said was the best currywurst in Berlin. Currywurst is the typical food of Berlin, you can find it on practically every block. It's a lightly spiced sausage with ketchup (that isn't like American ketchup) and a dusting of curry powder. I got mine with pommes frites (French Fries, served with mayonaise because that's how they do it in Belgium?) and I asked the guy what a good beer was. He gave me a Berliner Kindl, and it was pretty tasty, as was the currywurst. (I had it again on Tuesday at the place by Jessica's, and it wasn't as good.) So then, very full and happy, I walked back to the theatre for the show. (I even drank a little of my beer on my walk, because real Berliners seem to drink everywhere all the time.) This was the first time I've seen theatre in English since August, and the production was well done and well performed, a good time, and the tickets were cheap. I then hopped on the train and after chatting with Jessica went to sleep.

Sunday I slept in (a luxury of having five days in a city instead of three) and then headed off for a day of museums. I went to the Musical Instrument museum, a curious little place that has a bunch of really old every kind of classical instrument imaginable including a piano played by Bach and a glass harmonica made by Ben Franklin. I then walked to Kultureforum, which is four museums in one, for four euros (as a student). I spent a lot of time looking at really old things that seemed a little irrelevant considering all the modern history right outside. The best part was the art museum, the Gemeldegalerie, which seemed to be kind of like the Prado of Berlin. I don't think I saw anything particularly famous, but they have works by a lot of famous artists, from the 14th to 19th centuries. Kultureforum also has a print and drawing museum which had a Rembrandt exhibit, and a library, which just confused me.

After Kultureforum I was all museumed out and headed back to the Berliner Ensemble, to see an actual Brecht play in German at Brecht's theatre. (Sort of the equivalent of seeing a Renaissance French play at the Comedie Française.) On the way I got cheap Asian food again, this time from a place called Noodle Box. (There's only about four words involved in any of these places - Snack Box, Asia Snack, Asia Noodle, etc.)

I got distracted when changing trains on my way to the Berliner Ensemble theatre by a section of the wall in Potsdamer Platz (platz means square, I think). I was reading all the information about conservation of pieces of the wall and whatnot, and then found on the other side a stand with two guys dressed up as soldiers. There's a lot of that in Berlin and it kinda weirds me out - guys dressed in period uniforms of the US and Soviet army, at Checkpoint Charlie, at the Brandenbugur Tor, at this part of the wall. Anyway, these guys, for a small fee, would stamp your passport with the seven - count them, seven - stamps that one had to get to cross the wall when it existed. There's the US stamp, the other allies stamp, the DDR stamp, a visa stamp, I can't remember them all. But now I have eight stamps in my passport. And seven of them mean nothing in 2011.

I still don't know what play I actually saw. Because it's Brecht's theatre, they don't just do Mother Courage.  I showed Jessica my ticket and she said she'd never heard of it. Anyway, I got there at about 6:15 for a 7:30 show, and there was a line waiting for the box office to open at 6:30. When I got up to the window there was only standing room left, but that suited me fine as it was only 2 euros. I have no idea what it was about but it was thoroughly entertaining the whole time. The main character seemed to be an aspiring actor and behaved like what I imagine you'd get if you mixed Porky Pig and Hitler and threw in a dash of neuroticism. Exactly. The production was great, all the design and everything. I'm so glad I went. The lighting was pretty interesting, which isn't always true for a play. But the designer seemed to be trying some things with white light that were new.

After the play I went back to Jessica's apartment but she was still out at rehearsal. I tried to wait up, but I was simultaneously trying to do some homework - reading an entire play in Spanish - and I just couldn't keep my eyes open and fell asleep.

Time for me to make dinner, after all this talk of food. Perhaps tomorrow I can report on Monday and Tuesday's adventures. Wish me sunshine! It's been raining ever since I got back!