Chilling in the city

One of the main goals for my trip was to completely relax. I live for the European idea of sitting at a terrace on some street corner and just watching the world go by. In my opinion, the best place for this in Berlin is the Gendarmenmarkt quarter of the city. It is just beautiful, with a large square containing a theatre that's bookended by two identical churches and surrounded by wonderful restaurants and cafes. This was the view from the terrace I chose.




While in full people-watching mode, I even saw Joschka Fischer (an infamous German politician) pass by. And this place served the best mojitos I have ever tasted - it looks like a whole mint plant is growing out of that puppy.


The service, however, is definitely not fast in Berlin (I had been warned to expect this). It was much more Mediterranean a city in that respect. Berliners seem to have a pretty good work-life balance, and I was certainly not alone to be taking a time-out to drink on a sunny midweek afternoon. I have to say, sitting in the sun sipping my cocktail while knowing everyone else back in Japan was heading to work was one of the best feelings I've enjoyed in a long while. Of course, Gendarmenmarkt is pretentious as hell; the guy at the table beside me could not have been a day over 30 and was sitting there smoking a pipe!



Full disclosure; if I smoked, I would probably choose a pipe too for the eccentricity value. So this is definitely the pot calling the kettle black here.

Speaking of eccentric, here is Ampelmann - the much-loved, jaunty-hat-wearing crossing signal used in Berlin since the sixties.


This little character is big business these days with shops exclusively selling Ampelmann merchandise dotted around the city.



Like any good little consumer, I totally bought into the kitsch and came home laden with t-shirts and key rings and the like. One thing I will say, though, is God help the old and infirm of Berlin. Little old Ampelmann gives you no time at all to cross. I'm a pretty fast walker but I was constantly getting caught half way across the street by this unequivocal stop sign.

It kind of got up my goat.

Another motif running through the Berlin cityscape is that of bears, both old and new. I'm sure there's nothing more touristy than coming home with a bunch of photos of these guys, but once again I do not care. They made me happy.

Berlin and Politics

The Berliner Fernsehturm (Berlin TV Tower) fairly dominates the city's skyline.

I love it and found it made such a huge city feel relatively small and manageable as it would pop in the background of so many of the photos that I took throughout the city.


As with any building in a city with such a complex history as Berlin, it is a political structure. I had a theory that the DDR modeled the form of the tower on the spires of the other principal structure of Berlin, the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral)... showing the world that socialism was the new god now and all that...



I asked my brother who is writing his doctorate in the philosophy of art about it and he said I was probably wrong and that construction then was all about function over form. But I choose to ignore his expert opinion. I mean, come on! How can this be a coincidence?


As I said, in Berlin it feels like everything is political and history is never very far away. I spent some time at the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas (Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe). It is a disconcerting space designed to make you think and feel. When you enter the space, it seems to be a nonthreatening collection of stones, kind of just a garden.


But as you move through the structure, the ground undulates...




and you quickly find yourself overwhelmed by these massive slabs of cold hard concrete, lost and dominated and unclear of how it all happened so suddenly.


I cannot say I enjoyed my time there or in the centre below where all the names of known Jewish Holocaust victims are stored, but I will not easily forget it and I guess that's the point. A must-see if you visit the city.

Another surprisingly moving memorial is the Neue Wache (New Guardhouse).



This is a central monument to commemorate all those who have been victims of war and tyranny. I thought I would be quite blase about going there, just ticking another item off the sightseeing checklist, but I ended up getting quite upset there. I suppose it was just thinking all at once about how many different people have suffered in many and different ways for many and different reasons; race, ability, sexual identity, political affiliation, military allegiance. It was a bit harrowing.

Not all the political stuff in the city is moving or thought provoking, though. Checkpoint Charlie was the biggest let-down of the trip. Imagine the worst tacky tourist trap you've ever been to and multiply by ten. It even gave the rosary-bead hawking teashops of Knock a run for their money in tackiness.

Guess where I have just come back from...

I was lucky enough earlier this month to be able to get some decent time off work and enjoyed a National Lampoon's European vacation of Dublin and Berlin. I was so excited to be going to the Fatherland now that I've gotten into all things German. But it was equally wonderful to spend a short but sweet time catching up with family and a few friends and enjoying the wonderful Irish weather... hahaha! Actually, the weather wasn't that bad and the occasional sun shower led to some beautiful rainbows, even the elusive double. I mean look at these photos I took around my folks' neighbourhood. I know I'm a stereotypical expat grasping onto my leprechaun-with-a-pot-of-gold images of the old country, but I don't care: I've come back with some beautiful memories of home.






It was also pretty in a very bleak Irish way one day when we went walking in the local dunes. I mean you just don't come across scenes like these too often here in Tokyo. The story behind the purple flowers, by the way, is very life affirming. Apparently arsonists razed the dunes to the ground earlier on this year, but out of the charred remains these beautiful plants and other new life have sprung up all around. The place is reinvigorated.





I have so many photos and little bits and pieces that I want to talk about from my holiday - I don't know when I'll ever get my thoughts organized. However, I am currently in bed home sick with my first cold of the year (and of course it's bloomin' Saturday!) so there's a fairly high chance I'll just do a bit of a mind dump later on today. Bis dann!

Origiblog

Who knew that I was a blogger way back when! My dad sent me these scans of an old school copybook of mine that he found lying around in the back of some drawer.

I'm distressed to see that the quality of my output hasn't improved much since these first early attempts. I'm even more distressed about the mark I got. For those of you who can't read the teacher's comment, it says 'go maith' ('good' in Irish). This is one step down from the coveted 'an-mhaith' (very good). I wonder if it's too late to resubmit?

Plus, I love the complete lack of coherence: what does me being six have to do with the price of turnips???