My Birthday (Suit)

Everything does shut down here for Easter, but luckily the uber-modern spa down the street was still open on my birthday. So, I decided to get a birthday massage. I was instructed to take a shower in their plush digs, (“You must be clean!”–that’s my thought bubble not an actual quote) before getting my rubdown

Once clean and in the massage room, I was greeted by a Big German man who I will call Big German. And this is where my dilemma began. Nakedness is different in Germany. Men and women sit bare-skinned together in the sauna. Parents and teenage children saunter naked together on the beach, etc. etc. I asked my Big German masseuse where to put my robe. He shrugged and pointed to a chair across the room. Now, walking across the room naked (and this was a big room) seemed too much for my American puritan blood. Instead, I sort of slid under the sheet and handed him my robe. This confused the Big German.

It took me months to get used to the co-ed naked saunas. But the cold weather and desperate need for heat finally allowed me to shed some of my fears. I can only hope that I will have enough opportunities on the massage table that this too shall pass.

– Debbie

Sunday in the Park with Germans

Mauerpark (wall park), not far from our house, was built up after reunification in the security zone between east and west Berlin (the wall was actually two walls, with a strip of the security zone in between). Here’s an aerial map of the park with the former walls in red and blue:

These days the park is the epicenter of Berlin punk and extreme left angsty revolution. Just the other day police came in and arrested a hundred teenagers who had created a giant bonfire after stealing and then setting alight wooden benches from the nearby stadium. On the weekends, though, it hosts an amazing flea market, with the strangest collection of clothes, furniture, vinyl albums and paintings you can imagine. I call it the detritus of the 20th century. It’s been an interesting place to go to on the weekends, but now, with the weather in the seventies, the freaks have really come out. We spent the afternoon grilling in the park with friends (that’s our friend Luca in the Easter-inspired bunny ears):

After the bratwurst, we took a walk through the flea market and the scene was much livelier than the groups of army coat clad punks standing around burning trashcans we remembered from the winter. Here’s a little video to give you a taste of some of the sights and sounds (after the jump is a little more video, including German boys rapping and a bicycle-fueled karaoke machine):

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I Love Berlin in the Springtime

Spring has exploded in full force this past week, inspiring many plans that had been hibernating for the long winter months. One of which is trying to get this blog going again…Here’s some video from our street corner this morning. It did not look so bright and sunny and green just a week ago.

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Friendliness Offensive

The above picture ran along with an article in today’s Tagesspiegel touting a new campaign run by the Berlin municipality to try and improve the city’s image as an unfriendly place. Take a good look at these faces. It’s like an alternative Sesame Street vision of Berlin. People here simply do not grin like that. The sardonic lift of an eyebrow, maybe. A smirk that might resemble a smile, sure. But the laughing, giggling Berliner–let alone, as the article put it, a Stadt des Lächlens–is a very rare sight. But I have to say: I’ve come to appreciate the unique biting humor of the Berliner. If not exactly a match for my own temperment, at least it’s honest. Better, for sure, than the vision of this vast gray city drowning in a sea of fake smiles.

–Gal

A Little Too Excited About Obama

Look what our friend Carly found in the weekly coupon mailer from her local supermarket…There’s a sale on Chicken Obama Fingers!

This might even be vaguely racist, but actually it’s too bewildering to even come to that conclusion. Just some good old German sense of humor…

–Gal

Hoopin’

I know, I know, for any of you still out there it’s been a long long time since this blog has seen any action. But let’s just proceed as if no time at all has passed.

As many of you know, time in Berlin can be sort of amorphous. That is, with few people actually working a normal job, there are many hours in the day that are left to your own planning. I’m learning that I’m not particularly suited to this lifestyle, but I’ve been trying.

My latest attempt? Hula hooping.

Yes, it’s that thing I did when i was six. And how I loved my neon pink and white hula hoop. I loved it so much that i took it to the park. And when a couple of hoodlums stole it away from me, my father chased them down and returned my darling hoop.

So now, at 32, I am returning to it. And not just on my own, in a class! Yes, hula hooping class! I’ve had a few people ask, “Is it exercise? Is it dance?”

And I’d venture to say that it’s both. It’s one of those activities, much like pilates, that feels like you’re not doing anything at all. But then suddenly your stomach muscles ache, your head hurts (from hitting yourself with the hoop), and you’re panting out of breath.

That’s where you can find me Monday nights from 8 to 9.

Full disclosure–I probably look more like this:

-Debbie

Wine-Beer-Bolognese

Self-directed, low-budget art projects seem to abound in Berlin. For weeks we would pass this gigantic (like, 15 by 20 foot) polaroid shot of a startled looking man on the side of a building facing an abandoned lot. There was no indication that this was an advertisement. We assume it was art. Every night you can go to someone’s living room to see some dance collective put on a free performance or watch a silent film in some guy’s basement while he plays a saw as accompaniment.

But last Wednesday we came upon my favorite of these Berlin specialties. Down our street, our friend Luca had discovered an illegal bar and we decided to check it out. It looked like someone’s living room both from the street and once you stepped inside. Everyone stared up at us as if we’d interrupted  some private gathering. Candle-lit and bare, the only indication this was a place to buy something were the words scrawled in black charcoal on the wall above the bar, “Wine-Beer-Bolognese.” And, in fact, there was a steaming pot of pasta on the counter.

We sat down and were served wine and bolognese. When we asked the sullen guy who threw down our glasses, what this place was, he

The bearded one is Giovanni, our very own Bolognese

told us it was called–inexplicably–”Goulash.” It was open only on Wednesday nights (and then, by invite). And the whole point was to display the mural art of the six owners. He pointed to a wall that had been painted with blue meremaids. Apparently, a mural stays up for a few weeks and then the same wall is painted over with something else.

That, he said, is the concept. The bolognese wasn’t bad either

–Gal

Berlin Sky

I call this piece “Berlin Sky” because it is. Every day. I saw the sun yesterday for five minutes around 10 am. I almost cried.

–Debbie

Placki Ziemniaczane Party!

For aficionados of my yearly latke party extravaganzas who worried the tradition would be broken once I left Brooklyn, fear not! The other day we had a Berlin version, though very scaled down and I didn’t do any cooking. Still, it was a latke party. Well, actually, we didn’t call them latkes. We had the Polish version, placki ziemniaczane, lovingly prepared by our friend Agata (who’s Polish). And we watched a very funny and bizarre 1983 futuristic Polish comedy called “Sex Mission,” which had nothing to do with Chanukah or potato pancakes. Yet, somewhere in Park Slope, a menorah candle flickered a little brighter.

–Gal

Blowing the Whistle, or Something

I decided to do my small part for journalism. I was approached by a TV show called the Media Project to talk about my experience covering Atlantic Yards for the Daily News. The point, I think, was to illustrate/expose how decisions at big newspapers are often influenced by outside forces, namely money.

The guy below is the editor of the Daily News, Martin Dunn. My favorite part is that when approached by a reporter and asked about me Dunn says he doesn’t know who I am, and then five seconds later says I wasn’t even a staff reporter. Which one is it?

The show aired last week on the IFC network.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s a link:

–Debbie