The City of Fevered Dreams

Some days her shape in the doorway
Will speak to me
A bird's wing on the window
Sometimes I'll hear her when she's sleeping
Her fever dream
A language on her face
--"Fever Dream," by Iron & Wine

Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne
und die trägt er im Gesicht
und Macheath, der hat ein Messer
doch das Messer sieht man nicht.

An 'nem schönen blauen Sonntag
liegt ein toter Mann am Strand
und ein Mensch geht um die Ecke
den man Mackie Messer nennt.

Und die minderjährige Witwe
deren Namen jeder weiß
wachte auf und war geschändet -
Mackie, welches war dein Preis?
Wachte auf und war geschändet -
Mackie, welches war dein Preis?
--"Die Moritat von Mackie Messer," by Bertolt Brecht in"Die Dreigroschen Oper" (The ThreePenny Opera), this song is now famous as "Mack the Knife." (I chose Brecht's version because it sounds most like the one I heard--it might actually BE the one I heard!)

"You can't describe Berlin, because it's always changing."

With JYM I had the great opportunity to travel with the Resident Director and other JYM students to that *other* German city: Berlin. We met at 9a.m. at the Hauptbahnhof and then hopped on the 9:21 ICE train to Berlin. It was a great travel, just chatting and talking to the other (five) students on the trip and avoiding homework as much as possible. We went up through Ingolstadt through Leipzig and then arrived at the gigantic, gleaming, six-story-high, modern Berlin Hauptbahnhof. This Hauptbahnof is prominent in the first couple of scenes of the recent film The International, and is quite glitzy, a Bahnhof of the future. Our Resident Director (HP) explained to us that, in the Wall Days, there were of course two separate train stations, so after the Vereinigung of Germany, they just decided to build a train station in the middle, but there aren't really any major establishments. So, whereas as in most train stations, you walk out and you are in the center of the city, here it's not so much the case. I could see Alexanderplatz to the south (famous for the Fernseherturm), but there was a lot that wasn't developed.

Interestingly enough, across the tiny road from the Bahnhof was a little platform set up for beach volleyball. Yep, you read it right--beach volleyball. We peeked in to see a couple of bronzed--well, maybe not bronzed---muscled women tossing around the fabled white ball in the middle of a parking lot. So it goes.

What's interesting about Berlin, HP went on to say, is that it is really a city with no center. This must add to the collective Berlin identity crisis. If you look at a map of Berlin, right in the physical center of the city is the Tiergarten--so essentially, there's nothing in the middle. Because of the Wall, there isn't really a center at all. All the "sights" are in some essence crowded around the four corners of the Tiergarten.

We walked from the Hauptbanhof to Hotel Bella (south of the Zoologicsher Garten) where we had a whole half-floor, living room, bathroom, and balcony to ourselves, with three rooms for the six of us. It was quite plush and very nice. We settled in and then headed to get a bite to eat at a Berlin-famous currywurst station. (HP speaks in Ger-englisch, which is amusing to hear. "Wir koennen ein bite to eat haben," or "ja, und wir muessten ein Babysitter (this is a German word) einstellen und den ganzen Abend mit boring people verbringen") We practically marched across Berlin, where we saw All The Sights, most of which don't really come to my mind right now.

Berlin--Berlin. Berlin's a fascinating city, it really is. It's screwed up in the best way. I saw a girl walking down an ordinary sidewalk licking her ice cream cone--this kinda grungy sidewalk under gray skies, and thought about how most of the time, I eat my ice cream on glitzy Leopoldstrasse in beautiful, green Munich and the contrast couldn't have been bigger. We stopped by a sidewalk sale with random Berlin stuff and T-shirts and also a whole rack of German army jackets (and one U.S. army jacket), and one girl bought one with the name "Schoenborn" (schoen=beautiful, and then the nice word "born") for 25 euro. He must have known he'd get a good price for that last name when he sold it to this store. They also had the hugest collection of second-hand leather jackets in very good condition.

All the shops we walked by weren't Munich schicki-micki at all, but really cool. Just selling the niftiest stuff, cool, not kitschy. DDR-influenced fashion: leather jacket top with a pastel floral skirt and Birkenstocks in the storefront windows, minimalist dresses, NEAT quality postcards (one had a brick wall with a closed rolling metal window gate thingy that said "URLAUB" --vacation--on it). A row of beautiful buildings, then an schrecklich grey building with "KAPITIALISM ZERSTOERT . . . . " (capitalism destroys--then listed several good things we like to have in our lives, like normality, freedom, etc). These people don't want to cooperate by making things all Stepford for the others. Definitely not a Munich trait.

We saw the Kaiser Wilheim Memorial and its opposing (protestant!! We're in the North now) modern church--really gorgeous, with most of the walls covered in blue stained glass pieces. When the sun shines--if that happens in Berlin--the whole building glows blue. On the way over, I noticed a Muslim woman and her male counterpart trying to do the old windshield-cleaning at stoplight gig. One man honked furiously her, rolled down the window and called her over, and shook his hand in anger as he exchanged some heated words. A man driving a BMW wagon talking to a female in the driver's seat tried to wave her off, didn't give her any money, then engaged the wash on the car to try to get the muck off.

I can certainly tell you that. Would. Not. Happen. in Munichland. I can't even *imagine* windshield cleaners here. The concept is unvorstellbar. Berlin had so many beggars and was a much poorer (but also cheaper!) city than Munich. Restaurants of every variety--Russian across from the Armenian, Chinese, Vietnamese--you name it, it's in Berlin. Immigrants of all kinds.

At a quarter to 8 we walked over to the Admiralpalast, where the German-language version of the Broadway hit The Producers was showing. Let me tell you, THAT was a weird experience: the Nazi eagle flying around in a little animation spiel, the famous long red flags (with a black pretzel where the swastika is--displaying it is, understandably, illegal here) hanging outside the building. We got into the beautiful (if more than half-empty, but I think it's been there for a couple of weeks) building, and the show commenced. I was intrigued to see what the Germans would find funny, and that part with the Hitler-saluting pigeons they seemed to really enjoy. However, when the "show" within the show started, the over-the-top swastika formation, the practically naked woman with the Nazi eagle on her crotch, the gigantic "SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER"--people laughed, but not so much. (Interesting article: "Can Hitler be a Hit? Musical 'The Producers' takes the stage in Berlin" agrees with me about the playwright character) I was suprised by the number of older people there. They probably aren't old enough to have been directly involved, but someone in their 70s would remember a little of it. The younger people seemed to find it funnier. . . . It's a great question of how one deals with the past and especially a history that has earned (rightfully) so much shame--Nazism was no fun, and Denazification was no fun, either.
After that we wandered around one of the major streets of Berlin, where several huge differences with Munich came to light (haha). There were about 2 sluttishly-dressed women with fanny packs per block, standing around and looking at the men walking around. We overheard one conversation in English, where the woman was saying, "We have a big bed, you can relax and do what you want." I could not believe it--prostitution! In Germany! It was certainly not the Germany I knew, the conservative Catholic Bavaria. My eyes were just popping wide open as I gazed at these women.

We walked into a really interesting art house/cultural center place. I realized I felt a little strange, and this was because I am totally unaccustomed to being in a *store* with *items for sale* when it is dark outside. Everything in Munich except for food-service places (cafes and restaurants and bars, not grocery stores) shuts down around 8 PM if not before (strict Catholic laws in Bavaria), but this is not so much the case in Berlin. I even saw VIDEO STORE in the area of our hotel that was open on Sunday from 12 to midnight!!!!!! I mean, a video store! Totally a non-essential. Wow.

Behind the cultural center they were doing this sculpture-making welding, with actual fire, ala Chris Stevens from Northern Exposure. It was a sculpture garden and continued with more tents and such selling art (bear in mind, this is after the play, at around 12 midnight). Plenty of people (of the sketchy and non-sketchy variety) were walking around to look at the art. Really weird.

After that, we went to Route 66 near our hotel (open until FOUR IN THE MORNING), an American diner. They had very good milkshakes. I ordered a chicken sandwich but they put egg in it. I personally find the presence of eggs in my sandwich so revolting it's kinda turned me off to eggs in general. I don't want two chicken products, at once, please. That's like eating a hamburger with milk. But the rest of the chicken, sans Ei, was good. It was a nice restaurant, really chill, great lighting--and American food.

We had a long conversation about different types of fries and their respective advantages and disadvantages for ketchup-dipping and Brandy said, "HP, can you tell we want to go back to America?" Of course, the other five JYM'ers were full-year students and in general seem really attached to Germany. I think most of them are anxious already to visit America for a bit and then come back for an extended period of time. I do wish I shared their attitudes, I've always admired those able to "go native" and immerse themselves in a completely foreign culture and begin to not only understand, but become "The Other," that concept we're always mangling about in our liberal arts university. It's probably largely a matter of choice and just throwing yourself into it. There are parts of Germany I really like (and I did like Berlin and its more American-style city--disadvantages include poverty--but I also like Munich, which is a great beautiful city but comes with its own disadvantages, like the city being shut down at night and on Sunday), but I'm someone who requires 7 days a week store openings (for most stores) and bright lights to be happy. I like going to the Starbucks in the Quarry Market and not worry about what the eff day it is, or what time it is, because that Starbucks is going to be open come hell or high water (being a 24 hour Starbucks). So, too will the Borders' Bookstore across the way, from a very generous 9 AM to 1o or 11PM, Monday through Sunday, and it will most definitely be open on all holidays. And that's just the opening times, I haven't even gotten started on how much I generally prefer American standards of interaction. If my choice was Munich and my Louisiana town, I'd choose Munich in a heartbeat, but thank God there are more cities in the U.S. more to my liking, on the San Antonio scale of things.

We totally crashed at the hotel until the next day. On Saturday we hit more sights, went sans HP and got utterly lost but found our way back again (go team go!), finally rendevoused with HP at a Flohmarkt, which had some interesting things and was actually a NEAT flea market with lots of great quality stuff. No prices--totally open to haggling. I kinda prefer to know the price beforehand, though, but still.

We saw even more sights which I can't exactly remember--Potsdamer Platz near the site of the Wall due to our getting off course--Humboldt University, Rotes Rathaus, a memorial to the victims of Nazisozialismus (weeping woman with her dead son), Brandenburg Tor (where we had a little picnic in full view of the Tor, and HP and some others posed with a Stormtrooper in front of the gate--like I said. Berlin's a weird place.). We ate lunch thanfully under the full cover of trees, since it was pouring down rain and like 55 degrees. Then, about 30 minutes later, the sun was shining and the skies were clear. We had decided to give our leftover food to a homeless man since we wouldn't need it for the duration of our time in Berlin, and we went to the bathroom in a lovely Kunstmuseum (I mean, nice, clean, state-of-the-art lobby). An immigrant family surrounded a couple of members of the group (in the lobby) and asked for food or money, so Sheeba gave the food to them, where they ate it in the lobby. See what I mean? A city of contradictions---this state of the art lobby juxtaposed with this immigrant family eating our leftover food on the steps inside the lobby. Just a strange city.

We had a Kaffeepause in a "little old lady cafe," the Opercafe adjacent to the Berlin Opera, which was gorgeous--4 euro slices of beautiful cakes, the BEST Eisschokolade that I've ever had (hands down), teas. We all ordered a drink and a Kuechen and sampled each other's cake. The cafe was this ornate, chandalier, pink-and-green, maple wood style cafe. And just earlier that day we had walked into this Yuppie, Starbucks-style coffeehouse, and later that day I'd walk into this cafe hole of dank Communist memoriabilla. The contrast couldn't be greater if you tried. Berlin is most certainly a city with an identity crisis, a city in constant flux, a city of so many transients (people consider themselves "Berliners" if they've lived there for 3 or 4 years and very few Berliners are natives) that it really can't have an identity because the face of Berlin is always changing.

We went off to see the Pergamon Museum, which was fascinating. After that, we split up, and I went off with two others to find a little cafe spotted during our walk. In the end, it turned out to be a slightly smelly and empty Communist-memorabilla cafe, so we decided to go ahead to the rendevous point, Depointe (sp?), which was this awesome cafe. Julie and Dan ordered the bier, which of course in Berlin is something that would cause the Southerners to foam at the mouth in anger: it comes in red and green, like a -tini or something, and is actually quite tasty. I ordered a nice Earl Grey tea and a tortellini in cheese and filled with spinich, which was very yummy. The weather was nice enough to sit outside in the 'backyard,' a very very tiny piece of a garden here in the big, bustling city.

After Abendessen we went ins Theater to see Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) by Bertolt Brecht in HIS OWN HOME THEATER, the Berliner Ensemble. Talk about cool, cool, cool. The play was done in a Tim Burton style, which was totally up my alley. Mackie walked across the stage with his back to the audience as "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" played and the criminals walked across the black canvas with circled-lights being illuminiated--I didn't describe it well, but I bought the program, so if you know me, ask and I will show you, because it is really cool. It is probably one of my Top 5 shows I've seen. Mackie walked with a walking stick dangling off his hand then finally turned around to reveal his Joker-white face and firey red hair. Just so cool. The play was done in a super-minimalist style, with these shelves of neon lights used for most of the setting, and sound-effects plus actor imitation for all the "gaps," such as doors opening, change jingling and such. Most of the main characters had their faces painted this pasty, Joker white color. . . . and the ending was actually "happy" but apparently it's a parody. Of course, it's Brecht, so the entire play is a critique of capitalism, but how awesome to hear this critique in Berlin, where capitalism and communism stood as actual physical divides?

(Note: Theater could benefit from installation of air-conditioning. I always think of theaters as dark, cold places. This is not so in Europe. Dan and I thought we were going to pass out and immediately ran out for air at intermission. I enquired with HP about why there is no AC in Europe and he said, "Wir brauchen es nicht." We don't need it? I think we most definitely do.)

After the gloriously done production, we posed for pictures with Brecht's statue outside and then headed back to the hotel. (Side note: Germans never give standing ovations, even at this amazing, signature Brecht piece in Brecht's theater. I don't know why this is. Would it be too much enthusiasm in this postmodern world?)

Sunday we brunchten at a little Italian cafe. Brunching is a popular Thing to Do in Berlin. I think you can probably brunch in Munich, but here almost every restaurant advertises its Sunday Brunch. After that, we left HP to go look at the famous multi-block Holocaust Memorial, taking a double-decker bus pretty close to the site. The site pretty much resembles a graveyard, and is actually a great experience. I walked through part of it, where the blocks get higher and higher and you can't see your way around as much anymore. It was a very well done memorial and I'm glad I got the opportunity to see it. Then, we hopped on the M41 to Hauptbahnhof where we arrived in perfect time to meet HP at our Gleis in Richtung Innsbruck. 6 1/2 hours later, our little group of 7 arrived in our quiet, still corner of Germany.

Photos: (1) Berlin t-shirts at a sidewalk sale while walking around Berlin (2), Sheba is ready to go at Muenchen Hauptbahnhof (3), German National Museum--"German History: We are one people," (motto of the Wiedervereinigung of Germany) (4), HP fights Stormtrooper in front of Brandenburg Tor--I told you Berlin was a weird place (5), DDR fashion (6) Alte Computers for sale? (7), Admiralpalast decks out for The Producers production (7), Justin & Britney are together again at Madam Tussaud's in Berlin--my pre-Kevin Federline knowledge of Britney is so much faded I forgot this match ever was.