Coffee and the Kaiser's Bathtub

Benedict Ambrose is still asleep, and no wonder. We had a very tiring day.

Yesterday was lovely, warm and sunny. We parted company with our family and struck out for Kreuzberg on our own. Our goal was "Chapter One," the hipster cafe recommended by Polish Pretend Son. We found it without difficulty on one of the more leafy and genteel streets. The cafe didn't have tables, but it did have a few stools scattered around the edges of the dark-and-light grey room. Most customers sat outside under a tree in front of the shop, clearly enjoying the late morning sun. We sat inside looking out at them through the nine-light window, the fake-marble windowsill serving as our table.

A stuffed falcon or hawk perched on a branch over the door, as if to take flight. Three interesting siphons sat on the counter over portable burners: they looked very steampunk.  There were also baskets of delicious-looking pastries. The lemon-vanilla croissant was so delicious, B.A. had two. Our coffees were excellent also.

There was no loo, so we were directed to the nearby Marheinekehalle (a market hall), which wanted 50 Euro cents. I mention this because the traveller needs to know that Berlin is one of those places that constantly shakes you down for loo money. All Poland does, which is why my change purse is currently stuffed with groszy.

Next we popped into the Passionkirche, which is Lutheran, but B.A. is always interested in churches.    A food bank was being set up, and people who looked surprisingly well-dressed were queuing up to get their groceries. We beat a hasty retreat.

We then went straight to Potsdam, albeit in an untutored way: we transferred at Wannsee, buying another ticket because our weekly tickets don't cover Area C, where both Potsdam and the airport live. It would have been a nice day to sit by the lake at Wannsee, but we were determined to see the Neues Palais and then return in time to take a cruise along the Spree with our families.

To get to the Neues Palais without delay, you need to get off at the Park Sans-Souci stop or station. However, we were hungry, so we alighted at Potsdam Hauptbahnhof and made our way towards the pedestrian street with many restaurants. Along the way we visited an important Lutheran Church, which B.A. liked a lot, and also the Church of St. Peter and Paul, which was literally the first Catholic Church we had been inside since we got to Germany. Its wreckovations (or, given historical events, restorations) had preserved a high altar but naturally it had a Novus Ordo altar, too.

Brandenburger Strasse stretched between the Catholic church and the Brandenburger Gate, and we walked along it, looking at the shops and restaurants. At this point we were so hungry, currywurst and bratwurst with chips sounded like a good idea, so we got some from Curry Wolf which, although a chain, is at least a German chain. I enjoyed the currywurst but the chips sat on my stomach like a fleet of torpedoed U-Boats. It is sad to come on holiday and eat bad unhealthy food I never eat at home, but without advance planning, that's what happens. By the way, you can get a bottle of Dom Perignon and four currywurst at Curry Wolf for 225€ although I cannot imagine why you would want to.

We went through the Brandenburger Tor (Gate) in the direction of the Park Sans Souci, and passed another fancy Lutheran Church, which turned out to be in the Park itself. We found the gate to the Park and were charmed to see, two kilometres away, the Neues Palais straight ahead.  If I had been Frederick the Great, I too would have put my grandest palace at the end of a 2 Km drive, the better to impress people. On both sides of the drive were gardens and forests and it was all very lovely and I reapplied sunscreen.

We had been advised to skip the Sans Souci party palace for the Neues Palais to truly appreciate that grandeur that was Royal Prussia, so we gave the Sans Souci building a look in passing and toddled ever onward to the Neues Palais. When we got there, B.A. was professionally delighted by the architecture and I was aghast as it was already 2:20 PM and we were supposed to meet our family back in Berlin at 4:30 PM. (By the way, one whole Euro for the loo in the ticket building for the Neue Palais.) I sent a sad little text saying we couldn't do it.

Onward, into the Neues Palais with its views and massive shell-covered room (very unusual) and its... actually, I cannot remember anything  except the shell-covered room, the turn-of-the-century elevator, and, upstairs, the Kaiser's little bathroom with blue tiles B.A. said were Delft and then the massive marble hall. Oh, I remember the Kaiser's bedroom furniture, and the audioguide mentioning that the Soviets had looted the joint and still had over 3,000 pieces belonging to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens association.

There was a lot of Rococo ornamentation (there, it's coming back).

"I understand Rococo so much better now," cried B.A. when we left.

He was absolutely delighted and charmed with the Neues Palais and thought it both worth seeing and worth going to see, unlike Samuel Johnson re: Fingal's Cave, a story B.A. is wont to retell.

"What did you like best in Potsdam?" he later asked me.

"I liked the Kaiser's bathtub," I said and this is true because, really, Prussian palaces are wasted on me, and my idea of a nice place to visit is the Hotel Adlon when it is cold and rainy and I want some hot chocolate. Although I do not think I will ever like Kaiser Wilhelm II, I do like that he put then-modern plumbing in his Potsdam Palace.

In fact, I would very much have liked to lived in the late Victorian and the Edwardian periods (as a middle-class to upper-middle-class person, naturally) and died the day war was declared. I should have (hopefully) gone to my Eternal Reward confident that the war would be over by Christmas, by which time we would have sent Jerry homeward to think again.

As a matter of fact, we didn't miss the 5:15 PM Spree cruise after all. We got off at the Maerkisches Museum U-Bahn and ran to the boat. There our family was waiting, and as I sat on top of the boat drinking a much-needed cup of coffee, I discovered that this is the kind of sightseeing I liked best. All  Berlin seemed to pass by--the Berliner Dom and the other monumental buildings on the Museum Island, the Reichstag--which we reminded ourselves we are supposed to call the Bundestag, the various new buildings, sprawling parks.... It was very lovely.

The cruise ended after the Moabiter Bruecke, a bridge with amusing contemporary figures of bears. We crossed the bridge to reach "Fischerdorf", a small children's playground beside the Spree. After watching my relations gambol in the gravel, I went for a walk and discovered, just above, the Strasse der Erinnerung (Street of Memory), which was two rows of busts of famous modern Germans known for their defence of human rights and dignity. However, I found that out later. At first all I knew was that for some reason St. Edith Stein's bust had been placed between those of Albert Einstein and Helmut Kohl, across from Thomas Mann. As a great devotee of St. Teresa Benedetta a Cruce, I was delighted. The only other woman featured along this avenue was Kaethe Kollwitz,  an artist whom the guide books say Berliners revere.

From there we walked to the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and saw the memorial, also, to the victims of the 2016 Berlin truck attack. That was rather sad, and I was aggrieved that the terrorist had picked a site dedicated to world peace--that I hadn't known before. (Before I was just furious that it had happened at all although somewhat comforted by reports that victim Łukasz Urban had fought back.)

Then we were very near the KaDeWe department store, and Nulli ran off to by Birkenstocks and MBS went with the children to the Lego outlet Peanut seemed prepared to throw himself in the street to get to, and B.A. and I stood outside KaDeWe, which was closing, thinking only about our stomachs. These were finally filled at an Italian restaurant somewhere around Sevignyplatz because the German pub NS and MBS remembered wouldn't let the children in.

Tonight we are going to an organ concert in the Berliner Dom, and soon we will look for good coffee and pastries, but we have no plans yet other than those.

Update: Apologies for all and any "creative" spellings.

The Kaiser's Bathtub

We went to Potsdam. Elaborations tomorrow.

Particularity

The state rooms in the old wing of  Schloss Charlottenburg reminded us of the Historical House, an assertion that may fill the minds of those who know both with doubt. Naturally the Historical House is a lot smaller and both its  front courtyard and its grounds are not as extensive. Nevertheless, the small-to-modern-eyes rooms and the Chinese porcelain collection felt familiar, and we pondered the difficulties of "collection care", which at the Historical House includes brushing things very, very softly with a plethora of museum-grade brushes.

The eye-openers were upstairs. They included the crowd jewels and swords and, especially,  the tableware of the 19th and early 20th century Hohenzollerns. It was a little bit creepy to be looking at the Kaiser's china plates and silverware. On the one hand, it made me think of my great-grandfather,  the mud of Flanders, millions of deaths, the end of Christendom, etc. On the other hand, I felt like part of a never-ending army of enemies gawking at a refugee family's stolen things.  They are glorious, beautiful things, but they carry a lot of baggage.

We bought tickets to see everything, but B.A. was hungry for lunch, and we had scheduled only 3 hours or so, so we ourselves didn't see the New Wing.

But now I must go as we are going to a hipster cafe in Kreuzberg recommended by Polish Pretend Son. Then we are going to Potsdam. Today is sunny, and tomorrow there will be rain, so today is the day to see Potsdam.

Charlottenburg & Prendzlauer Berg

I've very tired so this is just a very short note to say Charlottenburg in the early afternoon to see the Palace and then Prendzlauer Berg in the late afternoon to drop off the young fry in a children-only play area on Kollwitzstrasse, where the adults strolled down the street for coffee and cheesecake. Then there was a walk to Oderbergerstrasse for (ultimately) hamburgers although Popcorn and I wandered off to the somewhat undeveloped, still very No-Man's-Land-looking Mauerpark before the food arrived. Finally we all walked along Bernauer Strasse to see where the Berlin Wall was and to read the memorials, and the children found this very dull.

Not Just Another Brick in the Wall

Tuesday was Nulli and Family's first proper day in Berlin, so there was lots of sightseeing in the afternoon. (For various reasons, they didn't stir from the house in the morning. Benedict Ambrose and  I, however, made a visit to the "Cafe/Backerei Kirsch und Karamell" for coffee and buns.)

The first port of call was a ballet clothing store in Kreuzberg (Gneisenau Strasse), where I bought my niece a belated birthday present: her choice. Her choices of pointe shoes and a doll being rejected, she chose a fuchsia wrap-around cardigan and pink leg warmers. Compared to Edinburgh, prices were quite good. 

My brother and nephew gave the ballet shop a miss and went instead to the comic book store next door, where the shopkeeper shouted at poor Peanut for sitting on the floor with a comic. Exeunt menfolk. Beside this shop there was a bakery, and it was a friendlier place, so we all had a light lunch. (B.A. and I were very hungry indeed.) 

We then took a bus through eastern Kreuzberg to Ostbahnhof and looked out the windows at all the interesting Turkish and Vietnamese bars, cafes, and restaurants. There were many ladies in colourful headscarves, and the exciting businesses were a vast improvement on the often very ugly apartment and office buildings. Old or new, plain or Baroque, these edifices were built along large lines. 

At Ostbahnhof our party divided in two. Nulli took the children to the computer game museum on Karl-Marx-Allee and Ma Belle Soeur took B.A. and me to the "East Side Gallery" which is the official name for a stretch of the Berlin Wall preserved in situ and covered on the east side with paintings by international artists and on the west side by a lot of graffiti. Sadly, the graffiti is all from the past 10 years or so, the old graffiti being presumably under thick coats of cream paint.

My favourite Berlin Wall graffito.

Several foreign tourists like ourselves were taking photos of themselves in front of the Wall, and one limber young bearded man was filmed doing an interpretive dance. There are many new buildings on the east side of this part of the Wall; on the west side there is a park and the Spree river. 

Instead of going to the Mauer (Wall) Museum (expensive), we then walked up the Strasse der Parisser Kommune to Karl-Marx-Allee and sat at a table outside the Computerspielemuseum waiting for the others. Ma Belle Soeur told us about post-war life in her (Iron Curtain) birth country, and I fell asleep. (I was up very early.) 

The children loved the Computerspielemuseum, so that was a great success, and then we went to Alexanderplatz, which wasn't a great success with me. The walk from the East Side Gallery to Karl-Marx-Allee still retained an intriguing if dour socialist look whereas Alexanderplatz screamed praise to the tyranny of the multinationals. The iconic East Berlin TV tower now has a Starbucks chewing at  its roots. A nearby sign advertises Disney's new version of "The Lion King". The air is scented with products from Lush. Naturally there is a McDonald's nearby, and there is an enormous Vapiano restaurant in the same building as Shoe City.

Victory of multinational chains.

We went, as I mentioned, to the Vapiano, where we stood in queues to various stations and then watched the short-order cooks make our suppers. Desperate for caffeine, I had my first bottle of Coke (albeit Diet) in decades. I took it along with me when the fire alarm went off and a recorded polite female German voice began to say "Achtung! Achtung!" 

Vapiano calculates the bill with electronic cards you place on the counters of the cooking stations, and you hand them in on the way out. My hunch is that someone pulled the alarm to avoid having to pay for their meal, and I am sure the Alexanderplatz Vapiano lost a lot of money yesterday-- although not from us as my brother went back indoors to pay even while the recorded polite German voice was now saying in English "Attention! Attention! Please leave the building. Do not use the loo." 

"For you English, the war is over," said B.A., thrilled by the unexpected repetitions of "Achtung!", and I felt rather more cheerful about Alexanderplatz.  I felt even more cheerful when we walked to the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicolas's Church), which was itself shut, but was in a bright little neighbourhood of German shops and rescued statues, e.g. St. George about to kill the dragon mauling his furious horse. 

Probable victory of anarchy over multinational chain.

That was nice. And then we walked along to Spree to investigate the tour boat schedule, and although  we had missed the last for the day, it was very nice to sit by it and admire the East Berlin skyline. 

Our next port of call was Potsdamer Place, where the Canadian Embassy is rather comic in its ugliness, and where I bounced along the brick path showing where the Wall was. Potsdamer Place is cheerfully hideous, but undoubtedly nicer than it was in 1989, and we walked through it to a signboard explanation of the Wall, where MBS explained Soviet-style communism to her children. She stressed that everyone was supposed to be faceless and the same as everybody else, which was a pretty good description of Alexanderplatz but I obsess. 

We had dessert in an "Australian" restaurant in the Sony Centre across from the Museum of Film and Television, which (sadly) shut at 6 PM but did have an interesting bookshop still open.

Next we walked through the Tiergarten, which has lovely marble monuments to Goethe et alia, towards the Brandenberg Gate and came upon the Memorial of the Murdered Jews of Europe. This is, famously, a collection of concrete slabs of different height all set in a grid. The children were intrigued, and B.A. and I told them about the Holocaust and I ordered them not to run through, shout among, or climb on the slabs, as they might sadden visiting relations of the dead. When a cheerful young couple climbed on a slab and took widely grinning selfies, subverting my narrative, I informed my own relations that the grinners' mothers would be ashamed. 

"Do you think they are anti-Semites?" I asked B.A.

"I think they don't know what it is," said B.A., the soul of charity. 

We reached the Brandenberg Gate, and the other adults chatted with an American woman who hadn't seen it in person since 1961 and needed to talk about it. The sky was darkening, and the Gate certainly looked dramatic against the clouds. 

And that was almost it. We got on the S-Bahn but went the wrong way, so got off at Friedrichstrasse and began to look for the U-Bahn. We found ourselves in a small grassy area with food stalls, a rainbow sign reading "WC ->" and a bearded torch-juggler in a leotard and tutu who referred to himself as Marilina Ballerina, if I have that correctly. After of few minutes of admiring the skills of Marilina Ballerina, we got on the U-Bahn and went back to Alt-Tempelhof.

At this point you may be saying to yourself, "Mrs McL doesn't like socialism, but she doesn't like multinational chain stores either. Does she like anything?" And I say, Yes! I like particularity, which is a grad school word for unique stuff that appears and grows or develops in one place and not necessarily another.  The Berlin Wall is particular. The comic book shop where Peanut got reprimanded is, despite all the Tintin stuff, particular. Marilina Ballerina is particular. The bullet holes in the walls of the Pergamon museum are pretty darn particular.  

Achtung in Alexanderplatz

A long day made rather exciting by a fire alarm in the "Vapiano" chain restaurant in Alexanderplatz. The recorded voice said, "Achtung! Achtung!" which B.A. found very thrilling, as he didn't know Germans say that outside of war movies. Everyone, including the chefs, had to go outside. Fire trucks appeared.

More tomorrow. I am dead tired. I found the horrible multinational chain stores and restaurants all around Alexanderplatz terribly depressing, but the Commies wanted everything international, so I suppose it serves Alexanderplatz right. And when I say multinational, I'm talking not only Disney and  Starbucks, I'm talking Decathlon and Lush. Photos tomorrow.

Really, it is the weirdest thing emerging from the Alexanderplatz U-Bahn, sniffing the air, and knowing at once that a Lush is nearby. Same smell outside the Lush in Toronto. Same smell outside the Lush in Edinburgh. Same smell outside the Lush in Berlin.

I liked Potsdamer Platz better, and enjoyed bouncing back and forth over the strip of bricks marking where the Berlin Wall once divided it in half.

Update: I've had a message from someone saying "Well, at least it's not like this."

Children in Kreuzberg

Peanut, 11, and his sister Popcorn, 9, turned up at the door yesterday evening with their parents, having flown from Paris. I put out a bowl of what Peanut called "peanut-butter Cheetos" and some flatbread and hummus left over from our Turkish halal take-out chicken feast. 

This was just enough to keep body and soul together, and within a couple of hours we were all on our way to Bergmannstrasse in Kreuzberg because it is lined with restaurants. It also has a sandy play park, where P&P were sent by their parents after we sat at some tables outside Felix Austria, just within sight. Thanks to my job and all the reading about Kreuzberg I did 10 years ago, I was in agonies over the kids' safety (Kreuzberg!), but they were fine. 

We ate schnitzel and sausages, potato salad and cucumber salad, and drank much white Austrian wine. The children played a game where they attempted to whack my brother on his bald spot, which is not a game I, personally, would play with someone who has a brown belt in karate. My sister-in-law asked us what we would like to do in Berlin, as they have already been to Berlin, and I refrained from saying what I would really like to do, which is to go to Poland and eat kotlet schabowy there instead. 

Then we went to an all-night grocery store where Nulli and Ma Belle Soeur loaded up on breakfast foods, and I examined some very weird and unhealthy spreads. One appeared to be made of crushed caramel biscuits. Others purported to be made out of chocolate bars. This was a whole new level of Nutella, I must say. 

Finally we found the Mehringdamm U-Bahn station and travelled back to Alt-Tempelhof. The children sang a rousing patter song about bananas as we walked down the darkened street, which possibly made a nice change from whatever adults sing when they come back from a night out in Kreuzberg.

Our plans are not firm although Nulli has mentioned wanting to drive all the way to the Baltic Sea to see castles and the adults are agreed that we want to go to Potsdam. Sadly both our ancestral town and the town our Canadian grandfather was put in charge of in 1945 are a long way west. 

We may pop over the border to Poland, or we may not. Ma Belle Soeur and therefore the children are actually partly Polish, thanks to the wounded soldier who turned up at their Eastern European ancestress' farmhouse door in 1940 or thereabouts. Well, I suppose I should now have a look at what joys Swinoujscie has to offer, as it is the Polish Baltic town closest to the border.