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Published: July 16th 2009
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When he turns a jaunty green and begins his purposeful walk, he is saying: safe to cross! When he turns red and throws out his arms, he means: stay put! It's sort of difficult not to fall for the adorable Ampelmann, the pedestrian crossing signal character that was promulgated in East Germany. He is so popular, in fact, that he is starting to spread into former West Berlin (where a more generic green/red man predominated as the crossing signal). It used to be you could tell which part of Berlin you were in by the Ampelman's presence or absence, but that's more difficult these days. There are stores, even a restaurant, devoted to Ampelmann.
Ampelmann seems a good symbol of the playful side of Berlin. As I did once before, here are some random ruminations and photographs about my non-seminar related activities in the city....
1. Laundry
When I began noticing my colleagues keeping a fair distance, I decided it was time to do a proper load of laundry rather than wrestling with hand-washing. Several others were in the same boat (I didn't really want to say anything, but...), so we decided to brave, together, the "waschsalon" down
the road. It seemed a pleasant place; there was even an attached cafe, so you could sip a cool drink while your undies were whirling away. But, the Waschsalon, we soon discovered, is presided over by an overly enthusiastic attendant, whom we have dubbed "Herr Wasch" (we are nerds). I have never seen someone whose identity is so wrapped up in his job. When I failed to get his advice on how to use the dryer, and hence somehow only got a 10 minute cycle rather than the 30 I had paid for, I was given quite the tongue-lashing in German/pidgin English. "Problem for you! Not problem for me!" I think he was deeply hurt that someone might impugn the integrity of his beloved machines. No matter how hard I tried to explain that I wasn't BLAMING him for the mistake, he remained huffy with me from that point on. Tina, on the other, seemed to charm him. He even pulled out his special sunglasses for a photo-op with her!
While my laundry was finally in the process of getting dry, I retreated with Tina to lick my wounds at a little Turkish place just down the street. It
had caught my eye because it was called Ortakoy Kumpir - Ortakoy being my old neighborhood in Istanbul and kumpir being the famous stuffed baked potatoes sold on Ortakoy's waterfront. I poked my head in the door and asked the proprietor if she was from there. The next thing we knew, we were being served glasses of good Turkish tea. The drama with Herr Wasch quickly drained away, like grey water after a rinse cycle. (OK, sorry...I couldn't resist!)
2. Cabaret
I am sure many of you have seen the movie Cabaret at one point or another. How could I not visit such a place while staying in Berlin? So I tracked down Kleine Nachtrevue, described in my guidebook as one the last old style cabarets, a throwback to the 20s/30s. I am not quite sure what I expected, but I was shocked to discover the venue to be rather intimate in size. There were six of us from the seminar, and we made up close to half the audience in the small space. The evening consisted of two parts, a musical theater number that told the story of the (fictional) relationship between Marlene Dietrich and the tenor
Richard Tauber. There was singing, there was a bit of dancing, there was dramatic dialogue (the woman who played Dietrich very kindly gave us a synopsis of the story before the show started, but in general the plot was easy to follow, despite it being all in German), and there was even a little "playful nudity". The second part of the evening was more of a burlesque, with individual acts of a wide variety - from magic, to ribbon "dancing", to a funky catapillar peformance piece. The only real common denominator was that all the mini-shows were performed mostly, even entirely, in the nude. (Sorry no photos!) This is Berlin!
3. Pigs in the Platz
While looking for KaDaWe, the big department store on Ku'damm, I stumbled on a protest by vegans. I loved the pig costumes! Seems dangerous in a country known for its sausages....
4. At the Beach, in and out of Berlin
Although Berlin is very much an inland city, it is actually a watery place, with lots of rivers, canals, and lakes in and around it. Probably not too surprisingly, beaches, real and otherwise, are popular places to relax. For one of
our colleague's birthdays, we trekked out to Wannsee, not far from Berlin, to spend an afternoon on the lakefront. The more daring in the group ventured down to the screened off section of the beach reserved for practitioners of FKK (Freikorperkultur - "Free Body Culture"). You can probably guess what that means!
On another birthday, we stayed within the city limits and went to one of the clubs along the Spree, spending an evening on the cool sand of a manmade beach, watching trains zoom by on the other shore. Thankfully, this time there was no FKK section!
***
Ampelmann keeps enticing me to follow him, to explore more and more of Berlin. But sadly our time here is fast drawing to a close. On Sunday, we head to Leipzig to continue our seminar where the peaceful revolution began in earnest in 1989. Hopefully, Ampelmann will be there to guide us!
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