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Published: December 19th 2011
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Coloring one's hair a completely mad shade of red the day before a performance is perhaps not the best idea; but of course, when in Berlin, do crazy things and so here I am. It's been a three day whirlwind tour of arriving in Berlin with Ben, meeting up with Nick, going to a tasty restaurant, a furry red gay bar, and endless tourism as we explored the Reichstag - for which by the way, one now needs to reserve in advance tours for - the area around the Brandenburg Tor, the Jewish Memorial which never ceases to make me truly appreciate the artist who made it: it's a lot of concrete blocks which when seen from an overview look orderly and in place, and uniform, representing the rules, and "logic" of the time of the holocaust, and then upon entering, one can see that each block is different and vastly so, suddenly you're in a maze of utter confusion, hills, lows, highs, the blocks change from being up to your knee to well over your head in height. It's amazing - and beautiful as you see glimpses of people as they pass between the blocks and appear as if ghosts
for you don't tend to see them again in the maze. All of it of course showing that what is orderly on the outside might be chaos in reality. So we did that, we did the museum island and the boat tour, the much needed 1 hour rest, drinking a beer with Sprite on the river Spree as a slightly drowsy and bored tour guide informs visitors in English, German and small amounts of Spanish that the bridges, buildings, and waterways all have their own history and quirky story, though she doesn't always reveal what those stories are. After, we re-visited (at least for me) the DDR museum, one of the very few privately owned museums in Berlin, and had a great time - I love this museum, it's extremely low-tech, focusing more on interactivity through people opening drawers and cupboards and exploring the homes, lifestyles, clothing and customs of the DDR era. They recently added a new wing and it was incredible, even more to explore and including a beautiful use of Microsoft surface: using historical artifacts from a desk - stapler, stamp, pen, etc, which when placed on the surface activate multi-media information panels - the stapler representing administration, the stamp authority, etc. It was quite well done. In our travels through Potsdamer platz, we found the best tour ever, a dog-sled tour of the city, on a sled with tires and a team of huskies. We didn't do it but it seemed like a great idea!
My head is burning. I'm writing this as my hair color sets in and my doubt about the cleverness of this idea is increasing exponentially with the minutes left of the color sitting in my hair. Moving on... we went back to the apartment after our tourism spree and ate and slept, and finally went out for a great night with a Danish friend of mine. We went bar-hopping and ended up playing foosball with some crazy people who were friendly but otherwise incomprehensible and rather odd. The night ended as the sun rose, as any good Berlin night out does, and we headed back to sleep a bit before our brunch appointment the next day. Our brunch was at Morena cafe, mentioned many times in this blog as I simply love their brunch, it's so tasty and beautiful, and huge, we shared some museli and an Italian brunch with all different meats and cheeses. We met with a girl I met at a museum conference last year, Charlotte and her girlfriend Frederika, they were fantastic and soon heading to Vancouver so it was quite good for them to meet with Nick and Ben, who can hopefully show them a few good spots in Vancouver when they visit.
We had a fairly relaxed day, wandering about the shopping district and getting a highly tourist-trap ish dinner which was surprisingly good before heading off to a fantastic district which I haven't encountered before on Schonehasuer Alle 36, the kultur center. It's an old brewery which has been repurposed into being a cultural center, complete with a swing club, many dj-ing clubs, theater areas and a great 'beer garden' area for sitting outside and having a drink. Shortly after, it was time for Ben and Nick to head onwards to Greece so we got back to the apartment and packed.
Which brings me to now - a terrible hair experience (you get what you pay for I guess?), where I wanted desperately to run out while the hair dresser was applying the first round of dye, which I really should have given the permanence and shade of red that I ended up with. Then I tried to get to a store across the other side of the city where I was to pick up a skirt for said performance tomorrow but of course, upon travelling 40 minutes the store proved to be useless with no skirts whatsoever left and me hungry, brunchless, and on the way to the airport. A terrible last day in Berlin but thankfully now I'm on the plane, back to Copenhagen where I'm not leaving until I absolutely must - Oslo in October for a day for a project, and Mexico in November for Magda's wedding.
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