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The stage play, “The Producers” finally opened in Berlin yesterday. In the same theatre in which Hitler watched some stage plays. It is against the law to display the Nazi flag in public, so you’ll find red flags with stylized bratwurt or pretzel artwork in different parts of the city…..the Nazi flag is being shown inside the theatre tho. The song title “Springtime for Hitler” is almost as prominent as the show’s proper name.
My British Airways flight from London arrived 10 minutes early, so I got to experience the Berlin cool weather s bit sooner than expected. It is really strange to be in a place where some of the people are walking around in t-shirts and shorts and others are in sweaters and hoodies (like me). If you can find a sunny place out of the wind, then the weather is fine. The little balcony of my apartment gets plenty of sun in the late afternoon, as do a lot of the street side cafes. It doesn’t matter which part of the city you walk around, it is a big café society…..and more and more sitting, sipping, gossiping, reading people as the afternoon grows longer.
My problem
after 5 days is that I picked up the head cold from hell in England and all the cool wind in Berlin hasn’t helped the situation. Yesterday, I went into the local friendly Apotheke where everyone spoke English) and bought 16 Euros worth of pills and potions. I really want to get rid of this thing before the plane ride home on Tuesday. The cold hasn’t put a stop to my exploring, but has certainly slowed things down. I slept in a couple mornings and didn’t get out until nearly 1 PM today.
After unpacking, I made my way to Kaiser’s supermarket to pick up some breakfast and dinner supplies. It is very difficult to find a decent breakfast for under US $10 or dinner for less than $18.00 in a restaurant so all breakfasts are in and I alternated in and out dinners.
On Tuesday morning the goal was to buy my 5 day transport pass and discount booklet for $29. The sales guy mentioned that I could also buy a discount ticket for an excellent seat for the gala review “Qi” that evening. Why not. This show out-Vegased any show in Las Vegas with more than
100 cast members on the largest stage in Europe. It started at 7:30 and finished at 10:15 PM with a 25 minute intermission. Unbelievable.
Wednesday, it was time to work on going to places on my plan. I wanted to see what was going on with the rebuilding of the former Royal Palace (now called the City Palace). The East German government demolished the badly bombed Palace in 1950 and built the copper colored cold war style as the site of their Parliament. By the start of this year, that building had been demolished and the city fathers voted to OK the rebuild of the City Palace. The hitch, tho, is that no state of city money can be used in the building, so it will be paid by the people’s donations as was the famed Our Lady’s Church in Dresden. Models show the outside exactly as it appeared in the early 1900s, but the interiors will be fully modern, energy saving with offices, hotels, shops and of course, cafes. It will be finished by 2015. I then found another couple places I’d never seen like a church that had been converted into a beautiful art gallery.
Thursday,
I took the subway some 12 stops away to Prenslauerberg which has been deep in the east. It has class, it has funk, some great shops and I simply walked back down the equivalent of 3 subway stops just soaking in the atmosphere….stopping for a coffee, checking out stores, having an ice cream, looking thru the Jewish cemetery, etc…etc….By the time I met my friend Thorsen at his shop, he said I really looked beat !! He probably was right! With my late start today, the goal was to simply find a tattoo shop I had heard about and find a cool place to have some cream of asparagus soup. Then I meandered thru the punk rock alleys of HackersterMarkt and ended with a stop at Kaiser’s for a few more evening’s groceries. With the late start and all, it wasn’t bad, tho it is still cool and windy, but there were warm spots and it wasn’t too busy a day.
I guess there will have to be one more wrap up blog. Thanks for reading.
Bob
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