Bratwurst and Techno
Berlin was not all that special. Maybe my impression was colored by being woken up on the train into Deutchland by a kick to the head by a German police officer while he shined a flashlight in my eyes. He may have muttered something like “sorry” as he moved on to the next compartment. But curled up on the floor of our non-sleeper compartment with my legs alternately falling asleep and cramping, squeezed in beside three other frugal travelers, that’s not what it sounded like.
Berlin looks a lot like Boston with straighter roads. It was comfortably boring. If we didn’t look too closely we could swear we were home. I had always thought that some sections of Boston looked liked they were designed as Soviet bunkers, now it seems I was correct. The resemblance was uncanny. Berlin is undergoing massive construction. Every part of the city is being torn up and redone in steel and glass. With some decent attempts at architecture too, not just boxes.
There was a big Marathon happening the weekend we showed up, so all the hostels we tried to phone ahead for were full. So we were wandering along with our backpacks through a kind of crappy wasteland that seemed to be given over to street artists and junkies, wondering where to sleep and we looked up to see the words:
We walked in through the airlock and rented beds in a cabin on the first deck. The decks were future white and the facilities were oddly modern. All of the Heart of Gold’s laundry and lavatory facilities were designed by the Sirius Cybernetics corporation and included “Human Friendly” instructions cards on their somewhat quirky operation. For a small deposit you could borrow towels (of course) and a variety of Sens-O-Matic sunglasses. A selection of alien drinks were available at the bar.
After Paris, is was nice to see individuality in dress return. There’s this funny hair dye thing goin’ on in Europe. A small minority of ladies will dye half their head, right down the middle. Mostly its the brown/blond thing you’ve seen before, but the older generation does white/red. I saw a 16 year old girl with white/red too. It was more common in Berlin than anywhere else. Old guys are still wearing the Hitler mustache. Traditional dress was present in the big city, but pretty rare. We only spotted a couple leiderhosen and one traditional blouse. The jean jacket with blue jeans is still a hit over here. Germans like all the cheesy American music from twenty to fifty years ago. The obnoxious cars blasting music at the stoplights put out boring techno, not hip-hop. There’s not even bass to rattle the windows.
We went out to this restaurant that advertised “Tradition Deutche Kitchen”. I’ve never really liked sausage or saurkraut, but they did an amazing job on this stuff. They had a red cabbage and clove sauce that went perfectly with beets and shredded beef. We also had wonderful taut bratwurst popped open in our mouths and soft, pleasing sauerkraut. We finished with an apple strudel and grapes, kiwi and whipped cream. We payed 7 Euros a pop for entrees that just aren’t available at home. Local traditional cuisine is just so many kinds of good. I had this bizarre drink: Berliner Weisse mit Shisse und Juniper. Green juniper flavored wheat beer. Good, but strange. The regular ales and lagers cost fifty cents for a half liter. This cheapo bottled beer was rich, tasty and better than most fresh brewery beer in the States. But you can’t ship it because there’s no preservatives. We drank a lot of it.
Feeling the pinch of Western European prices and the sinking dollar we jumped on a train for Prague…