Berlin

September 3rd

It’s Monday, it’s dreary and raining and I was trying to finish my reports for school but the blogger system isn’t happy downloading pictures at the moment and so I’m taking a break and getting caught up on my journaling instead. (PS. The picture of the BN Tower, actually the Berliner Rundfunkturm, was taken on another day. I just like it.)

I’m sitting in Mark’s kitchen and he and his roomies have just all returned. They’re about doing their things and I’m happily typing away.

To be sure I got over my culture shock fairly quickly. Mark lives in an area of town that can be likened to Parkdale perhaps in Toronto. And I must clarify that not only Turkish people live in this part of town. And in fact, apparently mostly the Turkish don’t even own dogs. (If you’re confused, refer back to my culture shock entry.) It’s a very socially poor area of Berlin. There are many alcoholics around too which is very sad. Particularly sad are the youth. On Friday night we were coming back from the symphony and there were many people walking the streets with bottles in their hands. One young girl on the subway, maybe 17isch, was hugging her wine bottle. How does one solve the problems of society??

The changes in Berlin over the last 18 years are remarkable, architecturally speaking anyway. The little bits I’ve seen, particularly in the centre of town are beautiful. Buildings have been repaired, renovated, cleaned up, beautified. It’s quite a mix of architectural styles too. There are the beautiful old baroque buildings and then there are the simple, purposeful, non-descript buildings of the communist and 70’s era and added to that the new futuristic sleek modern architecture. Nice too is when styles are mixed eloquently with each other. Like the Reichstag government building with its new glass dome on the roof that reminds of pictures I’ve seen of it from pre-war Germany I think. I spent a few days walking around the streets and investigating.

One day I discovered the Hackescher Höfe. These are beautiful courtyards of a network of buildings, beautifully renovated. There are many posh boutique shops and fancy cafés and restaurants there. It was fun to go in to them and browse and try things on. I ended up splurging and buying a great dress to wear for Hilary and David’s wedding. The seamstress was sewing in her little boutique while I was busy trying dresses on. From there I went to have a pedicure which was so lovely. My feet weren’t very happy anymore and they very much enjoyed the glorious experience. The place was all pink. It made me think of Sonya! The footbath was in a beautiful big bamboo bowl with stones in the bottom and bubbles and flower petals scattered on top. And then she took a glob of honey and a bunch of sea salt and a slice of lemon and scrubbed my feet. That was very nice too, followed by your regular lovely standard pedicure procedure.