Local Expert
Jacinta Lodge
I'm an Aussie expat who's been living in Germany for eight years. I've a German husband, a mongrel dog and a thirty year old VW bus. Berlin is now my hometown. It rocks.
I'm an Aussie expat who's been living in Germany for eight years. I've a German husband, a mongrel dog and a thirty year old VW bus. Berlin is now my hometown. It rocks.
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One of the things I found really tough about moving to Germany was the cold Christmases. Coming from the southern hemisphere, to me Christmas is hot, celebrated in shorts and with a large serving of prawns. We never spent Christmas day on the beach, but we were certainly there within seventy-eight hours of it.
So cold and snow and ice? Awful. Terrible. I understand where the trees and the hot drinks and the fake snow on windows comes from now, but does it have to be so miserably cold? And Berlin is a grey and depressing city in the wintertime, when snow rapidly becomes slush and commuting around is often a wet and windy affair.
Then I discovered the German Christmas markets.
Oh, these light filled havens of sparkly seasonal items! Rosy cheeked natives huddled round mugs of spiked mulled wine! The wooden huts! The hand painted tree ornaments! The assortment of gloves and head wear! Wooden sculptures of questionable ethnic origin! Christmas markets are a joy to behold.
If you are looking for presents for people, try the glass tree decorations or the candle-powered windmills. Be wary of the last just because really good ones can be mightily expensive, while really cheap ones may not turn properly and you'll end up with charred blades instead of spinning ones.
If you'd rather not cart home Christmas kitsch, even of the cute local variety, make sure you spend some time getting to know Gluehwein (mulled wine) or its more evil cousin Feuerzangbowle. This hardcore Gluehwein is made by hanging cones of sugar above the wine, dousing these liberally with rum and then setting them alight. The sugar melts into the Gluehwein along with any unburnt rum and the whole hing becomes a sweet, alchoholic mess which can seriously bite hard the next morning.
My favourite Christmas market in Berlin is at the Opernpalais because of the ambiance, but there are plenty around and all will have the same fundamental stalls. For a full list, check out this website.
It can be tough to check out the local live theatre scene if you don't speak the language - although I'd recommend seeing any Shakespeare production done in German. It just seems so wrong somehow.
Nicely enough, Berlin does have an English language theatre. Formerly known as the Friends of Italian Opera, it has been recreated in a new venue with the much more staidly title of English Theatre Berlin.
This season the ETB is focussing on American theatre. Early December they'll be showing Bloodwater, two short plays on love and war by Eugene O'Neill while January launches straight into Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending. The world premieres of two other plays, American Tet by Lydia Stryk and The Extremists by C. J. Hopkins round off the Americana on offer.
A highlight for me is the yearly improv festival. With invited theatre improvisation groups from around the English-speaking world, this is a great time to get your giggles on. That will be on in March 2009 and you can check out their webpage closer to the date to find out the details. Although I'm sure I'll mention it here as well!
Standing in the Spree river and visible from the Oberbaumbrücke, are giant metal men riddled with holes. It's a scene Berliner's are familiar with and yet many would be hard pressed to tell you exactly what they are.
These are Molecule Man. This sculpture was created by the American sculptor Jonathon Borofsky, commissioned by Allianz which is located in the adjacent Treptowers. While it looks like two guys having a bit of a wrestle in the river, there are actually three figures in the sculpture and they aren't fighting- they are meeting. The three men symbolise the point at which the suburbsKreuzberg, Treptow and Friedrichshain meet, the river being one of the borders between the former East and West Berlins.
The sculpture has the local nickname Dreikäsehoch (Three cheeses high). Partly this is a play on words: the holes punched through each of the figures like a swiss cheese, but the phrase itself is an old fashioned term for a young boy with a strong will but not yet the physical size. The term comes from an old standard of cheese size. At about twenty centimetres thick, a young boy would then be about three cheeses high, but still act like a know-it-all.
The sculptor himself says on his website: For me, this hundred-foot tall aluminum sculpture composed of three figures meeting in the center, not only refers to the lightness inside our own solid bodies, but also the figures joining in the center, refer to the molecules of all human beings coming together to create our existence.
One of the great things about big, international cities is the big, international range of food available. So why not step away from the familiar European dishes, or the trendynouveau-Asian restaurants and try an evening in the cradle of mankind.
Massai specialises in cuisine from sub-Saharan Africa, with everything from West African fufu to East African injera. Ensuring an original taste of Africa, their chefs are from Ethiopia, South America and Madagascar.
The adventures start already when ordering drinks: banana beer really is worth a try at least once and they have a number of other African imports. It starts getting a little confusing on the menu with the number ofunusual side dishes: plantains are large, not-so-sweet bananas while shiro are chick peas. Fufu isn't really to my taste but if you're a fan of semolina pudding or polenta give it a whirl. The pancake-like injera bread was more my style and demands you to eat with your fingers. You get it with the larger platters of mixed dishes, so good value for money, the chance to try a variety of dishes and playing with your food all in one. Win, is what I call it.
Also on offer is an adventurous variety of meats. Try an ostrich steak.. or crocodile, springbok or zebra.
Massai has two location in Berlin. In Prenzlauer Berg the atmosphere is sultry and dark, heavy on wood and moody lighting. I haven't yet tried the Schöneberg location on Goltzstrasse, the more recent addition to the Massai family.
Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) is one of the iconic Berlin films. Franke Potente as Lola races on foot through the city to try and get 100000 DM together for her boyfriend to pay back some gangsters. I'll try to avoid spoilers for those of you who haven't seen it, but I thought you might like to know where it takes place.
As is often the case with the film universe, they've played a little loose with actual geography. So below you'll find the filming locations which Lola ran between on her apparently twenty minute sprints.
Deutsche Oper U-bahn station where her boyfriend originally loses the money then calls her directly from...
...a phone booth on the corner of Tauroggener Strasse and Osnabücker Strasse. The phone box doesn't actually exist. On the corner there though is the Spar supermarket which has it's own role to play in the film.
Lola's apartment was in 13-14 Albrechtstrasse, right near Friedrichstrasse S- and U-bahn Station which makes the next location a bit odd as she runs straight to her father's bank...
... over the Oberbaumbrücke. Then she's running along....
... Friedrichstrasse again, past the Französische Str. U-bahn station into Behrenstrasse to get herself to...
... Bebelplatz...
... then her father's bank building at 39 Behrenstrasse
Gendarmenmarkt is seen several times in the film, where she runs across a square tiled pavement
The incident with the ambulance and the glass occurs at the corner of Greifshagener Strasse and Buchholzer Strasse...
... while the shooting happens on Cuvrystrasse.
As she runs to her boyfriend she almost has an accident on Unter den Linden at Hinter den Gießhaus next to the Neue Wache and spots...
...the Casino, which is actually the outside of the Deutsches Historisches Museum
He was the star of fashion and celebrity photography, but between the commercial contracts maintained an impressive artistic career. Until his death in 2004, Richard Avedon photographed the biggest names at the peaks of their careers. His photos became icons in their own right and now the first retrospective on his work in Germany lets you see them in the original.
The exhibition covers photos from 1946, when Avedon traveled to Rome and Sicily just after WWII, to 2004, with a photo from Björk taken just four months before the aneurysm which killed him while on a shoot. the 1969 photo 'Andy Warhol and Members of the Factory' is on display, as is the 1948 photo of model Dovima amongst elephants. Charlie Chaplin is also there, making devils horns at America.
Giving a bit of Berlin perspective is Avedon's 1989 series 'Brandenburg Gate', which he took on the New Year's Eve following the fall of the Wall. The rretrospectivehas 200 photos, organised chronologically, and is an impressive summary of an amazing artists life. The exhibition is running until January 19th in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, open 10am till 8pm every day except Tuesday and entry costs 8€.