Books and bobs...

Anders and I have been sick for three days now which has been a drag as Rosanna is now with us and I don't feel inclined to do anything adventurous, but on the positive side I've been able to finish reading Hans Fallada's "Every Man Dies Alone". The story is based on true events about a couple who choose to defy the third reich by depositing postcards with anti-nazi sentiments randomly about Berlin. All the characters introduced are connected directly or indirectly with this couple and Fallada's insight into the machinations of the gestapo as well as his particular view of humanity under oppression drew me in and gave me a better understanding of how the german populace fell in line with the policies of the third reich so thoroughly. Following that, we watched a documentary on the rise of the wall and it's eventual fall in 1989 which was good as an overview, but not very detailed. However, it did help to consolidate my view that the oppression of Fallada's time quite easily links with the oppression of the soviet run ddr, and how something as drastic as the wall could only have happened without opposition from the german populace due to the lack of recovery time from the culture of fear during the war years to the culture of fear in the cold war years.

Unglaublich!

Anders' Geburtstag

Fahrrad saga...

Loree is gone, Kim Barlow is gone, Michelle is gone. I have no idea where the Gatzaenkers are. Seriously, they left Berlin like one million years ago and haven't heard from them. I can only hope they are happily lost in the mountains somewhere in Germany and that it's a good sign they are being quiet...

Anders turned one year old on September 23rd and we spent the day hanging loose as a goose. No pressure, a little shopping, a little sleeping, a little birthday pie and video of pie. When Daniel gets home we'll get him to smallify the video so I can post it. Blogger has fascist size restrictions. Why can't the Blogger program accept a post and adjust the size accordingly? It makes no sense.

There have been inquiries about whether my bike is up and running. Here's the scoop. I removed the tire and took it in for a new tube with no problem, and in fact saved myself twenty euro by just bringing the tire in on its own. Unfortunately, in the process of removing the tire I screwed up the back fender which led to it falling off at two in the morning when Kim Barlow and I were coming back from seeing my pals the Dirty Projectors at Festsaal Kreuzberg. They were amazing (it's kind of gross how consistently good they are even when I know they are sick or suffering from strained throats...) Merrill Garbus aka tUnE-YaRdS, made for a great double bill as she was equally impressive. I hate describing music but tribal ukelele vocal freakout are words that come to mind, her performance style is o.t.t. and riveting to watch so see her if you can and judge for yourself. She certainly had the Berlin audience in the palm of her hand. I spoke with Angel of D.P.'s before the show and was hoping to hang a bit with them afterwards but instead decided to accompany Kim Barlow back to Madame Claude's where she went to see Eugene Chadbourne play. As it turns out, somebody locked their bike to hers so she left it behind but fortunately was free by the time we arrived. It was after all this that my fender fell off as we were cycling along the canal. Oh! The other thing that happened in the bike saga was the locking bolt for the left side crank arm snapped and I had to ride around for a few days keeping the crank arm on the crank with my foot in a stiffly awkward pedaling position in order to keep it from falling off. I have since replaced the bolt but I'm starting to think the universe is telling me something...also, K.B. and I saw a fox cross the street under a streetlamp to great affect...really, we were affected...

Yesterday, Veda, Anders and I spent the afternoon cycling about the Tiergarten bathed in the most exceptional light of day, shaded woods and crisp autumn breeze. Japanese tourists took photos of Anders and I in front of the Siegessaule monument, and as we cycled it seemed every turn revealed some amazing architecture, interesting shop, park or playground. We ended the day with a last dinner with Michelle before she flew to Basel. She came bearing gifts of wooden car and balloon for Anders who liked them very much. (For those who don't know her, you are missing out cuz Michelle is the bomb.)









Also also, Today is our nine year wedding anniversary. How inconvenient to be right after Anders' birthday, overshadowing as it is but Veda was kind enough to remind me and my response was that my preference is celebrating every ten years...she is so forgiving.

The brief respite we're having between guests is great but I can honestly say we miss all our guests and soon Rosanna will arrive to fill the space, then off to Denmark for a visit to the North Sea. Yay!

Still in wonderment, ich liebe Berlin!

Saddest day evah...

Michelle, Loree, Anders and I met Veda at the fancy ice cream place on Falckensteinstrasse in East Kreuzberg today. We decided to trek out to Treptowerpark so's they could see the awesome Soviet memorial which was still awesome but while there I started messing around driving the little shopper up and down the steps and blew out the back tire. Scheisse! No, it really distressed me for real because it was late in the afternoon and everything closes early on Saturday and open not at all on Sunday, which means I'm bound to the tram or walking. We walked all the way back to Schlessischestrasse and on the way the tube came out of the tire and wrapped itself around the back gears which meant I had to carry the bike. Uh. Eventually I cut the tube out with my keys so I didn't have to carry it anymore, but sure enough every fahrrad station was closed and I had to take the tram home while Veda cycled. Uh. Then, the ticket machine at the u-bahn wouldn't accept my five euro bill and I was forced to buy beer in order to change it. (Actually, thinking back, that was actually a positive experience). If it wasn't for Anders and I having a bath together I would still be in a miserable mood. Now we've been drinking wine and eating tasty taste so I guess waiting until Monday will be o.k....

Just before the tire blew...



After the tire blew...

Saoirse in Berlin

I miss Saoirse...

I Forgot...

We had a rad piknik in Volkspark not far from Mauerpark with Randy, Charlie, Loree, Michelle, Veda, Anders and I. It has an incredible view of Mitte and Prenzlauerberg. We are all quite drunk here and Loree is showing us pictures of the event but f, we don't have a proper cable to connect s up...uh....

Chestnuts!

The Gatzaenkers are gone now but certainly not forgotten. I miss them already. Randy and I spent our last day together biking around the city, KaDeWe, currywurst, Birkenstocks (ha ha), Rock Steady records (I bought INXS-The Swing). I realized in our bike ride that I haven't really had the opportunity to explore the west too much but when we went to Rock Steady we saw a lot of very interesting looking architecture and shops, it made me happy we're still here for a while. Later we met up with Veda, Anita and the kids at a curry place on Kastanienallee in Mitte across from the Gatzaenkers flat. Chestnuts!

Herr Fuchs! I forgot all about Herr Fuchs. In the west and following soon thereafter east germany there was a television show called Das Sandmannchen featuring little sandman and a supporting cast of characters like Herr Fuchs and Frau Elster. The end result is us showing up at the restaurant and Veda has bought a puppet of Herr Fuchs. Weirdest is that this is the second Herr Fuchs puppet she has purchased. How many Vancouverites can say that? Well, speak up!

Empty the flat, fill the flat

Saoirse is now back in the land of her birth. I don't know how much this trip will mean to any of us in the end but I realized when we were on the bus to Tegel airport that I'm starting to think of Kreuzberg as my hood.

Some facts,

Kreuzberg, meaning cross hill, (named for nearby Viktoriapark and the 1821 monument commemorating the Napoleonic wars) is primarily Turkish and other immigrants. The area was originally poorer, but in the SW 61 where we live it seems more renovated, with nearby Bergmannstrasse supplying the area with a variety of restaurants and shops that I'm told ten years ago didn't really exist. The area we often hang out in is the less developed SO 36, (south west 61 and south ost 36 being the original postal code areas) which is where Veda previously stayed when she came to Berlin, so she is more familiar with that area.

Also of note, Hans Christian Strobele, the only Green Party member of the Bundestag (or Reichstag as everyone else calls it) represents Kreuzberg. His crazy, hand drawn cartoon election posters are all over the neighbourhood for the upcoming election. In them he is pictured as a flag bearing pied piper leading people through the streets with rainbows and so far he has been re-elected twice so it must be working for him.

Last night Kim Barlow did child minding duties so Loree and Michelle could take Veda and I out for birthdays dinner. There is a good Argentine place just up the street where we went with Daniel and Pigi but it was unexpectedly closed so Veda suggested this Italian place on Kreuzbergstrasse called Osteria that we walk by all the time. It was the right choice. The homemade pasta with truffles was amazing and we could have eaten that all night. I thought the rabbit in tomato sauce was really good but the others thought it was overcooked, as well the wild boar also seemed overcooked and a little on the salty side but I still ate it because that's just the kind of guy I am, I don't like to waste food. For dessert there was flan and blueberries with vanilla ice cream and of course lots of wine and prosecco, and grappa, and grappa, and grappa. We had a great time and Veda looked amazing in this new dress she bought from this great shop, (also on Kreuzbergstrasse) called Blutgeschwister which roughly translates to blood sister. Afterwards, we walked home and drank some more with Kim Barlow who ended up staying over on the couch.

Praise be to Loree, Michelle and Kim for a great night, and we would've gotten away with it if it weren't for that medding Anders................................Anders......

Loree & Michelle

Yesterday Saoirse and I went on a trek to see if she could barter on this dress she wanted which was tres expensive. I waited outside the fancypants shop near Hackescher Markt with the bikes while she worked her magic. She was inside quite a while and I thought she wouldn't do it but eventually, success! Oh happy day! Dress in hand we made our way to this record store on Ohlauerstrasse where I picked up Fishbone-Truth & Soul on vinyl and then stopped at a fleamarkt on Bergmannstrasse where I bought a Hindemith record and Human League-Dare, each for three euro. Saoirse went on ahead and when I arrived home Loree and Michelle had arrived in Berlin! They're here in front of my face right now as I write. Last night we had dinner and drinks, K.B. came over and we all sat around with candles aflame talking about family scheisse, mine, Loree's, Michelle's. Fun, fun, fun we're all damaged goods-whoo hoo! Today will probably be another flea markt day, wish us luck...

Rain, man...

It's pouring rain today and in Daniel and Pigi's flat they have three children and four adults in total and in our flat we have five adults and one child. It's intense man. I'll probably just blog all day...

Oh, hey, Kim Barlow is in town hanging out and writing music with her friend Matthias. She came over and we had dinner, played scrabble and drank a lot of wine. Eventually, Veda went to bed and Saoirse, Kim and I ventured out on our bikes into the Berlin night where they keep falafel and schwarma waiting for drunkards like us. We stopped, ate, then continued on towards Kim's place on or near Maybachstrasse just off the canal. I've decided to stop referencing the map all the time but I told Kim I knew how to get there, so they followed me until we had been travelling such a loooooong time that Kim was concerned we had overshot her flat. Which we had. By a lot. We had basically biked to Treptowerpark which is approximately twenty blocks past our destination which I should note is pretty easy to do when you're always following a map that makes everything seem far away and also, the street names change all the time as you travel along them so it is easy to suddenly be confused. However, we eventually made our way back to her flat, drank more wine and watched youtube videos of Rick Astley, cute hedgehogs and guitar gods with their cock wankery solos overdubbed with incredibly poor tuneless twanging, ala Lister of Red Dwarf fame. Eventually the wine was gone and so were we. It only took fifteen minutes or so to make it back home.

Ha ha ha...

Best day ever?

Could it be? Can any day overshadow a previous day? Judge for yourselves...

Randy and I went on a cold war walking tour with Insider Berlin Tours. This is the second walking tour I've been on now and I can tell you it is well worth the 10 euros if you have any interest in spending four hours wandering around and learning about history and geography. Mike of Berlin (by way of New Zealand) was our tour guide. He filled us in on his credentials up front, masters in european history, married a former DDR woman who's family were hardcore party people (politically not like, wooooo paaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrtttttttttyyyyyyyyyy!) who to this day won't open their stasi files because they don't want to tarnish their memories of the DDR. Anywho, he took us to the stasi museum which contained spy apparatus straight out of a James Bond film. As he was fond of saying, "You can't make this stuff up it is so ridiculous." Trabants with spy cams in the back for being followed, cameras in water cans at graveyards (even in death there is no escape from the stasi). Drugging drinks and taking incriminating photos for blackmail at a later date. At one point there was over 100, 000 people on the stasi payroll not including informers, and they are still discovering defunct wiretaps pressed up against the inside of wallpaper in east Berlin flats. In my time here it's not hard to become interested in the effects on the German psyche of so many years of totalitarian control, first with the nazis and then the communists. I mean, think about it, how does a society become liberated and then fall prey immediately to liberty crackdown before you even have time to breathe a sigh of relief...

Needless to say, we needed a drink after the tour to help wash down the countless numbers thrown at us over the four hour period. We stopped by the Gatzaenkers and picked up the kids, grabbed some beers and went to the playground where I played with Emery and chatted with German mums. On the way home I grabbed some pizzas and U-Bahned my way home (and I bought an Allez Allez record for five euro.)

Some of you might be asking, where is your bike in all of this, and I'll tell you, it was locked up at zoo station where I ventured later in the evening on bus to pick up. On the ride home I passed many very young, very well dressed prostitutes. I mean they looked pro, and they certainly were not impressed by me on my "little shopper" as our host Daniel referred to it.

Anyway, I'm tired so until next time there is always a next time...

Ok, so now it's the next morning and I'm sober and upon reading last nights blog Veda joked that people could misconstrue "little shopper" with "last turkey in the shop." Let me be clear that "little shopper" is my bike and generally one sees older ladies use these bikes to pop down the road for groceries...and me as well.

Secondly, I want to make it clear the observation that both the third reich and the ddr were similiar totalitarian states would be much enlightened if I lived through either. I'm sure I would notice a very clear difference between the progression of persecution each regime had, but it seems the end results for questioning authority were the fairly extreme punishments of prison, torture or death. Anita basically said that during either I'd be the first up against the wall because I have difficulty censoring myself. Whatever man.

xo j

Was ist das?

We've been active in our existence here in the land of currywurst...

Gatzaenkers visiting our flat, kinder behaving as pigeons in a park. It was cute and scary.


Anders has four teeth, two are on display here.


Part of the quite impressive and sprawling soviet memorial in Treptowerpark. In response to the question of the estimated cost of this DDR era memorial our Berlin by way of New Zealand cold war tour guide Mike said "I'm not sure, that's a good question." He then went on to explain how after blowing up most of Hitler's favourite hangouts in Berlin the soviets then carted off all the marble, brick and stone and recycled most of it into various city projects and memorials, including this one.


Another part of the memorial. According to Mike, this statue of a red army soldier with a child in his arms holding a sword and crushing a swastika underfoot is based on a real soldier who, during the taking of Berlin in 1945, discovered a child crying in the arms of her dead mother in the smoldering Berlin rubble. He went on to be the symbol of the red army liberators. He's really big. That's Randy and Emery in the doorway entrance, they are small. Yeah.


Myself enjoying the bountiful fruits of Mauerpark in Prenslauerberg. I believe that is the universal sounds of Abba being cheered in the background.


Saoirse took this photo of the side of a non descript building on a non descript side street in Kreuzberg that has a descriptive mural on it.


This is a dramatic photo of the memorial to the dead jews of recent history. There is a longer name for it but it escapes me. Underneath the memorial is an information centre that walks you through a timeline of the escalating persecution of jews, sinti and roma during the third reich. It is informative and moving with many personal histories donated by relatives of those who did and didn't survive the war. Nobody was smiling and it was very solemn as you can imagine and there was at least one letter from a child to his father just before he and his mother were taken to Auschwitz that moved me to tears...


Saoirse at Kottbusserdamm U-Bahn stop. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this face, one day a wind will blow and it will stick like that.


So, there is so much we've done recently, from Randy and I going on a cold war walking tour, to the soviet memorial in Treptowerpark to the nighttime shenanigans of K.B., but both Emery and Anders are setting each other off as screeching baby eagles and we need to take them out for a walk before a double infanticide occurs. (I am joking about the murder of children BUT I AM NOT JOKING about how bad the screeching is, you feel t.v. snow settling over your psyche and you want to snap like a turtle.)

Until later...

Lost! & Found.

Yesterday Saoirse and I decided to go to the Hamburgerbanhoff Museum on Invalidenstrasse to check out their collection. I was interested to see what Cy Twombly they had as I had read a really good New Yorker piece (no surprise for Nick and Julia) about him last year and was excited to see something in person. Unfortunately, instead of the eight euro entrance fee I was expecting, the woman at the booth tried to charge us eighteeen euro which was basically my budget for the day. It turns out she didn't believe Saoirse was sixteen and eligible for free entrance and as well misunderstood our desire to see the collection and not the temporary show. So, eager to avoid yet another unwanted purchase (cursed turkey!) I said no thank you, accepted her disgusted expression and took our money back.

We again set out on our bikes, not really paying attention to where we were going but now that we're biking regularly, I'm starting to understand that Berlin is a small city that is super easy to navigate.

Items of note about Berlin.

1. This city often smells of sulphur or something rotting. Though not always at the same time. Veda told me that Patsy first commented on this when she was here, and though I am not known for the most advanced olfactory senses I would have to agree.

2. Biking in Berlin opens this city like November 9th, 1989. I realize it may be presumptuous but I don't think you can really know Berlin if you don't own a bike.

3. Do your shopping on Saturday as on Sunday it is really difficult to find anything open, including grocery stores. This is particularly important if one is vegan and want a change of pace from falafel.

So after some time of haphazardly biking along we ended up in Prenzlauerberg. Now, I have described this area of Berlin in the past as being like Surrey but clearly there is a wide variety of sights and sounds within each area and where we were was more like North Burnaby, which is of interest because that's essentially where the Gatzaenkers live back home and it is by chance where they live in Berlin. Spooky...

While in Prenzlauerberg we came upon a massive flea market held in Mauerpark on Eberswalderstrasse. When I say massive I'm not kidding, there would be no way we could have seriously seen all the booths though we did manage to find beer. I was annoyed at Saoirse because there was a ton of vinyl being sold that I could have spent all day perusing but she was worried we would lose one another. Although her concern was justified I still called her a scheissehund...what else could I do?

The highlight of the flea market was arguably the open air karaoke fest we stumbled upon where there were probably a thousand people clapping along with germans singing Bonjovi and Abba, us too, it was rad. I've not seen so many happy people during the daytime since we've been here, hold on, maybe the german nation are a nation of bats...happiest at night...

Soon however we left as it was getting late and we didn't know exactly where we were yet, but soon enough familiarity was in sight and we were home to 5 Katzbachstrasse, Kreuzberg, Berlin, Deutschland. Ich liebe Berlin mein freunden. Ich liebe Berlin.

Dream

I knew it would happen eventually.

2 nights ago I had a dream in which I was standing on a sheet of ice in the north. Nearby there were elephants crossing the ice when the largest of the elephants fell through into the ocean. In my dream this elephant couldn't swim but maybe all elephants can't swim, in dreams or in reality. I guess I never really thought about it much. It made many attempts to crawl back on to the ice sheet but due to its weight kept cracking the ice and falling back into the water. The elephant did not drown. Eventually the ice stopped cracking and was thick enough to support its weight and it continued on its way. At this point in the dream Veda had appeared beside me, or perhaps she was always there and I just didn't notice her. Also at this point, the ice we were standing on developed a crack due to the struggle of the elephant and unable to avoid it, we fell into the ocean.

After the initial shock of the fall I wasn't concerned for our safety despite being in icy ocean waters. We started to swim back to the ice sheet when I realized Veda's toiletries bag was floating nearby. For some reason it seemed important not to lose this bag but when I plucked it from the water's surface all the contents emptied out and slowly sank into the depths. Before it was too late I managed to collect most of the items from the bag and with one arm continued to swim in the direction of the ice sheet where Veda was waiting. Unfortunately, before I could avoid it a wave crested against me and I couldn't hold on to the toiletries and swim at the same time.

I watched as each item sank out of sight.

Huh.

Random moments

Anders and I outside the Berlin MOMA, my favourite piece being the stairs leading to the top floor.

Emery hanging loose like a goose. His laugh is something to witness...

Inside the previously mentioned church with massive imposing gold Jesus.

Charlie in the fountain.

Charlie before the fountain...

Today, Yesterday, The Day Before...

I'll say right off that today was a good day. Yesterday was not a good day. The day before was a good day...

The day before yesterday was the day Randy and I went to the big record fair at the Velodrom on Landsbergeralle in Prenzlauerberg, an area I had never been to previously and, due to work on the tracks, took over an hour to get to. This was annoying as it seems you can get most anywhere in Berlin on transit in 30 minutes or under if you have your shit together and have no children with you as we did. The area looked kind of like Surrey and later when I saw that Billy Talent are playing at the same place the record fair is held I felt my superficial judgement held true. When we arrived there were a lot of records but not too much I was interested in. It's amazing how you can spend hours flipping through records until your fingers are encrusted with filth and still not find anything that makes your mouth drop open. I almost bought Supergrass-I Should Coco, an album that I didn't even know came out on vinyl but I walked away and while I was deciding they packed up and left. Just like gypsies, or ghosts, or gypsy ghosts. Que sera sera. I ended up with The Smiths-Strangeways, Here We Come on grey blue vinyl and The Constantines-Shine A Light because it's out of print and it rocks, but what made my jaw drop was the difficult to find and hard to acquire first LiliPUT album which I now possess. Nothing was really cheap except the records Randy got, which impressed me because well, he's an impressive dude who knows what he likes. By the time we left and made it home it was late in the afternoon and I was hungry but when I arrived home Veda had picked me up a falafel...and, well, that's why I love her.

Ugh, yesterday. I'm not sure what makes a day go wrong but for me it was a bad sleep, gum on my pants and buying really expensive turkey by accident. First the bad sleep, Anders is teething like crazy and has four teeth now all within a two week period so he has been up a lot during the night which in turn means Veda and I are somewhat underslept. Under this influence I went grocery shopping while Veda was at her piano studio and Saoirse watched Anders, but I got flustered at the meat shop due to a line up behind me and my Germglish fell apart, resulting in the purchase of two small turkey breasts for 10 euro. That is expensive here. We just bought a similiar amount of chicken for 1 euro 50 last week so I was annoyed with myself for not being prepared enough. Anyone who knows me at all knows I hate grocery shopping, I get too distracted and what should take 10 minutes takes 2 hours and the truth is I just don't get excited about food in the same way Veda or Doug or Rashid or Loree do. When Veda goes away and I am home alone I eat nachos or pizza and that is pretty much it. On tour I tend towards hotdogs as Nick and Julia have witnessed on more than one occasion.

K.I.S.S. is my motto.

Due to this grocery fiasco Saoirse and I missed out on the Jewseum that Veda and the Gatzaenkers were meeting us at and when we finally made it out into the day I sat on some gum and I finally said out loud that this day was a shitty day.

But then today we went to the zoo! Well, not all of us. Anita and Emery stayed home to chill a bit and Saoirse thinks zoos are wrong on a philosophical level but Randy, Charlie, Veda, Anders and I think zoos are rad. We saw hippos cavorting underwater, rhinoceros in the dusty dust looking happy to have outlived the dinosaurs, and monkeys, monkeys and more monkeys (seriously, there were a lot of monkeys.) We were there during feeding time and the lions were roaring and munching on rabbits, actually all the big cats, jaguars, tigers, etc. were munching on rabbits. They were dead already but Veda thinks it would be better if they were alive so the big cats can at least pretend to hunt. The monkeys ate veggies and the mongoose ate mice and fish. Perhaps the coolest part next to the penguins swimming underwater (it's outdoors but if you duck down to Anders level you can see below the surface) was the night mammals. You have to go downstairs and there are lighted dots that show the way to the aardvark, some odd jumping rabbit mice things whose name I've forgotten, and bats (of course). There was a sign saying we had to be extra quiet but Anders was squealing a lot so I took him outside and didn't get to see everything down there but that's just the way it goes, you want to see the night mammals but you don't always get to.

(Note: most, if not all of these blogs are written under the influence of alcohol. What can I do, it's relatively inexpensive and I have no job.)

After the zoo we met Saoirse outside the gates where she was waiting after a very bad day where she couldn't find the photo museum, was chastised by the politzei for sitting down on a curb and couldn't find a cool refreshing beverage to ease her pain. In an attempt to make things better we went for ice cream on Kurfurstendamm, where we witnessed the grossest ice cream eating ever by Charlie Wilfrid Gatley. Man, that kid likes his ice cream, and Ved's and Randy's and anybody else who will give up the i.c. Nearby was a fountain that foreigners were letting their kids walk around in so I suggested as a cleaning measure that we should go splash around in the fountain. Soon Anders and I were in as well and it was super fun (it was really hot today, 29 or 30 degrees) and refreshing. One of the statues in the fountain was of a little naked boy and although I wanted to join Charlie and Anders in their frolicsome nudity I spared the other parents my "last turkey in the shop" moment.

Eventually the Gatleys had to leave and we went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church which is bombed out and left that way. Inside they were having a service and the bright blue stained glass and MASSIVE GOLD CHRIST FIGURE were really impressive but not impressive enough to Anders who seems to turn into a baby eagle when we stop anywhere, ignore him or are in the dark so we left and took the U-Bahn home. It was time to go anyway...