Berlin by Bike
After waiting [im]patiently for weeks, I finally got my bike from Michi, a friend from my church small group who runs a bike workshop/after-school youth program for Turkish boys (their motto is "Statt Fahrrad klauen, Fahrrad bauen!"--instead of stealing bikes, building bikes). I am now the proud owner of my first real bike ever: Dexy, a sturdy seven-gear Shimano blue-grey lady's bike with manly wheels. Michi outfitted him with a white basket in the back and a small red one in front, and since I got him last Monday I've been riding Dexy all over town: from my apartment to the Staatsbibliothek at Potsdamer Platz, to my internship at the Berlinische Galerie, to Friedrichsstrasse/Unter den Linden...from my place to all those central spots it takes about fifteen minutes or a little more, if you're lazy and out of shape like me.I just read a statistic about the size of Berlin--its area is 891 square kilometers/556 sq miles which means it's nine times the size of Paris and twenty-four times the size of Manhattan. No wonder everyone here has a Fahrrad. It comes the ubiquitous Berlin look: a rugged and worn bike with at least one basket, decked out with lights and the works (otherwise the Polizei can give you a ticket), a zip-up hoody, Puma or Asics sneakers, plus the must-have item--namely a vinyl Freitag or IchIchIch bag slung across one's body. I've deeply considered in investing in one of these key Berliner accessories, but am I seriously going to relinquish my aversion to vinyl and drop 90+ euros on this quintessentially eurotrash fashion statement that I frankly can't (and don't want to) pull off? The answer: nein.
Having spent so much time underground in the U-Bahns, I'd nearly forgotten what streets with actual cars looked like. Okay well not really, but in any case being on a bike really gives you a better idea of how the city is laid out. Plus it's just much nicer to get a workout AND see the city at the same time. Even for a person born without a sense of direction like myself, it's not that hard to navigate or negotiate the streetes here since practically every major thoroughfare has a bike lane. The auto drivers are generally pretty nice considering how many times I've screwed up with "jayriding" or going on the wrong side of the road. I don't leave my house without my handy ADAC TaschenAtlas though.
Yesterday I went on Dan's bike tour through the hotspots of the Mitte district, and it was cool to tag along and ride from Hackesher Markt to the New Synagogue, along the River Spree to the Reichstag, then through Tiergarten to see the Victory Column, past Schloss Bellevue and then along the Strasse des 17. Juni through the Brandenburger Tor. The stretch through Tiergarten especially was magical--it was gray, cloudy, drizzly, but somehow the rain through the greenery made it all seem very pensive and moody. I could totally imagine Prussian generals galloping through the woods here for their fox hunts, or ladies twirling their parasols in barouches.
Unfortunately the weather was so disgusting that I had to quit when we got to Pariser Platz because a) I wanted to cry it was so miserable; b) I'd planned on going to the Max Liebermann Haus to see the exhibtion on Paul Cassirer anyway. It was an interesting exhibition--Cassirer was one of the first major German collectors to collect the French Impressionists, was close friend and champion of Realist Max Liebermann, early proponent of Expressionsim and founder of a publishing house with his cousin Bruno which published progressive poets and thinkers like Else Lasker-Schüler. You can actually see the Max Liebermann house in this painting by Oskar Kokokscha. It's the one directly to the right of the Brandenburg Gate.
Then I hauled my wet and shivering ass home (I schlepped Dexy to the U-Bahn and took him four stops. What, don't hate). I spent a good half hour in the shower, felt 200% better, then got dressed and went to Sandra's apartment to drink lots of Rioja with her and Amy, and tripped screaming through the rain in our heels to the Maxim Gorki Theater to see Die Dreigroschenoper. It was...good in some respects (Polly was fantastic, Macheath was good too) but some other parts really really bothered me, like how the homoerotic undertone between Tiger Brown and Mackie became THE central point of the play. Oh well, the music was great and we spent the rest of the evening stumbling around Sandra's apartment to her three different versions of "Mack the Knife".
posted by joyce @ 3:05 PM
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