I can’t tell you how in love I am with Berlin. I already told you a bit about our first encounter with the city here. It’s unbelievable how you keep discovering treasures at every corner.
Art seems to have swallowed the city completely, so much even the trash cans are arty and fun.
And what do you say about this leopard print ?
That’s an U-Bahn (metro) seat !
The ‘F’ cult
Agnostic when it comes to the orthodox religions, I follow my own personal cult of ‘F’s, as Sara brightly put it in her recent post.
I venerate Family, Food, Farniente and, to a lesser extent… Fashion. I do consider the latter to be a genuine expression of art. It’s not just labels and shallow statements of status.
My institute’s neighbourhood, Scheunenviertel, is quite the ‘bohemian chic’ zone and houses lots of local designers’ shops.
Baerck is a very interesting venue, proposing artists from Berlin as well as other Nordic fellows.
I didn’t give into temptation, though. It’s not like I need any more clothes anyway.
So to counterbalance the empty bags, we filled our bellies!
It’s all maths, really.
We went for lunch at Clärchens Ballhouse.
Both a dance hall and a restaurant, the place is quite an institution, dating back to 1913.
It has a colorful history too. Only interrupted by two world wars, the dancing was otherwise never-ending, from the Waltz sounds of the dwindling Kayser empire to current Elektroschlagerpop. This place was the dancing scene of crazy, cheerful, dark and turbulent times throughout the history of Germany.
It has an amazing terrace, where you can have great simple food under the shelter of ancient trees.
The venue offers salsa, tango, swing & chacha, depending on the day of the week.
The mirror room is like a time capsule, with its chipped walls and fractured mirrors. Legend has it, the tables of the dance hall used to have telephones, so that the Gents could call up the ladies and ask them to dance.
On our way back home, we ran into this wonderful park called Wünsch-Garten = Garden of wishes.
Berlin has endless magical spots discharging positive energy.
Given what happened to us later, I’m guessing we must have forgotten to throw a coin for the wish somewhere…
‘F’ as in “FU.K, look what just happened”
Then, after having a couple of drinks with one Austrian and two German friends, the mess happened.
We were in the kitchen and we heard the loud sounds of shattering glass…
We went to the living room and realized that a storm had suddenly arisen and the violent wind had made the open windows crush.
Freck.
