Ausgang Links

Links is German for “left,” as in “Exit left” (Ausgang links). Links and Rechts (right) have been drilled into my memory thanks to the BVG. So has Zug nach Krumme Lanke (direction: Krumme Lanke, Einsteignen Bitte (Please board), Übergang für U9 (connection to U9), and the (until recently) mysterious Zurückbleiben Bitte. This last phrase I couldn’t spell, and I couldn’t even repeat it since I wasn’t sure what was being said. Maybe you’ve guessed based on the context that it means “Please stand back.” My friend Jens finally clued me in a few weeks ago, though I only learned to spell it when I saw this sign in the subway yesterday.


(Now if I only knew what Bloss Nicht meant)

So ausgang links… tomorrow we exit Berlin for a last hurrah trip to Switzerland and Italy. We fly back on the 13th, which should give us just enough time to pack, say goodbye and get ready to fly home to the States on the 15th.

Ausgang links… exit page left. I’ll be off of the internet for most of our trip and probably won’t be able to post much, if at all. If I’m good I’ll write up a few by hand and post them later – still lots of things I haven’t gotten around to recording. Anyway, in the meantime, everyone ausgang to these links:

East, East and Away – Especially if you are sick of narcissistic rambles about beer and public transit and whatever other garbage I’ve offloaded from my brain to this page, my friend Melissa’s blog about her summer working as a consultant for Acumen, which is helping create sustainable investments in public service infrastructure (or something like that) in Kenya is just the thing. Smart, funny, and a whole hell of a lot more socially conscious than my blog. Restores ones faith and suggests we’re not all Ugly Americans out here. Plus she has video! Last post was about going on safari.

Lavender Blue – My mom’s blog. A little neglected lately, as my folks have been hosting a revolving series of guest all month. Check here for adventures in Garage Sailing (er, sale-ing).

The Sure Thing - A literary blog from my buddy Alexis, emerging screenwriter and drinker of red wine. Haven't seen Alexis since last summer, and seems like his blog has been fallow for a while. Writer's block? Solidarity with striking screenwriters? Maybe he's moved on and forgot to tell me...

Stenner Life Happenings - Blog belonging to my high school friend Jonathan. See the Stenner family blossom and grow. Now moving to North Carolina?! Shit I better give him a call.

Musubi Man - Stories from our friend Elena and her son Skylar during their stint in Japan. Anything with monkeys in it is comic gold in my book.

And don't miss McCovey Chronicles, the only good thing about this year's San Francisco Giants.

You can look in on my fantasy league team here… sadly fading in the standings as it is tough to get much news about American baseball out here. You mean to tell me Manny is being Manny in Los Angeles now?! If you promise to change my starting pitchers while I’m on vacation I’ll tell you my password.

Babel

“Bessyhoizzmahywummin.” If you can tell me what that means, you win a prize. Click here to redeem it. Charlottenberg is not the center of Berlin nightlife that it once was. “Kreuzberg über alles,” my friend Jesse told me when I said we were living out here. Yes, if you want to go out it usually means going East. But when we saw the posters announcing Porgy and Bess opening in July at the Deutsche Oper, we jumped at the chance to sample some high culture right in our own backyard. The biggest draw besides location was that the opera would be performed in the original English Ira Gershwin penned back in 1935.

The Deutsche Oper has taken a back seat to the Staats Oper since Reunification, with the latter housed in a neoclassical palace built in the 18th century on Unter dem Linden, while the former still holds court in the same Bauhaus modernist building it has occupied since it went up in 1961 in Charlottenberg-Wilmersdorf. We thought we would be especially “Berliner” and make dinner reservations in nearby Savigny Platz for after the opera, which at a running time of three hours would not be letting out until after 11.


(Deutches Oper, view from the stage)

Our “date” was set to begin at 7:30 in front of the lobby. With Julie otherwise occupied with her other husband (AKA – the Book Manuscript), I spent the afternoon crossing another “must” off of my To Do list at the Pergamon Museum. In addition to all those Porgy and Bess posters around town we’ve been seeing a lot of the advertisement for the current temporary exhibit on display there – Babylon: Myth and Truth. If you sense a little foreshadowing here, you win another prize. Click here to claim it.

The Pergamon is home to some really great artifacts from Ancient Babylon like the enormous Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate**, and the current exhibit expands on that theme with two floors, one dedicated to “truth” – Babylonian artifacts like stiles, a plinth inscribed with Hammurabi’s Code, and ceramic burial urns, and one dedicated to “myth” – tracing the story of Babylon through Western Art into the 21st century. Its highlights include a Lego Auschwitz, a video art display of 64 mouths in a grid all speaking at once (in different languages), and a display of NY Post front pages drawing parallels between Saddam Hussein and the fall of Babylon (which was located in present-day Iraq if you were absent that day in Geography class).


(Pergamon Altar)

This is starting to become more of a digression rather than a foreshadowing, so fast forward to 7:59pm, just before the curtain rises for Porgy and Bess, as presented by the Cape Town Opera Company. I’ll say that again – the Cape Town Opera Company. Here’s where we get to the Babel. If you’ve seen Porgy and Bess before you know that it opens with "Summertime". My ignorant ass did not know this, but I recognized the music right away. Then Clara started singing “Ihhtzuhmmyertaimannnnthulfdgjhjk…” Take a George Gershwin tune, make it an Ira Gershwin opera tune, combine it with the acoustics and sound system of a faded concert hall, multiply by the distance our third balcony seats were from the stage, and add a heavy dose of South African accent trying to mimic a Southern drawl and you get the nonsense word above. I quickly went from the smug American who had breezed by the German program and libretto to vainly trying to decipher the overtitles projected above the stage. By the end of the first act I found a rhythm that provided about 50% comprehension, but even now I am not quite sure what happened to Clara and Jake in the hurricane, or if it really was a hurricane, or how Porgy became a cripple, or who got Bess started on the Happy Dust. I still enjoyed the show – the music was great, most of the performers had excellent voices (even if they were impossible to understand), and the staging was impressive. Honestly, the sheer fun of dressing up and rubbing elbows with well-heeled Berliners was worth the price of admission.

Our Babel-evening didn’t end when the cast made its second curtain-call. We walked to Savignyplatz and Restaurant Florian – much like the Deutsches Oper, a bit of a relic from the mod 60s of West Berlin, but still a place to see and be seen. Unfortunately, I had left my German-English dictionary behind in an attempt to look more like a native. Florian features a different menu each week, with selections presented on one hand-written page. German is hard enough to read when it is typed. Scrawled in a fancy cursive script it is nearly cryptic. We thought we recognized some words like Hänhchen (chicken), Schwein (pork) and entre cote (entre cote), but most dishes were an enigma. We decided on the Garnelen Marinieren to start, a Lammhaxe (I hoped lamb shank) for me and the Kalbstafelspitz (Kalb = calf = veal, right?) for Julie. I couldn’t swear to any of the above spellings, but I can say that the food, when it came, was delicious. Our appetizer turned out to be marinated shrimp served over a spicy tomato salsa and avocado wedges. Julie had the veal something-or-other: cutlets in a light spinach cream sauce. I had a leg of lamb, presented in a puttanseca dressing of capers and olives. We finished up at the fashionable hour of about one in the morning and hopped in a cab for home. “En di ecke der Wiesbadener Strasse und Sudwest Korso,” I knew to tell the driver. Thank goodness he didn’t ask me my preferred route, and thank goodness the German word for here is “hier,” which is where he stopped and bid us a good night.

** Ishtar Gate

Reinheistgebot: Brauerei Messhofen, Part 2

Hopefully by now everyone has committed the vocabulary list from part one to memory. My experience at the Messhofen Brauerei has had a few weeks to ferment, meaning that any imperfections have hopefully blown off, the alcohol content (alkohol gehalt) has risen, and this blog entry is finely carbonated and ready to drink.

The trip to Messhofen had been in the works for weeks – maybe even months. The Schneiders, Alex’s good friends, are regulars there, and it is thanks to them that we were able to not only tipple the heavenly brew, but to enter the inner sanctum and see (and smell) the Good Works in action.

Doors open for business at five o’clock sharp, but Clemens (the Braumeister) told us to show up around 4:30 for a personal guided tour. We constructed our day around this itinerary, with a wonderful visit to Ulm and its proudest edifice, the Münster, to get us in the mood both spiritually (it is a church) and physically (142 meters, 768 steps up and 768 down – no elevator). No doubt I would have been packing a fierce thirst even without the pilgrimage, but I am sure it helped to sharpen it.


(View of the Münster from the Danube)


(view from step 507)

True to his word, Clemens welcomed us at 4:30 on the nose and ushered us inside. Maybe Alex called ahead and asked him to wear the Lederhosen, maybe he figured he would fulfill our bigoted touristy preconceptions, or maybe he really does wear them for work regularly. The brewery has been the family business since 1841. Clemens took over for his father, who took over for his father before him, and so on back into the 19th century. Clemens Jr. was milling about, sporting the same ruddy cheeks, close cropped spiky haircut and yes, Lederhosen. He is probably only seven or eight right now, but it looks like the family business will be in good hands for another generation when Clemens decides to hang it up.


(Maximillian third from left - not really Clemens Jr.)

Through the front door was a little hallway with a small glass case displaying merchandise – t-shirts, mugs, pennants and flags, all emblazoned with the family coat-of-arms. To the left was the kitchen and a stairway leading to the family quarters above. Straight ahead was the main event: The Brew Room.

Much like its proprietor, Messhoffen Brauerei is modest. Just two kinds of beer, a Hefe-Weiss and a Märzen (a dark or dunkel concoction). Brewing takes place twice a week, with the entire process from germination to mashing to wort confined to one room. This is no coincidence, as Clemens prefers to keep things this way – simple and easy to manage. Given that this is literally a one man operation** this is essential.

Since we were visiting on a Friday, and hence a non-brewing day, there wasn’t too much of interest to see in this first room. I did my best to follow along with Clemens's all-German explanations, catching a hopfe here and a stammwürze there. Alex did her best to translate, but when we moved on to the refrigerated rooms where the Weissbier was fermenting, no words were necessary.


(Krausen rhymes with Kroy-sen)

The above picture gives you an idea of the splendor, but it would be better if I could figure out how to imbed the audio of the occasional plop, plop as foam from the Krausen cascaded over the edges of the fermenting tub, hitting the cement floor with a wet splash. Better yet, someone should invent a scratch-and-sniff computer monitor, so I could upload the fragrance of banana that permeated the room. If I had been alone I may well have gone all Augustus Glump and climbed right into the vat.

Instead, the tour moved on to more refrigerated rooms containing kegged beer awaiting shipment to Clemens’s various clients in the surrounding area. The customer base is small but loyal, again, just the way Clemens likes it. You won’t find his wares on the shelves of your local supermarket or liquor store. You can only buy it on the premises (by the bottle, case, growler or keg) or at select restaurants, none further away than Ulm (about 30 km). Keeping things to this scale allows Clemens to ensure the highest quality in his product line. If he ever decides to expand the business I will be sure the Schneiders tell him about my four years running the QC department at Criterion.

Upstairs are an elaborate pair of machines straight out of an episode of I Love Lucy (the one where Lucy and Ethel get jobs working in the chocolate factory), or to be more precise, the opening credits of Laverne and Shirley.


(Rollers equipped with special stabilizers to prevent beer from fizzing when opened... yeah right)

All those rollers, conveyor belts and brushes work together to clean, sterilize and bottle the brew. The picture above is of the fancy new Italian model Clemens invested in a few years ago when the old machine broke down. Faced with the choice of restricting the business to kegs or spending some serious cash, Clemens only had to think of his loyal customers, dutifully dropping off last week’s cases of empties and loading up this week’s fresh batch to know what had to be done.

Just before five the tour ended and we laid claim to a choice beer bench out front in what amounts to the biergarten. Several eager boozers had already lined up and Clemens had a smile and a joke for each of them. My favorites were the fellows at the next table over, decked out in riding leathers, their motorcycles parked in the shade. What an ideal way to end a full day of hard country riding (and hopefully not a way to begin an evening of hard country riding).


(The German beer bench - one of the world's greatest inventions)

All those steps at the Münster had created a mighty hunger to go with our mighty thirst, and Clemens and his wife were only too happy to oblige, serving us plates of Wurstsalat (chopped meat, onions, pickles and cabbage tossed in a vinegar dressing), Leberkäse (neither liver nor cheese – kind of like a giant chunk of grilled spam), Schmaltz Brot (bread with rendered pig fat and bits of bacon spread on it), and Sauer Käse (sour cheese).

The beer came first, of course. Lovely half-liters of sweet sweet nectar, with bubbles glittering in the afternoon sun. I started with a Dunkel, then moved onto the Weiss. A tough call on which recipe was better. Probably the best idea would be to continue researching, preferably every day around dinner time.

The glasses kept refilling and eventually my memories of the evening get as cloudy as the Hefe-Weiss I was drinking. I wasn’t drunk when the Oom-Pah band marched past. I knew no one would believe me so I took a picture.


(Where are the Ledherhosen?! You call yourself an Oom-Pah band?)

I also know that we hiked up to another biergarten next to a monastery, though I’m uncertain if the beer served there was brewed by the monks, or why I decided to take a picture of this bottle of Schnapps.


(What is that ram doing? Maybe that is why I took this picture.)

Or why I agreed to drink the Schnapps inside that bottle.

We went home with a couple of cases,

(Mine was heavier.)

though sadly I didn’t get to have much more than a sip, as I came down with the stomach flu the next day. No, it wasn’t a hangover – unless Julie managed to delay hers until we got home three days later. Something was going around Balzheim.

Since that trip I drink all my beers, from Schniederweisse to Erdinger in the glasses we bought. It isn’t the same. But we have another trip with Alex and Jochen in about a week, and I’m not sure what excites me more: our excursion to the Alps or the fresh case of Messhofen waiting for us at Jochen’s apartment in Neuchatel.

** Footnote reading nerd! Technically, it is a one-man operation on all days except on bottling day, when it becomes a six man operation. If it were a true one-man operation on bottling day it would probably look like something out of that I Love Lucy Episode.

Nobama

A quick glance at the newspaper above will give you the news. Or perhaps you’ve already heard. Yup. Kaiser’s is having a sale this weekend. Almost as exciting is that little blurb about Barack Obama. He bought a Eurail pass this summer, I guess. This week brought him to Berlin. The papers say 200,000 people saw him speak below the Seigessäule in Tiergarten. My count is more like 199,998, since Julie and I were sitting on a platform in Prague at the time of his address. I guess I should have checked with my buddy Matt who is working for Obama before scheduling a trip to the Czech Republic. Alas, our hotel and train tickets were already booked and paid for by the time the “O” man settled on his European itinerary.

So instead of being packed in on Strasse 17 Juni, watching our Next President * hold court (likely having to follow on a video monitor, but still) Julie and I listened to the audiobook of Dreams For My Father between loudspeaker announcements updating us on the late arrival of our train from Prague to Berlin.



We were left to read about the speech in Der Spiegel, and to watch a few measly clips on CNN International after we finally arrived home late Thursday night. German reaction seems to be much the same as what Obama has encountered in the states so far: namely, abundantly enthusiastic. Though, also like in the states, it is unclear if the enthusiasm is for the candidate himself or for the Event with a capital “E” that is an Obama rally. One front page I saw the next day called him Prinzen Amerikaner… and the aforementioned Der Spiegel had a whole magazine about the “Super Star.”



Julie and I moved from Hillary country to Obamaland back in June. At least, all our stuff moved to Obamaland. Not sure if my TV or my grill has registered in Illinois yet. In my unscientific survey of the German populace ** I have learned that Germans are skeptical about “charisma” in their politicians. Whether or not this is a hangover from Hitler or just a handy explanation for the success of Angela Merkel I will leave to the bloggers on Salon and Slate. What I can predict is that come November, Julie and I will continue our trend of voting Democratic in the bluest of the blue states, thus ensuring that we have the smallest impact possible on the results. Maybe Julie should have applied for that job at Oberlin.

* This is an example of my attempt at a reverse-reverse jinx. Having had no doubt that Al Gore would beat Bush in ’00, and after being beyond certain that Kerry would prevail in ’04, only to be blindsided when the results came in, I am resorting to superstition to help carry the day this time around.

** Survey taken the night of July 14th while at dinner with our friend Jens, consisting of Jens and his partner, You Tsai. Margin of error +/- 82 million.

BVG

(BVG Office, just next to Gleisdreiek stop)

I hate waiting for the subway. When we lived in Brooklyn the “F” train became the bane of my existence. Actually my bane was both the “F” and the “V” trains, the latter of which was implemented sometime after 9/11 and added a transfer to my morning commute to the Criterion office. Don’t get me wrong, New York City has the best public transportation system in the US. It runs 24 hours a day, can get you anywhere you want to go for two bucks (even less with monthly passes) and is great for people (and rat) watching. I have an increased appreciation for the MTA after dealing with the MBTA for the last three years. In Wellesely we were one town too far into the suburbs for normal “T” service, so we had to rely on the commuter rail if we didn’t want to drive into Boston. I think I took the commuter rail about half a dozen times during the entire time we lived there, and most of those were trips to Fenway – the only really convenient destination from Wellesley. But even on subsequent trips back to New York I find my blood pressure rising the minute I swipe my card and descend into the bowels of Manhattan. I can’t stand waiting for the subway, and the transit gods know this – why else would they fuck with my emotions by ensuring the train I want is ALWAYS just pulling out of the station as I come through the turnstiles. Why would they send waves of garbage trains past me, kindling my hopes with their distant lights and displaced wind currents only to trundle by without stopping, leaving me more miserable than before? Why would they check to see where I was going and then invariably send my “F” train on the “A” line to West 4th (or vice-versa)? Why would they have allowed the “G” train to exist? I hate hate hate waiting for the subway. The standing. The sitting. The crying.

And then we moved to Berlin. The clouds parted. The angels sang on high. I met the BVG, Berlin’s public transportation authority. BVG stands for Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe. I don’t know what Verkehrsbetriebe means in English, but I think it translates to “totally awesome”. What makes the BVG so awesome? Let’s start with their website. Go there. Click on the journey planner for a trip from Rüdesheimer Platz to Kottbusser Tor. How about Rüdesheimer Platz to Strausberger Platz? See for yourself. Here’s a jpeg that should suffice if you are feeling lazy:


(suggested routes to Wannsee from Rudesheimer Platz)

But the website is just the tip of the iceberg. There is also a number you can call any time, day or night, where you’ll get a live operator who can tell you how to get from point A to point B. Not all the buses, trams, S-Bahns (above ground trains) and U-Bahns (under ground trains) run 24 hours a day, but never fear. If you stumble out of a club at 4:00am there is also a vast network of night buses that can get you safely home.

And here is the best part. No, not the buttons that light up as you enter a station, the buttons that you can push to open the doors even while the train is slowing to a stop. Not the designated bicycle cars. It is not even the open container laws that mean you can legally drink a beer during your evening (or morning) commute. It is so simple. At each station there are electronic displays telling you how long before the next two trains in either direction arrive. Not just on the tracks, but also above the stairs leading to transfer points, so you know if you have to sprint to make your connection, or if there is time to stop and get a bowl of noodles from the Chinese imbiss on the platform. Somehow, just knowing how long I have to wait makes the act of waiting entirely tolerable.

Of course, this system would be worthless if it was not accurate. If the sign says a train will come in three minutes and I wait 10, that would probably be worse than just waiting for 10 minutes without knowing when the wait would end. But this is Germany after all. The trains are never late. The BUSES are never late. How they manage that feat in city traffic and stoplights I will never know. And if anything IS late, there is a number you can call to complain. To a real person.

It probably doesn’t hurt that trains run every five minutes most of the day. I think the longest I’ve ever waited was 13 minutes, and that was well after Midnight, well away from the center of town. Actually, I know that is how long I waited, because I could read it all there on the electronic display.

Even the disasters have turned out in my favor. We tried to take a bus to the Grunewald S-bahn stop for an express ride to the beach at Wannsee, and in our haste neglected to read that every other bus on the 186 line terminated before Grunewald (and yup, we were on THAT one). We had to get off somewhere in the burbs, but the next bus was EARLY & we were soon bathing in the sun by the lake.


(map of entire system)

When I said before that the best part of the BVG was the electronic displays, I lied. The best part of the BVG is that even the track construction, or bauarbeiten works in my favor. Our train, the U3, runs from Krumme Lanke to Nolendorf Platz, where you can connect to the U1 for a trip East to Kreuzberg or Friedrichshain or to the U2 up to Potsdamer Platz, Alexanderplatz and Northern Mitte. The U1 is currently undergoing renovations from Gleisdreiek to Kotbusser Tor (if you plotted the trip I told you to earlier you already know this). Passengers can switch to a bus (which, naturally, is always waiting for you at the top of the steps when you exit the subway) that runs along the U1 route between these two stations. But here is where things get really sweet. The transportation gods in their benevolence have decided that during this construction time, the U3 will continue past Nollendorf Platz all the way to Gleisdreiek. That meant that I was able to skip a transfer when I visited the Technology Museum last week. That means my trip to Potsdamer Platz is shorter by about five minutes. Bauarbeiten, I think I love you.

And what does this cost, you ask? For 2,10 Euro you can buy a single ticket that is valid on every tram, train, bus or mule in the city for up to two hours from the time you start your journey. A weekly pass is 26,20. Julie and I carry monthly passes for the low low price of 72 Euro a month. There are no turnstiles here, so unlike New York, where if you accidentally went to the platform going the wrong direction, exiting and re-entering doesn’t cost you a ride. Everything operates on the honor system. You time stamp your single ticket when you get on a bus, or just as your subway car arrives. If you are a monthly pass carrier you simply walk into the station and get aboard, or flash your wallet at the bus driver (none of whom has ever looked once, let alone twice, at my pass). Germans are such good citizens that I bet there would not even have to be any system of control for these time stamps. But of course Berlin is full of tourists, so there is the rumor going around that there are undercover agents that can slap you with a 40 Euro fine if they catch you with an expired or unstamped ticket.

At least, it was a rumor until this week.

During a trip to MohrenStrasse, as I rocked to my ipod and spied on the family sitting across from me, I sensed a buzzing in the air. People were smiling and exchanging knowing looks. Had someone farted? Was there a mime busking behind me? Had I farted? Nope. It was the undercover ticket agents, one at each end of the car, moving through and checking tickets. I was so excited I almost dropped my wallet, eager to prove how honorable I was. Eager to show that I could never betray the trust of something I loved so much.

As I write this, it occurs to me that it would be far more entertaining if I had somehow left my card at home that morning - a great twist of irony cast down on the Berlin transit gods by their evil cousins in New York or Boston. If this was a fiction story that is how it would end: me in tears as some dude in sneakers, cut-off shorts and a backpack dragged be off to the gulag, flashing his laminated BVG Polizei ID and cursing me in German. But I didn’t forget my card. I just smiled brightly, displayed my card with pride, and they walked right past, hardly giving me a second glance.

iPod

I forgot to bring my camera on my architecture walk through Mitte today. I did have my iPod, though. So in lieu of pictures, here’s the soundtrack.

**Edit - It is taking too long to upload these songs... plus I think it is probably a copyright infringement. So here's a link to an iTunes album recreating most of it, or you can wait till you see me next and request a copy of my mix tape, though who knows when that will be. Sigh... I guess you just had to be there.

1. Hitler’s Bunker – Francis Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle (Nirvana)

Almost was Into Your Arms by Nick Cave, but I got turned around coming out of the subway. The Nirvana song came on just as I was walking up to the sign marking the spot (the bunker is no more. A car park sits in its place). I thought it was just the right song to be listening to when reading about ol' Adolf's last days & when I discovered that my camera wasn't in the backpack I got the idea for this blog post. As you will see, most of the other songs on my mix were not really as fitting.

2. Stasi Exhibition – At the Other End of the Telescope (Aimee Mann)

Actually, this one kind of worked too. At this point I thought I was really onto something. You know, like if I was looking at you looking at me I could either be in love with you, or spying on you (or both, like in The Lives of Others). The exhibit itself was very cool, though unfortunately for me, entirely in German. Didn't really need to read the display explanations for things like a can of tomatoes that has a screw-off bottom containing microfilm, but the thoughtful timelines were an enigma.

3. British Embassy – Better Be Home Soon (Crowded House)

Well, Crowded House is an Australian band, and that's part of the Commonwealth, right? This is the coolest embassy in Berlin. It has a plain stone facade, but there are all these cool jutting shapes in purple and blue that are set back into a recess in the wall. From the profile you wouldn't see anything, but from the side it is very funky. Kind of like the English. Or not.

4. Pariser Platz – Changer (Stereolab)

Pariser Platz is the square next to the Brandenberg Gate, so named in celebration of the defeat of Napoleon. I could have called this one "Brandenberg Gate" instead, but that isn't French sounding. Stereolab isn't really French either (half-French, I think), though this (and many of their other) song(s) is (are) in French. Maybe someone who is a huge Stereolab fan could make a better blurb about why this song was appropriate... like their songs are anti-capitalist Marxist commentaries, ironic because Pariser Platz is in former East Berlin but is now the height of glamor and conspicuous consumption.

5. Dresdner Bank – I am the Resurrection (The Stone Roses)

I only peeked in the lobby here. Rough Guide says that the picture of Fredrick the Great is by Andy Warhol. Too bad I didn't put some Velvet Underground on this list. How about, "The Stone Roses enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame?"

6. DZ Bank – A Shot in the Arm

Um, at this point I was tired and needed a shot in the arm? No? Sorry. This conceit is growing tiresome. But the building, designed by Frank Ghery is very cool. The facade is just stone and rectangular windows (in compliance with the strict building codes for this historic plaza), but inside is all curving steel and glass.

7. Hotel Adlon – (stopped)

I turned my iPod off for this part, so as not to look like too much of a tourist. Too bad my backpack and t-shirt gave me away. The bellhop shooed me out after I wandered around the lobby for a few minutes.

8. Unter den Linden – What Deaner Was Talkin’ About (Ween)

No wash hanging out to dry on this grand boulevard. Unter den Linden means under the lime (lemon?) trees. Hitler replaced the trees with Nazi totem poles, but thankfully they were replanted after the war.

9. Russian Embassy – The Mayor of Simpleton (XTC)

... Cool song. Ugly building. That's all I got.

10. Friedrichstrasse/Dussmann – Autumn Sweater (Yo La Tengo), 3000 Flowers (Destroyer)

A bookish band and an erudite lyricist? Dussman is the bookstore I ducked into in search of an English-language guidebook to the Italian Riviera.

11. Staats-bibliothek – All the Wine (The National)

Beautiful ivy-colored courtyard where I sat and ate my Doner Kebap. Sadly I had packed water rather than wine.

12. Humboldt Universität – Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez)

Moving along. Nothing to see here. Except for a very cool-looking Neoclassical edifice, originally built as a palace for Frederick the Great's brother. Alumni from this prestigious university include Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels. Albert Einstein taught here. Not sure where Jose Gonzalez went to school.

13. Neue Wache – Number One Son (Camera Obscura)

The Neue Wache was a guardhouse for the royal watch in the early 19th century. The East Germans dedicated it as a memorial for the victims of "Fascism and Militarism" and even had a goose-stepping changing of the guard out front (or so says The Rough Guide). Now it is a memorial for "The Victims of War and Tyranny". Camera Obscura probably walked by here the last time they played Berlin.

14. Zeughaus (Historiches Museum) – Swans (Islands)

The Zeughaus was the old Prussian arsenal. During revolutionary unrest in 1848, Berliners stormed the building looking for weapons but found none. In response the government banned democratic organizations. The Zeughaus housed Nazi propaganda on WWI, was the site of a failed assassination attempt against Hitler, and since 1953 has been home to The German History Museum. Wagner's most famous opera was about Swans. Maybe I should have gone to the Staatsoper across the street first.

15. IM Pei Bau – Your Fucking Sunny Day (Lambchop)

Today was not sunny at all. IM Pei designed this annex to the Historiches Museum. IM Pei was in Pulp Fiction, starring Samuel L. Jackson, who was also in Die Hard III with Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis was in The Sixth Sense with Toni Collette, who co-starred with Hugh Grant in About a Boy. Hugh Grant was Julia Roberts' love interest in Notting Hill. And Julia Roberts was also in Flatliners with Kevin Bacon!

16. Staatsoper – Oceans in the Hall (The Ladybug Transistor)

See # 14 above. Also, currently playing at the State's Opera is Fidelio.

17. Bebelplatz – The Latest Toughs (Okkervil River)

The Nazis were just the latest toughs when they came to power. Bebelplatz is home to The Empty Library, a memorial to the Büchverbrennung - Goebbels' book-fueled bonfire of 1933. It is just a room with barren bookshelves, sunk in the ground and covered with glass. Sounds cool, eh? I was very excited to see it. Too bad this is fashion week in Berlin - the whole square is covered in a giant white tent with Mercedes Benz logos and restricted to fashion industry-ites. You know what they say. "Where they start by burning books, they'll end by putting on a fashion show".

18. Alte Bibliothek – Secretarial (AC Newman)

The Alte Bibliothek is known as the Kommode, which is German for "Chest of Drawers." I bet you thought I was going to say "Toilet" didn't you? I'm not that crude. But I did stop here to use the restroom. I listened to Secretarial while I peed.

19. Gendarmenmarkt – Chicago (Sufjan Stevens)

Once Sufjan Stevens finishes writing the last album in his 50-state song cycle, maybe he'll move on to international capitols. I bet he'd write a cool one about the Gendarmenmarkt, a vast public square meant to mimic the Piazza del Popolo in Rome.

Whew! It was a long walk. Almost as long as it took me to write this fucking endless post. Next time I'm bringing my camera.

Reinheistgebot: Brauerei Messhofen, Part 1

Reinheistgebot – German Brewing Purity Law dating from 1516 that says German beer must be made with only four ingredients: Water, Hops, Barley and Yeast.

One of the highlights of our visit with the Meders was our trip to nearby Messhofen for a tour of an authentic Braeurei. It’s not a micro-brewery. It’s a mini-brewery. Not exactly sure what the difference is, but for a humble home-brewer it was a little slice of heaven no matter how you defined it. Here are some pictures and my vocabulary list so I’d know what Braumeister Clemens was talking about:

Hefe – yeast
Hopfen – hops
Gerste – barley
Malz – malt
Pils – pilsner
Dunkel – dark
Hell – light
Schwartz – black
Gährung – fermentation
Fass – tap
Flache - bottle
Alkohol Gehalt – alcohol content
Stammwürtze – specific gravity
Lecker – delicious


(Brauerei Messhofen: Since 1841)


(Mmm. Smells like Bananas)


(After this I climbed in)


(Bottle washing and filling machines... beats the heck out of using the bathtub)


(Clemens - 2nd from left - wore the lederhosen just for us, I'm sure)


(What a spread... nothing goes better with beer than processed meat. Except bacon fat smeared on bread. Good thing we had both.)


(Beer makes Matt crazy. Or is that his happy face?)