The password is Fidelio.

We are still a little unsure what exactly we witnessed last night, but I can say without reservation that it was a highlight that will be difficult to top.

Brady and Melissa have been visiting us from New York for the past week. It has been nice having an excuse to throw aside work and just be a tourist again. Hosting someone in an unfamiliar city is a little daunting, especially when no one speaks the language beyond “I work at the bank” (me) and “I have no cheese” (Brady) but armed with Timeout and Roughguide and Fodor’s we’ve muddled through pretty well so far. One site that we had targeted for a look-see was the Clarchen’s Ballhaus.

Clarchen’s Ballhaus is a pizza parlor/dance club, recommended to Brady by a friend who had passed through Berlin during the last International Film Festival. You can go here to check it out for yourself:

http://www.ballhaus.de

If you don’t understand the German, the place’s history is this:

It started as a private dance club in 1913, though likely the building is even older. One large ballroom sat downstairs, with another, more exclusive one upstairs, walled with mirrors. The front building had to be torn down when it was damaged during World War II, leaving a large courtyard in its place & the entry to the downstairs ballroom visible from the street. It remained open during the war, closing only in 1944 when the Nazis tamped down on the city’s entertainment businesses. The same sign has been used since it was painted in the 30s:



When Berlin was divided (with the neighborhood of Mitte located in the Eastern section) the club became a favorite hangout for GDR officers. After unification and the gentrification of Mitte, rising rents were inevitable and the whole establishment had to be sold. The new owners spiffed it up, keeping much of the old charm, and reopened to the public in 2005.

After a long hard day of sunbathing, sausages and beer at Badeschiff



we donned some sharp outfits (by sharp I mean sharper than bathing suits and flip-flops) and trekked back out to Mitte for something a little more refined. If you clicked on the link above and looked at some of the pictures you probably have a sense of Clarchen’s typical clientele. We settled on a table in a prime location in the courtyard, noting the remnants of where the front building must have abutted its neighbors before being torn down. Our dinners of authentic Italian pizzas arrived just moments before the rain. Our tuxedoed waiter kindly agreed when we asked if we could move inside.

Just past the ticket counter & coat check lay the main dining hall and what we assumed was to become the main ballroom as well. Remember those eighth-grade dances that were special enough to be relocated to the local VFW building? It looked strikingly similar to that, right down to the floor-to-ceiling tinsel draping along the wall. Of course, your VFW building probably didn’t have two full bars and a tiny back room where everyone huddled around a 13-inch television watching the Italy v Spain soccer match, but you get the idea. After dinner we lingered over our crusts, trying to catch the waiter’s attention and wondering when the dancing would begin. I could have sworn I heard the throb of techno music when we walked in, and I was pretty sure that the crowd shoehorned into the back room, though tightly packed, was not the full extent of people we had seen dining al fresco and hanging about in the courtyard. So where was the party, if not this?

A little investigating turned up only the bathrooms in the back, and the kitchen across from the coat check room turned out to be the source of the music. The pizzas were excellent, the waitstaff smartly dressed (if not overly attentive) and the past-its-prime Magnificent Ambersonish atmosphere of the ballroom was charming, but surely there was something more that justified the rave review from Brady’s friend.

Maybe it was the rain that made us delay, or maybe it was the fact that Italy and Spain had just gone to penalty kicks. Just before we were about to make a dash for the curb and hopefully a cab for the ride home, Melissa did a little more exploring and came back with the news that everyone was watching the soccer “upstairs”. Out the front entrance and to the left was an anonymous little door that led to a grand staircase, lit by a few nearly spent candelabras. At the top of the stairs was a grand ballroom, full of people dining by candlelight and cheering as Fabregas knocked home the winning goal for Spain on a giant projector screen. If downstairs was the VFW, upstairs was the Governor’s Mansion. Giant mirrors lined the walls, and an ancient chandelier hung from ceiling. The candlelight dimly illuminated water-stained murals and drapery. The musty air smelled of old Barons and Dutchesses and you could almost hear the echoes of aristocratic Europe.

As Spain celebrated, the staff descended on the room, clearing plates, striking chairs and folding up tables. Maybe this was the real dance floor? Our hopes rose as a couple of men wheeled in a grand piano. We nestled into some chairs in a dark corner, trying to look inconspicuous as women in short cocktail dresses stepped past us to powder their noses in the bathrooms across the hall. People milled about the bar. Someone went through a door next to the stage and emerged on a balcony to turn on a rack of red spotlights. Something was definitely afoot. I had half a notion that everyone was going to strip naked, put on gold masks and chant before a disguised Tom Cruise. In fact, what happened next was as unexpected as it was perplexing.

Somewhere in the murmuring of the crowd came the sound of a fork tapping against the side of a wineglass. A hush settled over the room as a man dressed in black pants and a black vest stepped into the spotlight and began to speak. He gestured to another man in a white suit by the stage and a woman seated at the piano. Was this a toast to the newlyweds? The man in the suit stepped forward and made a small speech of his own, gesturing back at the man in black. Then the piano started and he launched into song.

If you’ve heard any Wagner operas you know that German isn’t the most beautiful of languages, spoken or sung. The man’s voice was strong and pure, though. I searched the faces of the room, looking for clues that would tell me if this was supposed to be a funny groom’s ditty, or perhaps the debut of a serious new composer, or maybe an excerpt from the local opera troupe’s current show playing now through the end of the week. When the song ended the room erupted in enthusiastic applause and the two men shared a warm embrace. Maybe they were the newlyweds?

White-suit man made another speech, followed by another song. Our theories on what we were witnessing flew back and forth. Was he the Ballhaus’s Master-of-Ceremonies and were his speeches explanations about what kind of dance lessons on offer that evening? Julie pointed out that no one was settling their bill with waiters. And over there was a professional photographer, snapping away. Whatever was happening, it was definitely a private party. We laughed when the crowd laughed, clapped when they clapped and cheered when they cheered, hoping no one would realize we didn’t belong. A group of groomsmen (or the rest of the troupe?) joined White-suit man in front of the stage. He launched into song again while I studied the men, trying to assess whether these guys all looked like they could be actors. In truth, some of them looked more like part of a softball beer league team, especially as they joined in a raucous chorus. Then I caught the word “cowboy” in English. When the chorus repeated, some other words started to sound familiar: “Elf cowboys spielen gut.” (Eleven cowboys playing well, I think). And then I heard Foosball this and Foosball that. The final puzzle piece was a large trophy cup filled with beer and hoisted aloft.

When the man in black delivered a final-sounding speech and the crowd rose for a standing ovation, we snuck back downstairs and out the door – before we were unmasked as imposters and well before the ritual orgy. Now we are pretty certain we took part in nothing more exotic than the celebration of the end of a local soccer season… unless German softball allows eleven to a side.

Kleine Fridge

I truly thought these days were behind me. One of my greatest annoyances about our cozy (real-estate speak for tiny) Brooklyn apartment in was the too-small midget refrigerator in our too-small kitchen. You laugh when I say the notion of reverting back to a fridge of that size was one of the reasons why Julie and I chose to move to Chicago over New York this last year – probably because the last time you had to deal with a tiny fridge was in the dorms in college. A tiny fridge means that you can usually only chill one bottle of wine and one six-pack at a time. A tiny fridge means that you can’t just cram the whole box from a half-eaten pizza on a shelf, but must laboriously wrap the slices in tin foil and balance them on top of the eggs. A tiny fridge means that your fruit gets all bruised from being wedged into the doll-size fruit locker. A tiny fridge means a tiny freezer. I didn’t know how good I had it back then.

Our apartment at the IBZ is pretty choice. Starting with the price (actually, I don’t know the price, as the bill goes directly to the sponsors of Julie’s fellowship… like I said, pretty choice). The location isn’t bad either. We are in Wilmersdorf near Rudesheimer Platz – a leafy residential neighborhood that was once home to the wealthy diplomats who plied their trade in West Berlin. The character of the neighborhood has no doubt changed somewhat since the Wall came down, but there are still plenty of Mercedes and BMWs parked on the street and the open-air markets charge double what one might find in the more Turkish-dominated areas like Kruetzberg. Picture somewhere on the Upper-East Side, swap the pizza joints with curry wurst carts, keep the falafel stands and you’ll have a pretty good idea. Amidst the wine-merchants, the framing stores and the specialty children’s toy shops stands the IBZ – a fortress of 70s architecture and interior design. The IBZ, or Internationales Begegnunszentrum der Wissenschaft Berlin (why not IBW or IBWB?), is the home for visiting foreign scholars working for higher-education centers like The Free University, the Max Planck Institute, and the Dartmouth semester abroad program among others. We are all transient residents, and as such, our apartments come fully furnished, down to the vacuum cleaner and extra hangers. And the tiny fridge.

Life with a tiny fridge actually works well when it is paired with life without a car. Trips to the supermarket are limited to what you can carry home. Life with a tiny fridge also works well when it is paired with an old-Europe sensibility where you buy your bread at the baker, your butter and milk at the dairy store and your fruit and veggies at the fresh produce stand. Life with a tiny fridge works when you are out-of-work, as I am this summer – when you can play act as the hausfrau (housmann?), planning meals no more than two or three days ahead, provisioning only with the freshest of ingredients and hitting the open-air markets I mentioned on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The biggest bottle of soda you can buy here is 1.5L, a good thing when you have a tiny fridge. Eggs come packaged in sixes rather than dozens, convenient when your tiny fridge has only seven egg dimples in the door. I have yet to see a half-gallon of milk. These smaller portions make sense, and from a dietary perspective are probably sensible, but the end result of life with a tiny fridge is that I am constantly hungry. I ration my yogurt, I eat my cheese in nibbles rather than chunks, I chill my beers by the bottle rather than by the six-pack. Maybe it is more civilized, but the real reason why people in Europe don’t take home doggie bags isn’t because it is déclassé, but because there would be nowhere to put them in the tiny fridge.

Umbrellas of Kruezberg

The weather has turned cold and wet. Although this is disappointing, I suppose we could not have expected the sunshine and temperatures in the high seventies to last until August. The change has painted for me one of the main differences between living in a city and visiting on vacation. Had we been on vacation when the skies opened up, yesterday’s outing to Kruezberg would have been fraught with either desperation or depression—or both. If your time to see the sights is limited by a vacationer’s itinerary, when bad weather turns up, you plunge ahead regardless. For Julie and I, the solution was to duck inside one of the many cafes on Bergmannstrasse for an hour or so to refuel on coffee, tea and pastries. When we emerged, well caffeinated, the sun was back, the umbrellas were safely stowed, and Kruezberg’s cobblestoned streets were glittering.

Our frustuck on Rudesheimer Platz this morning (literally, “first piece” AKA breakfast) faced a similar lack of cooperation from the clouds. Our response today was to hustle home for a pot of tea, a retreat to the sunporch & the curling up with a good book for me (Julie’s curling up with her computer to continue revisions on her book manuscript doesn’t quite agree with the theme of this blog, so let’s ignore it for now), followed by an afternoon nap. A vacationer most likely does not have the luxury of a sunporch to which he or she can retreat, but more critically, does not have the luxury of time. It is far easier to postpone a stroll along the Spree for more clement weather when it doesn’t mean having to sacrifice that visit to the Historiches Museum to do so. Please remind me to re-read this entry when we try and cram seven centuries of Czech history into three days during our trip to Prague.

Unheimlich

I don’t know many German words. Of those I do know, Unheimlich is my favorite. It was the first real word taught to me by our friend Alex Meder. Unheimlich translates to “eerie” or “uncanny,” though I’m sure it’s connotations are much more subtle and nuanced to a native speaker. I never thought I would have the opportunity to use it in context until last night.

It was a little unheimlich when I settled into my table at Spinnrad last night just before six. Spinnrad is the local Stube or pub, located right on the corner next to the IBZ. Julie and I watched the Germany v. Poland soccer match there last Saturday, along with a small but enthusiastic crowd of regulars. There were German flags, a noise-maker, and free shots of schnapps, compliments of the house, for each of Germany’s goals in its 2-0 victory. For game two of group play, Germany had drawn Croatia. Eager for more of the same, and with Julie otherwise engaged at her “job” at the WBZ, I returned on my own last night to watch the match.

Unheimlich was the word to describe the scene: “reserviert” signs on most of the tables, but no patrons, even though the game was just about to start. It wasn’t until midway through the first half, with Germany already down 1-nil that people started showing up. They appeared to be regulars too, though not the same regulars from Saturday. And why were two of them moving tables around? And was that a stand-up base one of them was carrying? That’s right. Thursday night is apparently Jazz night at Spinnrad. The soccer regulars must have known, and thus settled elsewhere. The Jazz regulars didn’t really care too much for soccer, so the commentators were muted & the band played on.

They opened with Weird Blues by Tom Davis. In attempting to translate the song title, the band-leader looked to me – the guy who can barely order a beer and ask for the check. But I knew unheimlich, and I used it. He nodded in agreement and added that this scene, with the Euro 2008 playing on mute in HD in the background and a trio of fifty-something Germans playing American Jazz to a crowd of other fifty-something regulars plus one American ex-pat with a small but eclectic vocabulary was indeed, unheimlich.

Germany lost 2-1, the band smoked, and I got a little tipsy on two large steins of Jever and a too-small prosciutto sandwich. During their break, I gave my compliments to the band, promised to return next week and told them I was off to eat dinner. After I assured the bass-player I was walking home & not driving, he saluted me with perfect, albeit German-accented, hep-cat English, “Take it easy, man”. Unheimlich.

Ugly Americans

Damn you, Ain't it Cool News! To celebrate the ten-day anniversary of our arrival here, Julie and I had planned an "Ugly American" night, in which we'd go to the wastelands of Potsdamer Platz for an evening of low-brow American entertainment.

The colossal Sony Center can stand toe-to-toe with those temples of Hollywood consumption, Universal City Walk or The Beverly Center. M. Night Shymalan's latest, The Happening, opens across Germany tonight, but last night the Sony Center was home to a special early-bird screening. That was our plan… until Julie read some initial buzz from Harry Knowles and his band of merry parade-rainers-oners and started thinking maybe The Happening was going to be more Lady in the Water and less The Sixth Sense. She is probably right - wouldn't you be wary of such statements like "one of Mark Wahlberg's worst performances?” I mean, have you seen The Trouble With Charlie?

At the LA movie-shrines, choice B could be made from a list of at least 15 other films, but alas, the Sony Center has “only” eight screens… and a few of those were reserved for free screenings of Euro 2008 soccer matches last night. Which meant that for us, choice B was between seeing Indiana Jones for a second time (damn you, George Lucas!) and Sex and the City. Please don’t tell anyone I know that I saw this movie. Not sure why the producers had to spend two plus hours exploring the exact same themes they’d exhausted by the end of the 15th and final season (are you sure it only ran for six years?), advancing all the characters about ½ a block (street blocks, not avenue blocks fellow New Yorkers), but that did leave time for a diarrhea joke AND a three-way, so in the end it wasn’t a total loss. The highlight of the evening was definitely watching the last 10 minutes of the Turkey Switzerland match on a giant screen in the bar/concession area of the theatre before the movie started. In case you didn’t know, Berlin is home to the largest Turkish population in Europe, and I think half of them were at the Sony Center last night, decked out in jerseys, flags and face-paint. Turkey won 2-1 in extra time, and Carrie and Big END OF TEXT DELETED BY WEBMASTER

Beelitzer Spargel

It starts as a delicacy. Beelitzer Spargel, or white asparagus, is in season here. The season is brief, we were told, so enjoy them while you can. Both Julie and I dutifully ordered the Beelitzer as the main feature of our entrees at our first Berlin dinner, just around the corner from home at Landauer. Sauteed or steamed, smothered in Hollandaise sauce or naked, they were a delight.

Berliners can't get enough of a good thing it seems. Walking home I saw every restaurant proudly declaring that "yes, we have Beelitzer tonight & they are fresh." Friday morning we bought Beelitzer at the local open air market. "Two kilo's for you... eight Euro," hawked the vendor. We wisely bought only one, then lugged our produce back home, visions of Beelitzer omlettes and Beelitzer stir fries dancing in our heads.

At dinner in hipster Friedrichshain, the East Berliner Beelitzers may have been better than their Western counterparts. At breakfast on Saturday the homemade Beelitzer omlettes were everything we'd hoped for and more. At dinner on Sunday, the Beelitzer provided a wonderfully fresh and crunchy contrast to Julie's seared salmon. I'm not sure at what point the worm turned, but we were both relieved to discover that although Ingo and his wife had promised fresh Beelitzer as one of the offerings at dinner in Schoneburgh on Monday, the spread on the table of their apartment's rooftop garden was Beelitzer-free.

Top left is a picture of the last of our Beelitzer stock, before they were spruced up with some sauteed mushrooms, butter and chicken bulion at dinner last night. For my part, Beelizer season can't end soon enough. My pee might stink until Chicago.

Fahrt Start

Yes, we are twelve. From Einfahrt (entrance) to Ausfahrt (offramp) I just can't get enough of that word. Why not kick off this Berlin blog offending all my German friends by butchering their language with a juvenile scatological reference? Fahrt Start was inscribed next to the ignition on the dashboard of a childhood friend's car (German make, naturally), and it gives me as much joy to pronounce it now as it did back then. Fahrt means journey (eg. bus trip - die Busfahrt, city tour - die Stadtrundfahrt, Ascension Day - die Himmelfahrt) & that is sort of what we are on: a two-and-half month trip to Berlin. After one week here, I'd say we are still at the beginning, hence, Fahrt Start. Probably doesn't make sense to a German-speaker. Then again, neither did my attempt to ask for an ice tray at the kitchen goods store. Just in case you are wondering, the word is der Eiswurfelbehalter.