Gotta come!

[imomus]

"My Berlin is over," says Craig Robinson (of Flip Flop Flyin fame) in a blog entry entitled Gotta Go.

"My Berlin is one where someone cutting me up on their bike makes me really angry; a Berlin where holding a door open for someone with a bicycle illicits a look of disgust not a smile or a thank you; and a Berlin where someone will be watering the plants on their balcony just as I'm walking underneath... I need to get out as soon as I can."

Of course we all experience these feelings of frustration from time to time. Except me. Except here. I fucking LOVE Berlin. I love it three years in. I love it every time I come back. I'm loving it this week, even despite the World Cup (the one thing Craig finds redeeming about the city: he calls it "the plaster over the wound"). I'm loving the banner hanging on the Oranienstrasse that says "Stupid football nationalists PISS OFF!"



The fact is, if you think Arsenal is a football team, Berlin only makes sense right now, in the grip of football mania. But if you know that Arsenal is in fact the art screen at the Potsdamer Platz showing the early films of Shohei Imamura this month, the "film poems" of Clive Holden, a "magical history tour", a "festival of festivals", and bits of the Tanz im August season, you're fine.

Business as usual in Berlin means not so much business, but tons of culture. But it's also got delights unmatched by either of the cities I've recently spent time in, London or New York. The clean air. The fact that you can ride your bike on the pavement. The forests and lakes just a short elevated train ride away. The Dahlem museums, which I visited last week. The Slow Life and the sobriety. The radical politics. The environmentalism. The loud, loud birdsong. The great theatre and visual art and design you can see here. The cutting edge international architecture. The excellent public transport. The trams! The fabulous zoo. The great coffee. Such high quality of life at such a low price! How do they do it?



A classic "God, I'm glad I'm in Berlin!" moment came the other day when I visited the new organic pasta cafe at 33 Mulackstrasse in Mitte. Leo Bettini is a South Tirolian-themed place (but in fact it's terribly "Mitte") with a deliciously cool interior (loose wooden slats around the kitchen, plain white tables and chairs) and staggeringly excellent food. Even the trip to the bathroom (with views out over a bamboo courtyard, and a delightfully clean, stark design) was great; I snapped photos, thinking how Japanese it felt. Japan with more space.

Or what about white beer for less than a euro a bottle? Apartments for less than 400 euros a month? One of which I yesterday signed a lease for! In fabulous Neubeca, with its aromatic Turkish market!

I'm sorry Craig walks around Berlin wondering "why does it always rain on me". My experience couldn't be more different. Berlin is my place in the sun. The rain is just an old lady watering her plants, Craig. And Arsenal is really a cinema.

Comments

[martinish.livejournal.com]

Berlin's a wonderful city get around. A public transport system that's enjoyable to use - how unusual is that? And yes, cycling on the pavement and cheap good beer - very civilized. How about a Momus radio podcast thingy around Berlin?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Your wish is my command (http://www.imomus.com/berlinramble.mp3)!

[martinish.livejournal.com]

What service!

I agree with you about the food. There is wonderful (and cheap) Turkish food in Berlin . And on the other hand - currywurst.

[auto-nalle.livejournal.com]

stupid question:
what equipment do you use for making them podcasts and how it works andAll?
i'd like a new hobby like that
+ to record my grand mammy singing/reciting before she dies.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I used to make them using my lo-res digital camera, my Fuji Finepix. It could store a lot of sound, and I could just drop the dozens of short sound files into iTunes, set a crossfade time of 2 seconds, and record the result using software called Wire Tap, which outputs an AIFF file iTunes can then turn back into an mp3 file. Now I tend to use my Sony Cybershot M1, which has better sound quality, but produces video files which can't crossfade in iTunes (mp4) and fill up the card quickly. My Wired podcasts are recorded in Garageband with a proper mic and mixer.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Sorry to strike a disonant note, but I was wondering why cycling on the pavement is a good thing? Don't get me wrong - I think bicycling should be encouraged (along with the use of public transport), but people cycling on the pavements was one of the things, for instance, that I hated most about Kyoto. I myself got around Kyoto on a bicycle, but always rode on the road, even though other cyclists thought they could ignore all traffic rules, and I'd often find myself cycling towards another cyclist who was on the wrong side of the road.

Pavements are, in my opinion, for pedestrians, and, even as a cyclist, on the occasions I did shift to the pavement, I found it frustrating.

Hang on though, perhaps I've got this all wrong. Are there actual cycle lanes on the pavements? If so, suddenly everything falls into place.