Bits and pieces

Well, I went to two more Weinachtsmärkte yesterday, at Schloß Charlottenburg and around Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächniskirche near the Zoologischer Garten. I’ll write about them a little later; for now Imma share a few oddities seen around town.

This was right outside the Schloß Charlottenburg market, and I can’t help but wonder what the story is:

I mean—surely you’re going to notice one of your work boots is no longer on your foot, nicht wahr?

This was parked outside my hotel entrance as I was leaving:

I’m hoping the driver doesn’t partake, because could be quite the wildest ride since Mr. Toad.

But, speaking of smokin’, this was also near my hotel:

And speaking of rides—lookee what’s made it to Berlin:

This is an advertising setup for a fast food joint—Amplemann (who himself is what you see on traffic lights letting you know you have the legal right to cross). Interesting that both the bike and the statue have to be tied down.

Further afield, I hauled into the bus stop on Bernauerstraße and found these additions to the municipally-supplied metal mesh seats:

As with the work boot, I’d be interested in the story behind these.

And, in a residential district not too far from Schloß Charlottenburg, not only was the wall painted, but…

I don’t know whether it’s an artistic statement, or just left for anyone to take away. 

And then there's this:

It's not so much the photo booth per se. It's that the photos now cost 2€, and the come-on of "complete privacy" for your shoot. That one makes me a little queasy.

Finally—since it is the season, here’s how my hotel has chosen to show its colors:

Radisson Blu, geddit?

Gratitude Monday: Light and dark in Berlin and elsewhere

Over the weekend I saw basically the best and worst of Germany: on Saturday I visited the Reichstag building, and yesterday it was Topographie des Terrors, a documentation center dealing with the Third Reich.

I’ll start there.

Topography of Terror is located where the Gestapo, SS and RSHA (state [secret] police; paramilitary organization that—among other things—administered the extensive network of slave labor and death camps throughout the twelve-year period of Nazi control; and the security administration with broad remit to “protect” the Reich against all enemies) located their headquarters. The building—destroyed during World War II and never rebuilt—also included a “house prison” where you could begin your journey to Hell if you were deemed an enemy of the state.

I’m fairly well versed in the monstrosities of that regime, but even so, it was hard to take. What struck me powerfully, however, were the ways in which the progression from Weimar (Germany’s first-ever attempt at democratic government and society) to Nazi-flavored totalitarianism resemble something much closer to my home these days.

Just a couple of thoughts:

In demanding the conformity to National Socialist goals, Party rallies were a major element. Whom do we know who does that? Not in the kinds of numbers that Hitler enjoyed, of course, but still.

And by conformity, I mean, no outward sign of disagreement. This photo of such a rally at an industrial plant caught my eye:

The caption indicated only a possible identification, and no information on what—if anything—happened to the guy who didn’t give the Nazi salute.

Remind you of anything?

Also—they started ‘em young with conformity:

A second element that I find troubling is the co-opting of instruments of law into the criminal activities of totalitarianism. The Nazis early on dragooned your everyday cops into their machine. Here are some local police marching in a Party parade:

They also teamed up regular cops with “auxiliaries” from the SS, to provide guidance on whom should be arrested, and how:

Another way laws were perverted was the use of “protective custody”—arrest of non-conforming/troublemaking people who had committed no offense against laws on the books, but they were hauled off to prison all the same. How long before we start seeing that in the US? Is the ACLU the only thing preventing that these days?

As an aside, and not dealt with in the exhibition, the Nazis also subverted the courts themselves. In the end, the Volksgerichtshof, with rabid Nazis on the bench, operated entirely outside any constitutional restrictions. Under the direction of Roland Freisler, the People’s Court did basically nothing but pass death sentences on anyone who came before it, because to be arrested was clear evidence of guilt.

When Hitler failed to win a clear majority soon after taking office in early 1933, the Nazis coerced the Reichstag (legislature) into passing the “Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich”, better known to us as the “Enabling Act”. That law basically gave Hitler the right to rule bydecree—something Commander Bone Spurs has been trying on with his Executive Orders. Also, the Republican-controlled Congress has been acting like the de-fanged Reichstag, doing nothing but some mild hand flapping and kowtowing to his every whim. Bobble-headed lapdogs can still do damage when they just do nothing.

I looked at a lot of faces of Gestapo, SS and RSHA members, both high-ups and worker bees. I wondered if you could tell without their uniforms what these guys did for a living? Here are some camp guards from Auschwitz at a nearby “retreat”:

Can you see the cruelty in their faces, or do they just look like average Joachims?

But look at this guy, on the right, as a Jew in the East (Poland, probably, I didn’t write down the location) has his beard forcibly cut:

I’ve seen that kind of gloating exultation at the Kleptocrat’s rallies. Hell—I’ve seen that face on Republican leaders of Congress when they pass tax cuts for the rich and cut healthcare for the rest of us. They display the same pleasure in humiliating "the other" that the Nazis did.

There was also a temporary exhibition on Kristallnacht, since it’s the 80^th anniversary of that night. I’ve written about it before, so I won’t go into the whole thing here. There were two things about the exhibit (which told the stories of Kristallnacht in six German towns and cities) that struck me: first, that it took until the late 50s and 60s for Gentiles in those municipalities to come to terms with what took place in 1938.

However, there’s been a reluctance to return the property that was stolen from Jews back then, or provide reparation for the stolen property. (The [West] German state did compensate survivors, but the citizens really, really wanted to pretend it never happened.)

Here’s a looter with a Mogen David he stole from a Synagogue. What do you suppose happened to it?

As for prosecuting the arsonists, the looters, the vandals—in many cases that desire to make it just disappear was also in action. When—after decades—some of the perps were identified, the judicial system and the public basically threw up their hands and said, “Oh, that happened a long time ago. Why bring it up now?”

Kind of like when the Republican base dismisses the horrors of slavery and racism, eh?

Finally, here’s a quote that shot straight through my heart, by Dr. Felix Aber of Bremen, a former rabbi who was one of the thousands of Jewish men and boys arrested and sent to concentration camps for “protective custody” in the aftermath of Kristallnacht. “We passed through a town that kept silent.”

It’s the silence that kills me. Their neighbors, colleagues, friends—no one spoke up. By 1938 the mechanism of terror was already that strong. And it played into existing prejudice against Jews.

It’s interesting to me that admission to both the Topographie des Terrors and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is free. It’s like the Germans want no barrier at all to their people taking a good look at the past.

On the plus side, my experience with the Reichstag was stellar. In the first place, because you have to register in advance to gain admission (yes, it is possible to do it on the day, if you have identification papers and you’re willing to take your chance on there being room), I’d booked a few weeks ago for Saturday. I thought. But when I got there, it turned out to have been for Friday.

What an idiot.

But the kid checking papers at the entrance hared off with my confirmation letter and my passport, and in a while he came back and said I was cleared to go in. (TBH, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how lacking in pokers up their butts Berliners are. They’re a lot less heavy on the stickler side than I recall Germans in Munich, Dresden and Cologne being.) I did have to go through security scanning, but then I was in.

They send you up to the base of the Norman Foster-designed glass dome, which sits on the historic building that was the bane of Wilhelm II and that the Nazis torched in 1933. The Reichstag was left in ruins in East Berlin during Communist occupation, and on reunification of the two Germanies in 1990, when the Federal Republic moved national government back to Berlin from Bonn, they decided to rebuild the old building, and hired Foster to add a dome, replacing the old one that was destroyed in 1933..

Well, I’m not a huge fan of Foster, but this dome is bloody marvelous. Not only is it a spectacular manifestation of Germany’s commitment to the transparency needed in a democratic government—anyone in the dome can literally look down on the deliberative chamber and see what their legislators are up to—but the overall design incorporates a variety of sustainable energy features.

I think about the US Capitol, and all the shenanigans our Repugnant Congressmorons get up to literally behind closed doors (oftentimes even excluding their Democratic colleagues from joining them) to emerge with faits accomplis, and I just grind my teeth.

Well, I'm grateful to see how the Germans are stepping up to the plate WRT leadership of the democratic world, seeing as to how it looks like we're ceding. It was a powerful experience to see how they face the darkest part of their past, but I was inspired how they've turned that darkness into light.

It's beginning to look...

As y’all know, I’m a sucker for holiday lights. So I’ve been looking forward to seeing how Berlin stacks up in this regard.

My guess is that there’s some starting point, that line that demarcates Christmas from pre-Christmas. In the US, that used to be Thanksgiving. But in Berlin it may be this weekend. Although one Weinachtsmarkt has been open since the 2^nd, the rest open on Monday.

I noticed as I was walking around the mitte area that holiday lights are out, but not on. However, last night this star next to my hotel—which had been in place, but not lighted—was finally turned on in the evening:

Likewise, the stars in the trees lining the Spree, right above the DDR Museum, as a matter of fact:

Over at Potsdamerplatz, there was this display next to the cinema that’s touting the “world premiere” of The Grinch.

I got a kick out of the fact that this multi-megawatt OTT show of holiday excess is practically on top of Checkpoint Charlie. The Ghosts of Stasi Past must be oooering no end.

Ditto, this: yes, Dunkin’ Donuts is right there where the Communists tried to fend off Western decadent culture. Bwhahaha!

Across the street, there’s the only currently operating (although apparently not at full strength; a lot of stalls not open yet) Weinachtsmarkt in town:

And back at Alexanderplatz, the Prater was lit up for a while, over the Christkindlmarkt that’ll be open tomorrow.

Compliments of the season, eh?

Something foggy, something fishy

Laptop update:

The local computer repair guys are unable to deal with my laptop—the power connector is atypical, so they don’t carry them. The connection is loose, so…

They gave me the name of specialists who could possibly handle the job—take apart my machine, etc. But I’m only here through Tuesday, so I’m just going to keep limping along with amazon hotel wi-fi but questionable power. (It appears to deign to recognize the AC connection once the battery drains down to 13%.) Pray to the gods of technology.

Okay, Berlin today. It’s overcast/foggy, so lousy photo-taking conditions. Still, I did get a couple of interesting shots of the TV tower last evening:

Interestingly, the Prater above the soon-to-open Alexanderplatz Weinachtsmarkt was all lit up and operational Thursday night:

But not last night. However, I’m seeing signs that this weekend (or at least Monday) may mark the opening of Official Weinachts. (All Christkindlemärkte should be open on Monday.) Stay tuned.

And the aquarium in the hotel atrium is an actual thing: people can take a glass elevator up into the center of the fish tank:

This morning I caught the cleaning crew at work:

(Sorry about the video showing sideways. I'm too tired to mess with it.)

As Gomer Pyle would say, well gaw-lee!

On the cusp of disaster

Welp—looks like I’m going to get a flavor of local life today: my laptop has stopped detecting the AC connection, which means it thinks it’s only got battery juice. Meaning, it’s not going to last long.

So, first thing (meaning, when it opens at 1000), I’m off to a local PC repair shop in hopes they can sort it. Thoughts and prayers, people. Thoughts and prayers.

And yes, John, you told me not to bring my laptop with me.

Day train to Berlin

The train ride to Berlin from Prague yesterday was interesting. It’s the first time I’ve taken a train in 20 years, when I rode from Dresden to Nürnberg, when my UK travel agents had booked me into a “non-smoking seat” in a car that, about three rows back, had a smoking section. It was separated from “non-smoking” by a partition with an automatic door. Every time a smoker went to and from the designated area, smoke gushed into the non-smoking part.

That was pre-EU, of course. The entire car was non-smoking this time, which was certainly an improvement; the journey lasted more than four hours, so…

The train was also equipped with very good wi-fi, which (as you know) was a sore spot for me at the hotel. (The buses to/from Terezín also had wi-fi, and USB power ports. They were quite comfortable, very sleek; what I found fascinating was that, with all their mod cons, they were manual transmissions. Huh.) I noticed that some people spent the entire journey with their noses in their devices. Chacun à son goût, I guess.

Mon goût was to look out the window for most of the trip, and wonder if this approximated the route for the Germans in 1938 and 1939, when they commenced their lebensraum initiative.

An interesting thing was that—while we were in the Czech Republic, the automated station announcements were in Czech, then German, then English. When we crossed into Germany, a human made the announcements in German and English. Czech was ditched. Also—the German announcements before we hit the larger stations included information on platforms for onward connections. The English ones just had, “The next station is [whatever]. Implied was, “You’re on your own figuring out where you need to go to catch your next train.”

Wilkommen in Deutschland, eh?

(Also interesting was that the very useful in-car monitors showing you what was coming up next, and next after that and after that again. In Czechia, the “Current” field, next to “Scheduled” showed the revised ETA for the next stop. Since we started out ten minutes late, that field displayed accordingly. In red. Once we moved into Germany, the first—human, not automated—announcement sniffed that we were behind schedule—obviously due to Czech laggardness. But they just skipped the whole “Current” thing altogether. From that point on, it was just blank.)

It was a dull, overcast day, but even so, the scenery was enchanting. We followed a river for much of the way, and you could see how little towns and villages grew along it—it would have been a means of transportation in the days before mechanized vehicles.

And sights like these made me think of the youthful journey of traveler, war hero, writer and bon vivant Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Dresden Hauptbahnhof was a spectacular sight, but I was glad I wasn’t getting off there. That was the scene of a friend being run into with someone’s wheely-bag, getting a blood clot and spending about a week in a decidedly unscenic hospital. Forewarned is fore-armed.

Also, I’ve been to Dresden; I like it fine, but I’m for Berlin on this trip.

Well, when I arrived in Berlin, at a train station the size of Bakersfield, I somehow managed to make my way to the S-Bahn (which was a modern wonder in itself; they’re signed, but that station is a freaking forest of signage), and determine which line I needed, and which direction. I got onto the right train, with my really heavy bag—those Germans, bless them, align the platform perfectly with the floor of the car, and there’s no more of a gap between them than you’d find in the groove of a tram line). In two stops, I was out into the big city.

Confession—I did not pay for that ride. I’ll get the concierge at my hotel to tell me how to get the tickets, and I’ll just buy an extra one and not use it. A girl has to know her limitations, and I was hitting mine at that hauptbahnhof.

Google Maps is not always your friend, I have found, but eventually I made it to the hotel (which was where my friends Dick and Carolyn stayed on that fateful journey). I have to laugh—the Radisson Blu is on Karl Liebknecht-Straße. A business-focused corporate hospitality superpower is on the street named for a Spartacist revolutionary who was murdered, along with Rosa Luxembourg, by the Freikorps in 1919.

I have an “Aquarium View” room. Which is interior facing, but filling a big chunk of the atrium is indeed a big-ass multi-story aquarium. Viz:

I rather think the novelty of looking out on the fish is going to wear off pretty soon, and I wish I’d chosen a street-facing room, so I could look out at the city, but c’est la vie. They turn off the lights at night, so the fish can get whatever shuteye they get. I wonder what they feed them, though?

Since I’d spent much of the day on my butt, I got some pointers from the concierge (who actually seems to know his concierge onions). Apparently maps are outré; everyone has smartphones. I told him my smartphone hadn’t been exceptionally smart getting me here. Besides, I’m a girl who likes redundant systems.

Anyhow, I took a stroll down Unter den Linden to the Brandenberger Tor, past the Adlon Hotel, which is where all the correspondents used to hang out back in the pre-war days.

I was rather taken by this equestrian statue; I guessed it was probably Friedrich II, and indeed it was.

And then back here for a spot of supper and a good soak in another great Euro tub. Now to figure out A Plan for this city.

Thanksgiving 2018

It’s Thanksgiving Day back in America. I’ll be spending a good chunk of the day in transit, on a train from Prague to Berlin. I haven’t been on a train in 18 years, so this will be quite the adventure.

As I wrote the draft for this post, I’d just finished my last dinner in Prague. (Yes, it was heaps better than the one the night before. If I ever return to the city, I’ll definitely want to try the place again.) And I thought about what things must be like across my homeland. That mad, hysterical dash to get all the food for the feast, start the cooking, iron the linens, clear out the medicine cabinet in the guest bathroom so your nosy relatives don’t go snooping…that anxiety-laden dash that starts to fade around maybe 1800-1900, when the stores close.

Once those doors shut, you’re stuck with what you have on hand, unless 7-Eleven can make up the delta. Just do the best you can, pour an extra slurp of the chardonnay in everyone’s glasses and enjoy what’s there before you.

It occurred to me that I’ve not heard at what time today Black Friday will start today. In recent years, it’s been all over the news which stores are beating the competition to open earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving Thursday in hopes of scooping up everyone’s holiday-shopping dollars before the competition gets to your wallets.

Interestingly, Black Friday has made it over to the Continent. It’s been in the UK for a while, but I saw adverts for a local department store (a holdover from the good old days of Communism), viz:

And here’s one of their store windows:

I’m guessing that Kotva’s not the only store in the country pumping up the punters to buy. I wonder what I’ll find in Berlin?

Well, anyhow, it’s Thanksgiving. I’m grateful I’ve been able to spend six days in a country I’ve never been to before. I’ll be visiting a city I’ve never seen before, and returning to one I love.

I have a job; 23 of my colleagues—including my former boss—came to work on 1 November and were told they did not, out of the blue. I have a house, and a friend is feeding my birdies in my absence. (I didn’t want them to go hungry while I’m away.)

I have no plans any time soon to eat romaine lettuce (although I’m a little worried about the bunch of it I chopped up and tossed out for the critters when I was cleaning out my refrigerator before I left. I hope they’re all okay).

I have this blog, which gives me the platform to process things in the world. It’s held me together through very challenging times.

In the wider sphere, I'm grateful for those who have committed themselves to service. The lower-court judges who have time and again struck down cruel and illegal attempts by the regime to implement authoritarian rule. The men and women of our armed services. First responders and ER/hospital staff who never have holidays from cleaning up the various messes we manage to get ourselves into. 

The journalists who tirelessly report events globally to bring us the facts, whether or not anyone in power is pleased by the truth. As we all know, they sometimes do so at risk of their lives. 

The firefighters still battling the wildfires in California and the workers supporting them; also without holiday. Additionally, all the relief staff who've organized shelters, meals, clothing and comfort for the thousands who've lost everything in those fires. And the veterinarians who are tending to injured and traumatized animals who've lost their humans in all the confusion. God bless all you kind, generous souls.

(And the Finns, who have magnificently shown up the Kleptocrat for the moronic buffoon he is—in the way most guaranteed to make it smart: by laughing at him.) 

In short: every person who chooses kindness over indifference, integrity over power, generosity over greed, law over ruthlessness, truth over expediency, compassion over cruelty. They give hope and inspiration that we can all do better, and for this I am deeply grateful.

May you have at least as many things to be thankful for in your life, too.

A couple of meals

Mixed day yesterday. Was going okay until I went to the restaurant recommended by one of the less-than-stellar concierges at the hotel. (Although, tbh, it’s not clear to me that these people are anything other than reception clerks. When you dial “Concierge” on the room phone, they pick it up saying “Reception”, and they’re at the desk where you check in and out, so I’m thinking they’re glorified front deskers with ideas above their station.)

I didn’t like the looks of it—not only is it in the thick of the tourist area, but they seated me at a table so far out I think it wasn’t in Prague any more. Where it was, however, was smack next to the toilets, in front of a doorway that let cold damp air gush in every time smokers went out/in, and across from (and I am not making this up) this:

So, because I was hungry, I ordered “Moravian Sparrows” (pork with cabbage and some kind of doughy things that I think were dumplings), a bottle of sparkling water and a glass of Moravian red. Tbf, the food was fine. But what completely soured me on the experience was when the host brought the bill—for about 400 CZK “and the service is not included” and made change for the 1000 CZK note I gave him. Instead of the loose coins, a 100 CZK and a 500 CZK bills, he haltingly counted out the coins, two 50 CZK coins and three 200s. As I tucked the bills into my wallet, he scooped up all the coins and gabbled “thisisforthetipthankyou”.

Dude—I did not intend to leave you a $5 tip on a $20 tab.

From his adeptness at this, I’m guessing he’s very well practiced.

Well, I suppose you have to get suckered at least once on a trip. But it pisses me off.

So let me show you something to balance that.

On my trip to Terezín, as I was walking back from the outer parts of the town, I noticed that someone had dumped a basketful of apples by a little stream. They hadn’t been there when I’d headed out, so it had happened within about an hour. I noticed the apples and wondered…and then I saw the reason(s):

Since the clan (I counted seven, but there could well have been more) came out of the water, my guess is beaver, but I’m not sure. I couldn't see any tails; you see any tails?

Here’s some rather shaky video (it was very, very cold).

Bon appétit, little dudes. You’re having a better meal than I did.

Capital life

Okay, I have a lot to process from Sunday and yesterday, so let me share today a few things in Prague I found…interesting.

When I got off the Metro yesterday afternoon at Václavské náměstí, I came across this:

A street performer was using some industrial-strength bubble blowing device to fill the sky with bubbles. A very nice change from the frozen human statues you so often see. This was just down the pedestrian street from Hamleys, so the guy knows his market.

And on Sunday I saw this, ah, preferred (?) parking spot:

Seriously—how do you park in this spot? And—keeping in mind that driver’s seat is on the left—how do you get out of the car once you’ve parked?

But here’s another parking solution I saw yesterday: