As the year draws to a close, I'm wondering what 2015 will hold...

2014 began for me with a hungover walk around the streets of Prenzlauer Berg.  I had wanted to take some photographs of the carnage left after the New Year festivities.  The streets were strewn with spent fireworks and empty bottles and the smell of cordite lingered in the air.  As I was walking down Stargarder Strasse, a man stopped me.  He had a half-empty Rotkäppchen bottle in one hand and a half empty beer bottle in the other, both gleaned no doubt from amongst the discarded remnants of the night before.  His purpose in approaching me had been to point out that avocadoes were being sold at €1.50 for three at a nearby späti, information he clearly thought worth sharing.

I didn’t take advantage of the offer.

Later that day we ate Vietnamese food in the ‘Asia Dream’ restaurant which was next door to where we lived at the time and had an early night; a fairly uninspiring start to what was to be the best year of my life so far.

For my final post of 2014 I was considering writing a standard ‘look back at the year’ piece.  However, I had already produced a comprehensive three-part post at the end of October to commemorate my first year in Berlin, so I decided against it as I would probably have ended up repeating much of that material.

Instead I’m thinking about the year ahead because it can only hold two possibilities for me: that at least one of us will land a job that brings in enough to keep us here in Berlin or that we return to the UK.  The latter possibility fills me with dread, and I’m refusing to consider it as an option while I still have six months left here.

What disheartens me in my search for a job is that I know of some hugely talented and highly qualified natives who can’t get work.  My tandem partner, a Berliner with excellent qualifications, has been unemployed for a year, and a neighbour who has been a freelance journalist for two decades is finding it impossible to secure a permanent post.

Another concern is the way in which the UK’s political climate seems to be shaping up.  I am horrified by the rise of far right groups and the promotion of parties such as UKIP.  As if the present coalition wasn’t bad enough with its hatred of the vulnerable, dismantling of the NHS, and sheer economic incompetence, I fear that what could take its place in next year’s election might be even worse. 

If we do have to return to the UK it will mean leaving behind the wonderful friends we have made and saying goodbye to the only place I’ve ever really felt at home.   

There are still this evening’s cocktails and fireworks to look forward to, but I’m already wondering where I will be and what I will be writing twelve months from now...

 

The morning after the night before 

Thanks to everyone who’s taken the time to read my blog this year and followed my adventures, my successes and failures, and my ramblings about life in the city that I love.

Happy 2015!

 

Christmas traditions old and new in the Hauptstadt.

December in Berlin is all about Christmas.  The city’s commercial activity is firmly focused on it as florists begin to trade almost exclusively in poinsettias, fir branches and mistletoe, gingerbread and stollen start to appear in the bakeries and we allow ourselves to be enticed by the festive flavours of the Christmas markets.

There are markets of all kinds and with varying levels of razzmatazz, from folksy craft markets to full-on kitsch fests with skating rinks and fairground rides.  One (Potsdamer Platz) has a toboggan run, while others have an ‘alternative’ or ‘green’ focus.  But everyone has their favourites and one of mine is the Scandinavian-themed market at the Kulturbrauerei.  Its attractions are fairly low-key; some, such as the glühwein yurt, are charmingly unique.  It also has the added allure of being very close to where I live.

 

 

Flammkuchen vendor in the Kulturbrauerei

 

 

Finnish specialities proving popular

Another market I’ve always had a soft spot for and generally pay a visit to at some point is ‘Weihnachtszauber’ in the Gendarmenmarkt with its characteristic ‘tented’ stalls.  This seems to be a perennial favourite on the ‘top markets’ lists, not least for its beautiful setting.  Outside in the square live music is played, while indoors there are pop-up versions of nearby restaurants, a champagne bar and stalls selling good quality hand-made crafts.    

The lovely traditional market in Rixdorf only runs on the second weekend of Advent in this atmospheric corner of the city.  The stalls are run by locals or charities so there is a slight feeling of being at an open-air church bazaar but that for me makes it all the more in keeping with the Christmas spirit.  Attractions include a blacksmith and a little stable complete with donkeys. 

 

 

The market occupies the pretty streets around Richardplatz

 

 

Little donkeys!

 

The ‘Holy Heimat’ market at Neue Heimat in Friedrichshain is like a cross between a market and a ‘Bite Club’ event.  It’s an enchanting place to spend a couple of hours but I’m not sure the two-Euro entry fee is altogether justified.

 

 

Festive food truck at 'Holy Heimat'

 

 

Friday afternoon: a quiet moment in the bar 

Leaving the markets behind, last Tuesday evening we headed over to the Stadion and der Alten Försterei, home of 1. FC Union Berlin, to take part in the now traditional ‘Weihnachtssingen’ event.  This began a few years ago when a handful of fans broke into the ground to sing Christmas songs and has since grown into an organised, ticket-only annual event.  27000 people, mostly Union fans, gather to hold lighted candles and sing their way through a peculiar medley of Christmas hymns and football chants.

 

 

Union's red and white home colours are perfect for a Christmas event

 

The evening began the way an Union home game always does, with the crowd singing along to the club’s atmospheric anthem ‘Eisern Union’ by Nina Hagen.  Then followed the singing, readings from the club chaplain and a visit from the ‘Weihnachtsmann’.  The original spirit of the Weihnachtssingen may have disappeared but, with the twinkling candlelight and the stirring sound of ‘Stille Nacht’ ringing around the ground, I find it one of the more delightful and unusual of the city’s seasonal events.

Kollwitzkiez: a much-maligned favourite corner and the issue of gentrification

 

Kollwitzkiez is for the most part a rather sedate corner of Berlin, only approaching anything like liveliness on a Saturday when the weekly street market is in full swing.  The area, with its pretty cobbled streets, is often dismissed as over-gentrified, populated by middle-class bohemians and smug parents, but it’s a neighbourhood that I’ve developed a genuine affection for over the years.  In the past I would often begin a visit to the city with a Saturday morning wander around the market and breakfast in one of the area’s many cafes.

In those days the market occupied the sections of Knaackstrasse and Wörther Strasse that embrace Kollwitzplatz, the triangular ‘square’ at the heart of the kiez, until a resident’s complaint about noise forced the move to Kollwitzstrasse where it now runs from the junction with Knaackstrasse to about halfway between Wörther Strasse and Sredzkistrasse. 

There is some quality produce on offer here: fruit and veg, bread and cakes, meat and cheese, as well as flowers, handmade clothing, jewellery and gifts.  There is usually a busker or two to be found along the way and the air is filled with aromas from the various food trucks.  Market-goers stand around high tables feasting on their tasty treats or gossiping over glasses of wine.  If it’s a sunny day they might repair to the long curving bench on the corner of Wörther Strasse to picnic on their spoils, sometimes even bringing along collapsible tables for the purpose. 

In the square, the Käthe Kollwitz statue keeps watch over the proceedings while kids run around in the play areas and parents gather in groups to chat.  One can only wonder what Kollwitz, a committed socialist whose art depicted the living conditions of the working-class poor, would have made of such bourgeois goings-on in the street that bears her name. 

 

The lady herself: Kollwitz's works are powerful and at times heartbreaking.

 

For this little pocket of Prenzlauer Berg epitomises the gentrification phenomenon about which it seems that almost everyone has something to say (even though the facades of the buildings on Husemannstrasse were refurbished before the Wall fell). 

It is a common complaint, and one with which I utterly concur, that ‘upward’ shifts in a given area are caused by the incursions of those with the wherewithal to buy themselves a slice of the action in the ‘cool’ and ‘edgy’ neighbourhoods (I must add, however, that it seems to me that sometimes these grievances come from those who are every bit to blame.  Having gotten wind of where the supposedly hip and happening quarters are and taken themselves there in order to be part of the scene, they then resent anyone who does likewise.  In reality, the ‘struggling artists’, students and creatives who were driven there in the first place by economic necessity and ended up inadvertently putting the neighbourhood on the map have probably already decamped to other obscure corners of the city as rapacious landlords cash in on the area’s new-found hype.  They leave in their wake an homogeneous hipster population which has already set about creating an urban environment in its own image whilst bemoaning the slide into gentility).

Gentrification is a critical issue in Berlin. Sadly, it seems inevitable that one neighbourhood after another will be ‘discovered’ and refashioned to cater for the demands of the bland.  As ever, money wins and no amount of ‘Fuck off yuppies’ graffiti seems capable of changing that (yuppies not only fail to recognise themselves, they are also stupendously thick-skinned).

And cities are organic; fluid and ever-evolving.  In Berlin the process has often been accelerated by human agency; changes have been both evolutionary and revolutionary and the city has worn many different faces in its remarkable history.

Which brings me back to Kollwitzkiez.  Like the rest of Prenzlauer Berg, it was originally a solidly working-class neighbourhood, its tenements little more than charmless slums.  It became home to the artists, intellectuals and ‘subversives’ of the DDR and continued to attract a similar demographic after reunification.  Although the predictable drift towards mainstream respectability followed, this was in no small part down to those early settlers themselves maturing and prospering but staying put in the environment they’d grown to love.

It may have long since settled into a middle-class contentment that many find dull and mediocre but it has remained a neighbourhood with a distinct community feel.  It has never degenerated into a tourist trap with a McDonalds on one corner, a Starbucks on the other and a succession of dismal chain stores in between.  Independent shops and cafes abound and although one can find the odd hipster mainstay in the shape of a ‘third wave’ coffee shop or ‘street food’ kitchen, many are established and beloved local institutions. 

 

Coledampf's kitchen shop with its pots and pans sculpture looking suitably festive

 

In addition to the Saturday market, Kollwitzplatz also boasts a smaller organic market on a Thursday and, at this time of year, a Sunday Adventsmarkt.

An Education

A couple of weeks ago, a friend e-mailed me to say that a friend of his was looking for an English teacher for two eight year old girls and he had suggested she contact me.  As all of my teaching experience has been in further education and with mainly adult learners, kids are way outside my comfort zone.  However, I thought it couldn’t hurt, it would be a job and it would give me some valuable experience in working with kids.

So last Wednesday afternoon I made my way down to a school in Kreuzberg where I was to meet the girls and their parents for an interview.  The girls had been having private English lessons but their previous tutor had left so their parents were looking for another.  The idea was that I would pick them up from after-school club on Wednesday afternoons and walk them home where they would have a snack then have a couple of hours of English tuition.  The mum had to leave for a Christmas party so the dad, the girls and I walked to their home – a palatial flat in a converted brewery complex.  To say that they didn’t exactly warm to me would be a massive understatement; they seemed to regard me with the utmost suspicion.  On the walk home, which took us through the Viktoria Park, they merely shrugged their shoulders or said ‘don’t know’ to every question I asked them.  Once or twice, one of them whispered a reply to dad who then repeated it to me.  Back at the flat, dad left us and we sat around the kitchen table where the pattern of shrugging and don’t knowing continued.  One sat with her hands over her eyes, the other with her head resting on her arms. 

After about an hour of persevering, I left.  I explained to dad that it had been difficult to get them to respond and that whilst I would be happy to return the following week with the materials for a proper session, I would understand if they didn’t feel it would work.

I heard nothing more until Tuesday when I received an e-mail asking me to meet the girls at the school on the Wednesday and give them a trial lesson.

I prepared some exercises and games with a Christmas theme and set off with a slight feeling of dread but reasoning that I had nothing to lose really beyond the cost of the journey.  This time they were a little more talkative on the walk home (although to each other rather than to me, but still it was an improvement on the previous week).    

After discarding our outer layers in the entrance hall – which is about half the size of my living room – the girls had some chocolate cake which must have contained more sugar than a year’s supply of Haribos because within seconds of eating it they both took off like rockets, racing around the flat, squealing, slamming doors and generally going bonkers.

Somehow I managed to persuade them back to the table where I got the session underway with a game.  The sugar-rush was short-lived and they calmed down almost as swiftly as if they’d been shot with tranquiliser darts.

They did get a burst of energy towards the end, when they got up and started hurling themselves to the floor, pretending to be goalkeepers.  I’m pretty sure they will have bruises given the enthusiasm with which they performed this exercise.

At six, after a number of exercises and a game of Christmas bingo, the session was over, the parents were pleased and I got invited to return in the New Year to carry on the sessions on a weekly basis.

 

November

 

 

As November arrived the city was aflame with autumn colour and the weather was still warm enough for al fresco eating and drinking.  It ended with the festive flavours of the Christmas markets and bitingly cold temperatures.  November is probably my favourite month; the four o’clock twilights never fail to take me by surprise and I love the seasonal spectacle as the leaves turn.  I packed quite a lot into those thirty short days despite spending many of them tramping the streets taking photographs of the city’s changing face.  

My literary needs were fulfilled by a number of events of varying kinds.  One Tuesday evening, I headed down to the delightful Curious Fox bookshop in Neukölln for a reading that coincided with the shop’s first anniversary.  An impressive turnout meant that some had to sit on the floor and wine was served in coffee cups due to a shortage of glassware.  The event, which was being broadcast live on a local internet radio station, kicked off with two Berlin-based writers, Dusty-Anne Rhodes and Priscilla Bergey, sharing their autobiographical fiction.  After a short break, the poets took to the microphone.  Guest readers Alistair Noon and Bernadette Geyer each read a selection of their poetry, then the evening ended with an open mic session.   

A couple of evenings later, the Circus Hostel hosted the launch of Mauerweg: Stories from the Berlin Wall Trail by Paul Scraton and Paul Sullivan of Slow Travel Berlin.  The book’s release was timed to coincide with the Mauerfall anniversary and the evening began with an interview with the writers whose contributions to it were based on their experiences of (separately) walking the Mauerweg.  I would heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in the city, in the ways in which it negotiates its place in the post-Cold War landscape and the continued impact of the Wall on its psyche.

In the wintry dusk of the last Saturday of the month, I met up with a group of fellow scribblers at the Naturkunde museum for a writing workshop run by The Reader Berlin.  I’ve been to a couple of The Reader’s events and written about them in previous posts.  This one followed the established itinerary of one of Victoria’s ‘Get Inspired’ workshops – we meet at a given location, and draw inspiration from it to complete a series of writing activities then make our way to Another Country bookshop where we continue to work on the pieces we’ve begun before being served one of owner Sophie’s buffet dinners.  After a few glasses of wine, those who wish to can read out their work.  This time the workshop was attended by Anna Stothard whose current novel-in-progress is set over a twenty-four-hour period in the museum.  Anna explained why she found it to be such an inspirational place and introduced us to her favourite of its animal specimens, then after dinner she entertained us with a reading from her forthcoming novel. 

I also submitted an entry to The Reader’s short story competition, dropping it off at Another Country one Friday afternoon.  The short story is not my preferred form but I found the challenge of completing a piece of work to a deadline and with a set a word limit a beneficial exercise in discipline.  The theme of the competition is ‘Berlin’ so I culled an episode from a longer narrative that I’ve been working on and honed it into shape as a self-contained piece.

Undoubtedly the ‘event’ of the month was the Mauerfall 25^th anniversary weekend.  I’ve written a separate post all about this so I won’t repeat it here.  Over the course of the weekend I met a couple of Twitter pals who had come to visit especially for the occasion and kindly found time in their schedules to hook up for drinks, chats and photo opportunities at the ‘Lichtgrenze’.

Another UK visitor was my mum who arrived for a whistlestop two-night jaunt last Monday, in time for the opening of this year’s Christmas markets.  On Monday afternoon we kept things fairly low-key with a visit to the lovely Scandinavian-themed market in the Kulturbrauerei followed by some traditional German food at Zum Schusterjungen.  Then on Tuesday we began our onslaught of the markets in earnest.  From Alexanderplatz we walked a meandering route through the Nikolaiviertel and along Unter den Linden to the market at Gendarmenmarkt.  Our last stop before heading back to Prenzlauer Berg was the lively Potsdamer Platz with its toboggan run.  One final tour of the Kulturbrauerei market – this time by night – rounded off our day. 

Besides playing host to my mum, we also entertained our neighbours Tilo and Franziska one Saturday evening.  Earlier in the year we'd been to a barbecue in their datscha garden in Pankow so we wanted to return the hospitality.  Alarmingly, Franziska asked for English food so we had an evening of cottage pie, trifle and Marston’s beer.  I’m pleased to say that they are still friends with us.

As well as attending to the culinary whims of our fellow humans, we did a couple of stints of pet-sitting in November.  Friends of ours were spending the Mauerfall weekend in Leipzig so we took care of their pug, Norbert.  As we’re going to be looking after him over Christmas, the weekend afforded an ideal opportunity for a trial run which, luckily, proved successful.  Since last Wednesday we’ve been camping out in Weissensee looking after BunBun, the feline companion of a couple of friends who have been away celebrating Thanksgiving in the USA.

The month ended in a very agreeable fashion yesterday afternoon as we made our way to Restaurant Breslau to meet up with yet another Berlin-loving Twitter pal.  A bleak and bitter wind was howling along Prenzlauer Allee but this cosy Polish eatery provided the perfect place to hole up for a Sunday afternoon of dumplings and vodka.

So, to summarise the month: I prowled the streets taking photographs, I did some reading, writing and listening, met some new friends, did some pet-sitting, played tour guide to my mum and cooked English food for two Germans.  I also ate a phenomenal amount of pizza, watched the entire first series of 'Lilyhammer', went to a birthday party and a craft beer tasting, taught a session at the language exchange and had a couple of meetings with my tandem partner (accompanied by some serious cake).  And amongst all of that, I completed a short story, visited half a dozen Christmas markets and witnessed an historic event.  All told, a very busy November!

The woods decay and fall

 

Late on Sunday afternoon we went out for a stroll and ended up walking through the Kulturbrauerei where the stalls had been partially assembled for the Christmas markets which begin next week.  It had been dank and drizzly all day and as we settled into the cosy surroundings of a candlelit bar, I wondered if Berlin’s spectacular autumn was finally coming to an end.

For the past few weeks the city has really been putting on a show, displaying the entire palate of autumn hues: sulphur and gold, ochre and fiery red, copper and rust.  Whilst some of its colours have mellowed, others have blazed.  It has been a delight to walk around my neighbourhood of Prenzlauer Berg witnessing this extravaganza.  In fact I’ve found it impossible to stay indoors and I’ve ventured out daily to wander the streets taking photographs.

 

Play area between Kanzowstrasse and Wichertstrasse

 

 

A carpet of fallen leaves in Zionskirchpatz

 

 

An October Sunday in Helmholtzplatz

More often than not my ramblings have taken me to the area around Kollwitzplatz – a pretty enough corner of the city at any time of the year with its cobbles and ornate street signs.  The leafy canopy over its shops and cafes is the icing on Kollwitzplatz’s cake.  In summer its foliage is so dense that sunlight only reaches the pavements in Pollock-esque splashes.  Now the leaves have bronzed and fallen, yet the beauty of this quarter only seems to have been enhanced.

 

Still plenty of green in late October

 

 

The Saturday market at Kollwitzplatz - evidence of the approaching season

 

 

Last Thursday - towards late afternoon the square assumes a more wintry aspect

 

Leaving Prenzlauer Berg, last Friday I had to run an errand to Kreuzberg.  I was rewarded with the opportunity for more photographs in Mariannenplatz which, under its tawny cloak, had a slightly ‘New England’ feel:

 

 

Very soon the city’s trees will be completely bare, the aroma of glühwein will fill the air and out will come those jumpers and scarves as we steel ourselves for the long Berlin winter ahead.

 

Deserted tables outside Café Liebling a tell-tale sign that the temperature is dropping.

 

A lantern hanging from a tree glows in the twilight

 

Mauerfall

 

For the past few weeks, the attention here in Berlin has all been focused on the 25^th anniversary of the ‘Mauerfall’.  Had we kept to our original plan of living in the city for a year, we would have been back in England now and would have missed this special time.

On 9^th November 1989, after having divided the city for almost thirty years, the Berlin Wall was opened, changing the course of world history.  For the fall of the Wall brought an end to a political situation that had originated in ideas formulated in the Nineteenth Century and which had evolved through two world wars, the collapse of three empires and the emergence of totalitarian dictatorships, to decades of tension between two nuclear superpowers.

For someone old enough to remember the Wall and its demise, it’s almost impossible to imagine that it has actually been down now for almost as long as it had stood and that a whole generation has been born and grown up without it being an immutable part of the political landscape.  Because that’s how the Wall had seemed during the years of the Cold War.  It was the physical embodiment of the ‘Iron Curtain’, an impenetrable border between the Western world and the Communist Bloc, as obdurate as the conflicting ideologies either side of it.  And there cannot have been a more emotive symbol of that conflict. 

For the West, the Wall represented oppression whilst the East Germans who ordered its construction regarded it as a necessary means of preventing citizens educated and trained at the DDR’s expense from taking their skills to the West.  Many who still attempted a Westward move without going through the official channels were killed in the process.  Narratives of the Wall tell of both successful and failed escape attempts and of the impact it had on those whose lives were marked by it.  Psychological repercussions were inevitable and, though the Wall has been gone for a quarter of a century, the ‘Mauer im Kopf’ has proven a much more resilient barrier.

Reunification too has not been without its problems.  Many East Germans have felt that it amounted to an invasion resulting in the loss of their homeland while the Western view is that the country should never have been divided in the first place.

As a left-leaning Cold War kid, I was pained by the collapse of Communism in that I’d hoped a modernised, more open form of socialism might take its place.  Without it, rampant capitalism has been allowed to flourish unchecked and the consequences have been dire for the whole world.  I’m not denying that the dismantling of the Wall was a good thing, I just believe that not all of the subsequent developments have been.  It’s also ironic that Western leaders, so vociferous in their condemnation of the Berlin Wall are now utterly silent about Israel’s brutal ‘West Bank Barrier’.

The border crossing at the Bösebrücke at Bornholmer Strasse was the point at which the Wall was first breached.  Last Wednesday, we took a walk down to the bridge to have a look at the ‘Lichtgrenze’ as it was being set in place (the Lichtgrenze, or ‘light border’ is a nine-mile trail of illuminated balloons laid out along the course of the Wall between Bornholmer Strasse and the East Side Gallery to commemorate the Mauerfall). 

 

The installation leading down from the bridge...

 

 

...towards the Mauerpark

 

By Friday, the balloons had been added and all over the weekend, images of the Lichtgrenze appeared on TV and social media.

 

Friday in the Mauerpark

 

On Saturday I found myself down by the Brandenburger Tor.  It was absolute chaos - certainly not for me - but I did manage to take a few photographs.

 

 

'Entertainment' at the Brandenburger Tor, Saturday evening

This evening, we’re going to witness the balloons being released.  It’s been an amazing experience being in the city for such a momentous anniversary – I can only imagine the euphoria here twenty five years ago.

Completing the Picture

For the final instalment of my 'One Year On' trilogy, I had a trawl back through the hundreds of photos I've taken since landing here on 30th October last year and selected one for each month:

November

 

This was one Sunday after we'd been for a lazy brunch buffet at a café on Helmholzplatz

I spent most of the month getting used to my new environment, we bought bikes and cycled to parts of the city we hadn't been to before, we started attending the language exchange and I enrolled on a German course.

December

 

There are Christmas markets and there are Christmas markets but there is only one Bite Club

December in Berlin is all about Christmas.  I think we went to practically every one of the markets.  We had a little trip to Mallorca and we were in England for the day itself but were back in the city in time for the mayhem of New Year's Eve, which we spent in the company of a honeymooning Australian Green Party MP and his new bride.  Our culinary adventures included the Bite Club at Urban Spree and our first visit to Street Food Thursday at Markthalle Neun.

January

 

The snow finally arrived - I couldn't resist taking a picture of this little guy when I saw him sitting outside a café on Kollwitzplatz

February

 

Highlight of the month was the Berlinale which I've talked about in a previous post.  I didn't take an awful lot of pictures during this month; I spent one week of it laid up with a horrid lurgy for a start. 

I did however discover this interestingly-named beer at Leibhaftig in Metzer Strasse.

March

 

What do you do with an old coffee machine? Stick daffodils in it of course!  A perfect example of the Berlin culture of recycling and re-purposing, outside Café Sloerm on Danziger Strasse.

We both had our birthdays in March and the weather really picked up.  I went to a couple of literary events too in this month and did my first session at the language exchange.

April

 

The 'Party Tram' making its way along Kastanienallee

We moved to our current flat at the end of April and I started my TEFL course.  Apart from a visit from my mum at the beginning of the month, and a very chilly Easter, April was fairly low-key.

May

 

There's always a lot going on in May, not least the festivities on May Day itself.  This picture, of the police harassing buskers in the Mauerpark, was taken one lovely Sunday afternoon.  By the end of the month there seemed to have been an exceptional number of Bank Holidays, the final one being 'men's day' in which groups of men apparently bond over outdoor activities (I take that to mean they go to beer gardens).


June

 

This goth market, called the Dunkelmarkt (dark market), took place on the first Sunday in June in the building across the road from our flat.  Ever curious, I had to go in for a nose around.  It naturally resembled a crypt inside but out in the yard there was the curious sight of a goth barbecue taking place.

The World Cup started this month.  We got to see a game at the 'Wohnzimmer' in the Alte Foersterei and I hooked up with a tandem partner in a bid to improve my German.  I also submitted a 30-page piece of creative writing to publishers Jonathan Cape who were having an open submissions month.  I never got to hear back from them but I wasn't really expecting to.  For me it was more of an exercise in discipline and working to a deadline.

July

 

Walking home one night, we came across this fashion show which disrupted the traffic

 in Schoenhauser Allee.  It seemed so typically Berlin to stage it in a street with four lanes

of traffic and two tram lines. 

For me July was all about writing.  At the beginning of the month I went on a one-day writing workshop in Kreuzberg and at the end of the month I went to the Reader Berlin's literary festival at Gorgast.  In between I wrote practically non-stop, finding shady cafes to sit in as the weather was brutally hot.

The World Cup finished and the city went wild.  During this month we cycled quite a few times down to Moabit to assist a friend in need whose knee operation had coincided with the acquisition of his new dog.  We rode down a couple of times a week to walk the pooch Norbert (who is also going to be our guest this Christmas).

August

 

Everything seems to move outdoors in the summer months, including the cinemas. 

We went to see a film at this 'freiluft' kino at the delightful Insel Berlin,

an island in the middle of the Spree accessed via an almost impossibly steep footbridge.

September

 

Our dog-owning friend was up and about by September and introduced us to the weekend Thai food Market at Fehrbelliner Platz - an amazing experience.  The local Thai community occupy the park, setting up makeshift food stalls with little more than a few mats and a wok but managing to rustle up some fantastic fare.  This lady was doing a brisk trade in fried bugs.

Back on European culinary territory, we had our wedding anniversary this month and went to the ambient Poulette restaurant in Knaackstrasse, opposite the Wasserturm.  It's French and it's lovely.

Another September highlight was going to a screening of some old Stasi training films at the Lichtblick Kino, hosted by Exberliner magazine.  The films, from the Stasi archive and never seen by the public before, were fascinating and there was a discussion afterwards of the Stasi's methods and of films such as The Lives of Others, which drew on the archive films for some of its material.

My pick of September's literary 'soirees' was the first of Katy Derbyshire's 'Parallel Lines' salons at ACUD on Veteranenstrasse.  This excellent venue also hosted an 'Open House' one weekend - one of our friends was performing a DJ set so we went along to offer our support.

Other events in this busy month included the 'Popfest' at the Gruener Salon and my first visit of the season to watch Union Berlin beat RB Leipzig at the Alte Foersterei.


October

 

The summer had its swan song a couple of weekends ago with temperatures in the mid-twenties on the Sunday.  We had a Berlin epic that day, visiting all of our favourite Sunday places. 

In Zionskirchplatz, en route to the flea market at Arkonaplatz after coffee, cake and wine at Weinerei, I stopped to take this picture of the fallen leaves.

So, one year down.  It's been so eventful, and I've had to leave so much out (otherwise this post would go on forever).  I just wonder what the coming year will bring...

One year on (Part Two)

Moving to Berlin was such a monumental adventure that as soon as I arrived here I was determined to record every last detail.  As part of this project I started my blog and began keeping a diary.  However, the diary didn’t quite work out as I’d intended, becoming merely a bland and neutral list of things I’d done.  A typical entry is this, from last November:

Monday 25^th – Start of the Christmas markets – cold crisp weather.  Bought some DVDs from the bargain boxes outside the shop on Schönhauser Allee.  Wandered down to the market at the Kulturbrauerei, & had flammkuchen from the man in the funny hat.  So delicious, especially with the fairy-liquid coloured garlic sauce.  Stopped on the way back for coffee at Atopia.  Think the wintry weather has finally rolled into town. 

And this, from July, is no better:

Sunday 6^th – Baking hot.  We walked down to the Mauerpark, loped around the flea market then down to La Focacceria for a couple of slices of pizza.  Bought a bottle of water in Gleimstrasse and poured some over my head just to cool down.  In the evening we had a few beers at Wohnzimmer, sitting outside. 

It’s hardly Samuel Pepys.  All that my diary is able to tell really me is that on a particular day I’d been in a particular bar or café or walked down a particular street, with a few mentions of the weather thrown in.  I have attempted to address this by writing more fully about my day to day experiences but I wonder if it’s even possible to produce an accurate account of something while you are actually immersed in it and whether it might only be later, when you are able to properly reflect, that you can begin to deal with it appropriately. 

Another reason for my lack of productivity in this could also be that I’ve been having such a bloody good time.  Philip Larkin once said that happiness ‘writes white’, that it produces only empty pages.  It’s certainly true that I can always find plenty to say about my more negative experiences while trying to write interestingly about the brilliant stuff is often just beyond me.

Part of the problem might also lie with Berlin itself.  Back in June, I went to hear Rory MacLean discuss his book, Berlin: Imagine a City.  One of the points that came up in the discussion was the difficulty of writing about the city, as though it were somehow evading attempts to commit it to paper.

But whilst my ability to write about my life in Berlin has been somewhat inhibited at times, my creative imagination has flourished.  Besides focusing, often manically, on the various fictional pieces that I’ve been working on for years, I have found myself writing down some of my experiences as though they too were events in a fictional narrative.  Approaching it this way, treating myself as a character in my own ‘story’ and creating fictional counterparts for the people I’ve come to know, has seemed a much easier undertaking.   I’ve tended mainly to do this when I’ve had my more unusual or disorientating experiences so these accounts often have a darkly comical feel.  They also amount to a sizeable narrative that bears only a passing resemblance to the characters or events that inspired it. 

It’s very unreliable as a memoir but maybe in producing it I’ve inadvertently dug the foundations for my epic Berlin novel?

Berlin: One year on

On 24^th October last year, after eight years in the prison education job that I’d loved, I handed in my ID, belt, key and radio pouches and walked out through the gate for the last time, aware that I was cutting myself adrift from what had become a massive part of my life.

I was about to move to Berlin for what, at the time, was to be a one-year stay.  When, earlier in the year, Alan had suggested that we sell the flat in Chodowieckistrasse as there seemed little chance of us ever being able to occupy it, and use the proceeds to finance a year in the city, I initially thought it was a crazy idea.  However, the more I considered it, the more I realised that making one of those potentially reckless, no going back decisions was probably exactly what we needed.

We’d had four particularly stressful years when it seemed like we were clobbered by a new misfortune almost daily.  I’d had a scary medical condition which I recovered from physically, but took a long time to come to terms with psychologically.  Alan had bouts of depression which were aggravated by redundancy and a succession of bereavements, the final blow being the loss of his mum in July 2012 after a long and terrible battle with breast cancer.  We ended up in a rut, lacking the energy or motivation to do much more than sit watching repeats of 'Come Dine with Me'.

So coming to Berlin did have an element of ‘running away’ about it, but it has also been our salvation. 

I recall the strange mixture of excitement and fear at setting out on this new escapade.  During the first few weeks, I spent much of my time just wandering around the neighbourhood, taking it all in, trying to get a feel for the way life is lived here and to investigate things that it didn’t seem so important to know when we only came as visitors. 

 

One of my first photos - from the balcony of our flat in Prenzlauer Allee

 

It was a novelty having no job to have to get up for but it also felt strange having no structure to our days.  Despite suddenly having all of that time on our hands though, one thing we never were was bored.  There was simply too much to experience.

I couldn’t have predicted how the year would pan out.  It’s certainly not been without its problems, yet it has been the most enriching, mind-broadening, mad, and brilliant year of my life.

If we’d stuck to our original plans, we would be returning to England this weekend.  As it is, we’re going to be here now at least until the summer.  We might return skint but we’ll have had one hell of an adventure.

A neighbourhood of two halves

Although I'm a Prenzlauer Berger by tradition and temperament (albeit a non-pushchair-owning one), I love to explore the city's other neighbourhoods as each has its own individual character, often shaped by the people who live there.  Kreuzberg, once nestled against the Wall and home to  proponents of West German counter-culture, is one that wears two distinct faces: the 'edgy' east, bordered by the Spree ,and the more 'genteel' western half of the neighbourhood, cradled by Tempelhof airfield and the Viktoriapark.  

For me, the change of identity is most noticeable in a walk down Graefestrasse, which forms the central spine of a longer trek  from U-Bahnhof Moritzplatz (Line 8) to the airfield.  The distance is about 6km and would take around an hour and a half but, as ever, it’s possible to select a particular section and/or make stops along the way.

From the station, Oranienstrasse extends in both directions, but the most interesting stretch is the one to the east which cuts through Oranienplatz where hardly anything remains now of the refugee camp that occupied the platz until a few months ago.  I’d not been down Oranienstrasse for a while until, one Sunday in the summer we met friends for the flea market at Neukölln and our subsequent meanderings took us there.  The street has changed quite a bit in the ten years since I first walked down it. In those days it was already beginning to lose its ‘cool’ reputation and it has certainly acquired a few more designer shops and tourist buses since then.  It’s still a lively and often tatty street though with some good places to stop for food or drinks and, I’m happy to say, a lot of my old favourites are still around (it's also just a short walk to the appetite-inducing Markthalle Neun).

 

Looking across Heinrichplatz from an outside table at Bateau Ivre

 

From the junction at Görlitzer Bahnhof, walk down Manteuffelstrasse to the canal.  If it’s a Tuesday or Friday afternoon, the Turkish Market will be in full swing along the opposite bank.  I’ve already mentioned the market in a previous post so I won’t do so here.

Crossing Kottbusser Damm, Graefestrasse is a street that seems to change its identity at every junction.  At the top end, the Turkish flavour continues in the bars and cafes.  Further down, around the junctions with Böckhstrasse and Dieffensbachstrasse, things get a little gentrified.  The tree-lined streets around here are as prettily bourgeois-bohemian as anything around Kollwitzplatz.  Café Avril, on the corner of Böckhstrasse is an agreeable place to sit and people-watch for an hour or two.

Continuing southwards, there is a rather bland stretch between the junction with Urbanstrasse, down to Hasenheide.  Here, the Volkspark Hasenheide is an attractive diversion if the weather is suitable. It incorporates a small animal park, as well as plenty of paths and green spaces and, in summer, a freiluft kino.

 

Trümmerfrau memorial in Volkspark Hasenheide.

‘Trümmerfrau’ literally translates as ‘rubble woman’ and refers to the women who, after WWII helped clear the streets of the mountains of debris caused by allied bombing

 

On Hasenheide itself, between Graefestrasse and Südstern is the Brauhaus Südstern which offers beer, food and both indoor and outdoor seating. 

 

Beer-making apparatus in the Brauhaus Südstern

From Südstern the walk proceeds along Bergmannstrasse.  On the left hand side is a cemetery which I visited for the first time when I did a creative writing workshop in the summer.  It’s worth wandering into for its ornate crypts and memorial statuary (and the odd red squirrel).

Continuing along Bergmannstrasse, Marheinekeplatz has the Passionskirche at one end and the Marheineke Markthalle at the other.  On Saturday there is a lovely flea market in the square.  The Markthalle has a number of food stalls and is a good place to stop for something to eat, or to sit outside in the sunshine with a drink.  From Marheinekeplatz, Bergmannstrasse is lined with shops, cafes and bars.  A small detour can also be taken to Another Country bookshop in Riemannstrasse.

 

The Saturday flea market at Marheinekeplatz

Chamissoplatz is a pretty square just behind Bergmannstrasse where a small farmers’ market sets up on a Saturday.

From here, Mehringdamm can be reached via Fidicinstrasse or by continuing along Bergmannstrasse.   In the corner of a hof towards the Mehringdamm end of the street is Colours – one of my favourite vintage shops in the city.  It’s large inside so time is needed to properly explore.

Once on Mehringdamm it’s just a few hundred metres to the now closed Tempelhof airport.

In front of the airport buildings on Platz der Luftbrücke is the monument to the Berlin Airlift that took place between 1948 and 1949.

The airfield, which can be accessed via Columbiadamm, is vast.  In a referendum held earlier this year Berliners wholeheartedly rejected development plans for the site.  The runways are now used by joggers, walkers, skaters, cyclists and kite-flyers.  There are also dog runs, barbecue areas and toilet blocks.