I have the hallway of the JETpak hostel to myself. At 2:00 on a Friday/Saturday night, all the young'uns (and even the older ones who feel out of place) are partaking of Berlin's famed nightlife. I get all the bandwidth, but more importantly, I get the privacy I've been missing otherwise. It's been a long day of culture and cuisine, and my hopes lie tomorrow with the things open during business hours.
The morning began with a two-hour breakfast--more specifically, a two-hour hunt for breakfast that finally led me to the organic grocery just three blocks away. But in the meantime I discovered Lindt's chili chocolate at another grocery store with a strangely cheap looking exterior and yet classy interior complete with olive bar. I also got to know the neighborhood better on foot, so no time was lost.
What followed was a stop at the Sony Center and the alarming discovery that my camera batteries had died. I gave up people-watching over a frozen mocha as most of the people were tourists (excepting perhaps a middle-aged punk mom) and instead shamelessly pored over my lonely planet guide to Germany, knowing I was clueless in good company.
The Musikinstrumenten-Museum, which I'd promised myself I would visit when I passed by en route to the Bauhaus Museum last summer, was a stone's throw away. The structure and interior decoration were delightfully neo-Bauhaus, a strange setting for musical instruments from the middle ages to the present. Each instrument seemed to double my excitement; some were strange takes on things I knew, some were enormously elaborate, some were simply ridiculous. I enjoyed the collection doubly because I could now appreciate the countless historical keyboards and also make a point of examining the horns. Saturday's Wurlitzer performer entertained us with a rehearsal fraught with a persistent cipher, providing a strange soundtrack for my journey past 18th-century clavichords (if only I could have played one!) and lutes lined with scraps of medieval parchment. I never imagined I'd learn so much about the organ from this museum, but a 16th/17th-century collection from a church in Naumburg of everything from zinks to 8-foot schalmeis revealed the mysteries behind these eponymous pedal reed stops based on instruments totally alien to us today. Even the Wurlitzer was fun to examine, with all of the pipes, vibraphones, cymbals, etc. visible and clearly labeled. A wild section on computer music made me laugh and want to run out and buy a vintage synth for my own home, while a mock piano-making studio taught me about the manufacture of spring strings and other mysteries. I made off with eleven postcards and many free brochures and posters a good three hours later, having forced myself to rush so I could catch lunch by 15:00.
Catch lunch I did -- in the area around Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, a neighborhood of which I would happily become a denizen, had I reason to move to Berlin. Just blocks away from the courtyards of the Hackescher Markt, this trendy run-down neighborhood united Maura's requisite "a bit of sketch" with delicious cheap eastern eateries, cheap haircuts in chic salons, hip hop and eastern clothiers, and boutiques carrying stunning futuristic pieces to break any fashion-hungry girl's heart or budget. Monsieur Vuong himself reseated me from the bar as soon as a table became available, and my request for "some vegetarian noodle" quickly brought me an asymmetrical bowl of the best Asian noodles I've eaten in ages. I was blowing my nose with at least three others in the restaurant by the end, feeling thankful for my bowl of artichoke tea. The best meal (paling in 't groen excepted) I've had so far since arriving in Europe -- cost me 8 EUR.
After poking my head into the various shops, I hopped into a salon and enjoyed a shampoo and cut (blowdry and apply salon products of your choice yourself - fun!) for 11 EUR in an industrial-turned-Beaux-Arts concrete cavern. At this point, with my new favorite shirt (a black cotton sleeveless turtleneck that, with my gorgeous 'A' necklace, makes me look like a million dollars), billowing grey Urban Outfitters skirt, and b/w-striped arm warmers, I looked like an authentic Berliner. I love the fashion here. It's too broad to pinpoint (although prison stripes for gals and aviators for guys are definitely in), too wacky to find in one store, and thankfully bears no resemblance to the frill-fraught neutrals of Belgian female fashion that, to my dismay, have hardly changed since last year. Berliners aren't afraid to make fashion statements, and overwhelmingly the most favored one is the statement made in all black.
Thoroughly taken by this neighborhood, which despite its relative peace and quiet is minutes from the bustling elegant courtyards and stilettoed girls of the Hackescher Markt and nearly in the shadow of the Fersehturm, I found my impatience growing for something new and also non-intellectual to relieve all the effort I'd spent in the MiM. So into the gleaming hallways of KaDeWe I sped, half affronted at the fact that it was a department store and half in heaven helping myself to samples from the near-complete lines of Aveda, Clarin's, L'Occitane, and Crabtree that I love and can't afford. Feeling better-versed in Breitlings after poring over two tall cases of them while trying not to look suspicious, I ascended through women's clothes and electronics, all of which I scorned, to the food court for a bite to eat.
A few steps in and I already felt faint. By the time I reached the tea department (the size of an entire store and with all teas in teacups for the sniffing), I was nearly in a swoon. So many fine foods, so many smells and sights! But where was dinner? I was preparing myself mentally to find nourishment elsewhere as closing time neared, when I reached the end of the aisle in one of the fish departments (spotless and magically lacking in any fish odor whatsoever) and found 4 EUR sandwiches. Not just any sandwiches--mine was filled with a generous amount of smoked salmon, not the oily thinly sliced kind but the thick chewy kind. I savored it and took notes on the experience, still unable to believe my luck.
The bathroom on this floor was tremendous, and it just happened to have one of the best views of Berlin in the area, framed by long windows looking out on the curiously undulating façade of the building across the way. The setting sun made for a doubly brilliant scene that evaded my battery-starved camera. And I managed to walk out of the store with the least dignified item one could ever imagine purchasing at a high-end department store -- a 4-EUR box of Ballastoffreich (fiber-enriched) Kellogg's cereal. This store is serious in its claim to sell everything. My only regret was that the Eiswein they carried was quite fine: 30 EUR. In other words, 30 EUR too much, especially as I have nobody to savor it with.
I must admit ZARA pulled me in for the next hour, as KaDeWe sent customers pouring out of its doors towards other Ku'damm-area stores at 20:00. One romantic white dress with a wide black band really caught my fancy, but it was a special item and thus sported an impossible price tag of about 130 EUR. To my surprise, I really have found no substitute for the J. Crew summer dress at Zara or Mango. American fashion does follow its own route, but the rarity of this cut of dress really is a surprise to me. Anyway, it's time to think of winter clothes. And I've found the perfect knee-length woolen coat to keep out the Rochester cold this coming winter. Rochester, aren't you excited to be my catwalk in September?
And so I'm back at JETpak, planning tomorrow out and wondering when the rest of my roommates will arrive. Gute Nacht.
No comments:
Post a Comment