From the gallery on the Wall
Perhaps Berlin was best summed up be a 26 year old Finnish girl we dined with one night. When asked why she had chosen this city she answered that she is here because there is freedom and everyone is accepted and no-one thought odd. Then she added: “Elsewhere you live 50%. Here you live 100%”. What a kaleidoscope of experiences Berlin was. How did I experience so much (phew, 5 blogs to date) in little over a fortnight? Still I haven’t shown anything like the richness of the city. Nor did I enjoy many of the experiences the city has to offer. Perish the thought that this Game Old Dame should have enjoyed the hip club scene — though my young friend assures me that ageism isn’t an issue here (as it isn’t in much of Europe). I have decided to give up on the narrative in this blog and let the pictures speak for themselves in no particular order except my favourite is first.
My impressionist photo of a surreal scene. An italian book group philosophising, chairs in a circle on the footpath at dusk
Hip Berlin…an art space in containers in Prinzlauer Berg, once rundown and alternative and now said to be ‘pram central’ as the hip age and the suburb has gentrified.
This little fella swings out over the river in front of the reggae Yaam Bar with its sandy floor in Friedrichshain
A bank agency where you can’t withdraw money but you can sit in the deck chairs on the street.
Adam and Eve in the restored brewery in Prenzlauer Berg now home to arts and education groups.
Great florists abound
A furtive game of the three thimble trick.
Beats me what they were marketing in this store….perhaps a hairdresser?.
The Sunday antique market with the ever present blue pipe perpetually draining the swamp below the city.
Concrete blocks hold the blue drainage pipes and on many a block are wise words from a famous person such as Goethe, Dante, Voltaire, Gandhi, U.Ecco. This one was from Woody Allen and roughly translates as: ‘Reaching into his own pocket he finds time and time again, the official hand was already there’.
The Turkish market
Out of the blue these dinner suited gents came strolling along at Potsdamer Platz in neat formation.
There’s always a commercial opportunity – one of three mobile loos along the East Side Gallery on the Wall
At the mega hip Zoo bar where the crowd looks down into the monkey enclosure. (And I suppose the monkeys look up at the hip drinkers.)
So I’m walking alone almost in the centre when I see a garden and in it – sheep. It was a Steiner school with its grounds open to the public on the weekends, such enlightened people.
Enjoying the hookah on the banks of the Spree
Dancing the tango in a park at Mitte
A Game Old Dame having a well deserved marguerita
A Game Old Dame 