The governmental area of downtown Berlin, around the Hauptbahnhof, is absolutely awestriking. Wide open spaces, clean architectural lines, not a speck of dirt in sight. And very little human presence. The place seemed deserted. It all felt very Gattaca, except in muted (though not oppressive or dull) greys instead of golden browns. And then there was the gothic Reichstag building topped with this futuristic, glass-and-steel dome that nevertheless seemed perfectly integrated into the design.
The concert itself seemed awfully short. Sia was adorable, as always, but much less talkative than in Dublin. I guess that's the difference not being in an English-speaking country and not doing the last performance of the tour makes.
We had several hours to kill before the morning train, so we went wandering around Kreuzberg. But before we even got there, we stumbled upon this... I don't even know what to call it. You walk along this brick wall right by a multi-lane, busy street just off the Ostbahnhof (think the Powązki part of Okopowa, the train station being Klif), and suddenly there's an opening in the wall, from which you hear the sounds of some vaguely tribal music. Beyond it lies a courtyard with some brightly coloured barracks to the sides, undoubtedly housing a bunch of clubs (this time - think Dobra). The inside of the brick wall is painted with vivid, rastafarian graffiti. And then, of course, there's a ramp. Leading up to an artificial, hilltop beach overlooking the river, complete with a beachball net, a tiki-style bar, and the almost opressive smell of weed. We wandered in there at around 11p.m. so I've no idea how the place looks like in sunlight, but the mere fact that you could step off a busy street in fucking industrial, post-socialist East Berlin and find yourself in this pocket universe, cut off from the city bustle... So uncanny.
In Kreuzberg proper we found a relentlessly stylish bar called "Mysliwska" with a photo of Cybulski hanging over the toilet entrance. There was also another one, much more to my liking, with live music, and some sort of secret passage leading out of the men's room (people kept going in, but reappeared out of sequence, and only after an hour or so), but I don't think we ever learned what it was called. Not for lack of trying. We ate mostly fast food (either because we were in a hurry, or because it was the middle of the night). At our last meal in Kreuzberg, the Turkish kebab guy started talking to us in Polish, and told us he has a villa in Zielona Góra.
I returned home with an all too familiar feeling of frustrated wistfulness, as if throughout the entire trip I'd been trying to make out with someone through a windshield - my system's fucked up way of saying it really liked what it saw.
[All photos courtesy of Ana]
1 comment:
the cluster of bars on the bank doubles its peculiar surprise factor when you realize that the entrance through an opening in a wall is an opening in the actual Berlin Wall. i've had much the same feeling about that place two or three years ago, during my first stay in Berlin. by the way, i stayed at the street where the venue of Sia's show was.
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