They can’t all be filled with adventure and mystery and fun and so forth. I’m having an off day — just can’t quite seem to get things together to get a handle on what’s happening and what’s next and what’s what.
I spent the morning walking from my cheaply priced and there’s a reason for that AirBNB to my TravellingFit overpriced hotel with at least clean towels (don’t ask). In any case, I’m scheduled to meet up with the tour group later tonight for dinner to say hello. But I’m kinda not in the mood. I’m not in the mood for anything. Which is probably why I should go and do stuff.
A quick word on the walk — it felt like a live action video game. They’re getting the start line ready for the marathon on Sunday so sections of roads were blocked off, resulting in detours and quick course corrections (as if I needed to cut through a warp tunnel on the side to escape a ghost, Pac-Man style). On top of that, they were trying a last-ditch effort to green up the place so massive sprinklers were on throughout the park I had to cut through… sprinklers rotating 360 degrees and for a good 135 degrees hitting the winding paved trail we all had to use. It required precise timing to avoid getting soaked by the gear driven sprinkler heads.
I was tempted to go check out the FIlmHaus German Cinematheque (or as they call it the deutsche kinemathek. I’ve long been a fan of Murnau, Lang, et al and thought, “Hey! I like movies!” But when I got there, due to construction I would have had to get up to the third floor to buy a ticket and then get back down to enter the place. It all felt too… Kafka? Silly? Efforting? Is that a word? Did I pull a Trumpism?
Try as I might, that dude is on my mind. I wandered past a free museum on the terror tactics of the Gestapo and Nazis in general. They had an outdoor exhibit chronicling the rise of Nazi dictatorship and the parallels to the 2015-2016-2017-2018 era and beyond were uncanny, disturbing, and nauseating. As if the 1930s scare, fear, and hate mongering with its violent means to an end beyond comprehension weren’t enough to pummel the soul of humanity. To know how far we’ve come — Checkpoint Charlie was just around the corner proffering fast food chains waging lunch wars where Russian and American forces used to square off — and to then know how very little we’ve come feels like a punch to the soul. It is only the real hope that there will one day be a display in the US teaching about and warning against the rise of nationalistic and disassociated narcissistic venom in the mid teens of the 21st Century.
I had planned on maybe visiting other places or looking around more… all the moreso because I’ve been eating too much junk and drinking too much wine. I really should be walking/running more. I mean, look at this late afternoon snack I just bought:
In my defense mechanism, um, defense: the bottle is to be spread out over more than one sitting… and that whole purchase was less than 3 euros.
But before I open up this screw-top red, here are a few photos of places and sights I wandered past in my attempt to kill some time without looking like I was killing time:
First — a lot of jokes one can make here. But I’m going to just these right here.
Marlene Dietrich Platz.
I really wanted this section of the wall to look like the two heads were kissing me. I did a terrible job of framing this shot… and what’s up with the repeated Derek Zoolander sucked in face look? Yeesh. I need to get an assistant if only to tell me to stop. Not just this stuff but in general.
Ladies and gentlemen, madames and monsieurs, damen und herren … I give you the Berlin Stars Boulevard (take THAT, Hollywood!)
Why bother trying to find the bears around the city when I can just see them in souvenir form? #It’sNotTheSame.
My mom works at Downtown Disney, now known as Disney Springs. They have a balloon you can ride up into the sky to see the property from altitude. I seem to recall her telling me the company had another one in Paris or someplace European. Seeing this, it might have been Berlin. All these European countries are the same, right? (I kid, I kid!)
This is one of the last in situ sections of the Berlin Wall… it’s also where the Topgraphy of Terror Museum is located.
I made my way back to Checkpoint Charlie as I was on the hunt for a wall souvenir (more on this in a moment). But I was once again struck by capitalism and changes for this former hotspot of Cold War tensions.
I was awfully tempted to see about renting one of these to tool around Berlin in. Were I with somebody else and could share the ridiculously kitschy experience I’d probably have done it, price be damned.
Speak of kitschy, this is my current dilemma over buying a piece of the Berlin Wall. I mean, this is a total tourist trap bit of silliness. It’s just concrete. The people selling it literally picked it up off the street and are now selling scrap/garbage to people like me who want to own a piece of history. And yet… I kind of want to own a piece of history. When I was visiting Snoqualmie to see the places Twin Peaks was filmed, I wound up buying a smashed piece of Lucy’s desk to give to Brent, an even bigger fan of Lynch than me. So this is similar. Except it wouldn’t be for other people… oh, god… am I supposed to bring stuff back for folks? Man, I’m a terrible friend. Is that something I should do? Maybe I should buy a large piece of the wall and just chisel it into various pieces to give to friends. I really am the worst friend/acquaintance/colleague. Sigh.
Ok, time to unscrew this red, but here’s an embarrassingly ugly American story for you. I had a note from AirBNB that I needed to review my stay and when this popped up:
I thought to myself, “I wasn’t in Delaware!” It took only a moment for the penny to drop (or in this case, the one cent euro coin). DE stands for Deutschland.
Some days are peaks. Some days are valleys. I find myself in a valley at the moment. I’m sure wine will help.