You Don't Know How Lucky You Are
My first full day in Berlin culminated with a trip to the Philharmonie to see Daniel Barenboim conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin in a performance of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto and Bruckner’s 9th Symphony. Needless to say, I’m happy to be back in Berlin. When I came to Berlin last year, I had the immediate impression that I would miss it when I left, and, being back, I wish I never had. Although I could easily spend an entire post on the concert I just saw (which I well might (I am not yet sure what the impact of having a laptop this year will have on the amount of blogging that I do (there’s some possibility that I see the laptop as a facilitator for journaling – which I’d certainly rather do as a blog than as something for me (if nothing else, being in an MFA program teaches (damn near coerces) you to consider your audience)))), I think with this first post I will simply make a list of the numerous reasons why I like Berlin more than Miami:
1) Public Transport. In my first 36 hours in Berlin, without going out of my way, I rode on: two buses, two subways, and one elevated train. The only reason why I haven’t ridden on a streetcar yet is that the weather has been beautiful. All of the above modes of transport have been on time and swift (one of the two or three bus rides that I ever bother to take in Miami a) included having a bus to which I needed to transfer speeding by me despite my outreached hand and b) took over two hours to go only three or so miles (though that time includes the period I spent waiting for the next bus after having been deemed too cool for the first one). As an extension of the public transportation system, there are clocks everywhere (do any citizens of Boston read this blog? That’s right: the trains run on a schedule! All the time!), which is super convenient now that my cell phone is comfortably unplugged (and the most recent pocket watch I bought (a Coleman brand “camping” pocket watch (what can I say, it matched my flask) is extremely prone to jostle-induced time changes and has already permanently broken free from the chain that was intended to keep it attached to my pants (which I change only bi-weekly, so you can see the convenience there))).
2) Walkability. What? Huh? Pete just praised the public transportation system, now he’s talking about how great it is to walk? What the fuck? That’s right, not only is Berlin’s public transport system one of the best in the world, but also you don’t even need to use it! Unglaublich! I live in Prenzlauer Berg, two districts deep into the former East Berlin. Goddamn scenic. In many ways. Also safe – in fact, my home for the next two months is a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood with the highest fertility rate in the entire city (look out ladies, here come Pete…), so if fat women with strollers can walk around with impunity than a sloppy-looking American with big hair and a beer in his hand certainly can too.
3) Street Art. There may be sections of Miami that have awesome graffiti, but its probably for the best that I don’t know where they are. In Berlin, the stuff is ubiquitous. I’m actually incredibly interested in this aspect of the city – especially in that I see a relationship between the role that proper names play in both the memorial and the street art that are so prevalent in the city (and on my best Stuart Smalley days, when I consider myself in the mirror, the ideas I have re: this particular area of interest seems, shall we say, downright Fulbrightable). So, whether public transporting or walking, it’s more interesting to look around. And it’s not just the prevalence; some of the graffiti is downright amazing, which makes the rest of the stuff worth looking at as well. (If I had a digital camera, the street art is the kind of stuff that I would take pictures of and post to the blog (but I don’t (I do have disposable one-use cameras (that’s right, I still live in what I like to call the “decadent mid-90s of American photography” (I once referred to this as this to an actual photographer and really confused her – she thought I was talking about some specific line of, like, actual cameras) though (2 ½ to be precise), so those of you that, like, run into me in person upon my return (after I’ve had said cameras one-hour photoed) can see them)).)
So I think that’s actually enough reasons for now (the whole music thing goes without saying (with my apologies to the New World Symphony)). The main point of all of this being that Berlin is an amazing place to just think, and that alone is amazing to return to.
1) Public Transport. In my first 36 hours in Berlin, without going out of my way, I rode on: two buses, two subways, and one elevated train. The only reason why I haven’t ridden on a streetcar yet is that the weather has been beautiful. All of the above modes of transport have been on time and swift (one of the two or three bus rides that I ever bother to take in Miami a) included having a bus to which I needed to transfer speeding by me despite my outreached hand and b) took over two hours to go only three or so miles (though that time includes the period I spent waiting for the next bus after having been deemed too cool for the first one). As an extension of the public transportation system, there are clocks everywhere (do any citizens of Boston read this blog? That’s right: the trains run on a schedule! All the time!), which is super convenient now that my cell phone is comfortably unplugged (and the most recent pocket watch I bought (a Coleman brand “camping” pocket watch (what can I say, it matched my flask) is extremely prone to jostle-induced time changes and has already permanently broken free from the chain that was intended to keep it attached to my pants (which I change only bi-weekly, so you can see the convenience there))).
2) Walkability. What? Huh? Pete just praised the public transportation system, now he’s talking about how great it is to walk? What the fuck? That’s right, not only is Berlin’s public transport system one of the best in the world, but also you don’t even need to use it! Unglaublich! I live in Prenzlauer Berg, two districts deep into the former East Berlin. Goddamn scenic. In many ways. Also safe – in fact, my home for the next two months is a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood with the highest fertility rate in the entire city (look out ladies, here come Pete…), so if fat women with strollers can walk around with impunity than a sloppy-looking American with big hair and a beer in his hand certainly can too.
3) Street Art. There may be sections of Miami that have awesome graffiti, but its probably for the best that I don’t know where they are. In Berlin, the stuff is ubiquitous. I’m actually incredibly interested in this aspect of the city – especially in that I see a relationship between the role that proper names play in both the memorial and the street art that are so prevalent in the city (and on my best Stuart Smalley days, when I consider myself in the mirror, the ideas I have re: this particular area of interest seems, shall we say, downright Fulbrightable). So, whether public transporting or walking, it’s more interesting to look around. And it’s not just the prevalence; some of the graffiti is downright amazing, which makes the rest of the stuff worth looking at as well. (If I had a digital camera, the street art is the kind of stuff that I would take pictures of and post to the blog (but I don’t (I do have disposable one-use cameras (that’s right, I still live in what I like to call the “decadent mid-90s of American photography” (I once referred to this as this to an actual photographer and really confused her – she thought I was talking about some specific line of, like, actual cameras) though (2 ½ to be precise), so those of you that, like, run into me in person upon my return (after I’ve had said cameras one-hour photoed) can see them)).)
So I think that’s actually enough reasons for now (the whole music thing goes without saying (with my apologies to the New World Symphony)). The main point of all of this being that Berlin is an amazing place to just think, and that alone is amazing to return to.
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