Roaring down the autobahn at 200 kilometers per hour (125 mph) was only the beginning of my love affair with Germany. I met my good friend Mark in Berlin and loved it instantly. Berlin is a progressive, innovative, cultured European capital. Everything in this metropolis is thought-out and well-designed. And, of course, beer is plentiful and cheap.
Considering how much of it was destroyed in WWII, and following that, how it became an ‘island’ in a sea of communist East Germany and thus split in two for nearly thirty years by a big concrete wall, I guess they had a fairly clean slate to work with.
Kind of like after the Chicago Fire of 1871, world famous architects (Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Gehry, Libeskind, Jahn) descended on Germany in the last couple decades… especially after the iron curtain fell and the wall literally came down.
The 100-mile “Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart,” as it was called by the East German government, was erected almost overnight in 1961 to stop the outward flow of people into West Berlin which had been divided into French, British, and American Sectors like the rest of West Germany (3 million poured out between 1949 and 1961).
The Wall was 13-feet high, had a 16-foot tank ditch, a no-man’s-land that was 30 to 160 feet wide, and 300 watch towers. During its 28 years standing, there were 1,693 cases when border guards fired, 3,221 arrests, and 5,043 documented successful escapes (565 of these were East German guards). In its progressive way of looking ahead but acknowledging the past, Berlin has laid down a double line of bricks all around the city marking the former site of the wall. Berlin has now taken the opportunity to reinvent itself and has done so in an amazing way.
Forget Singapore—Germany is an uber clean place with one notable exception—dog shit is everywhere. Not sure how or why the innovative and law enforcing Germans have not been able step up to the plate on this one and force their citizenry of dog owners to bag their pooch’s poop like we do in cities in the US.
There was a ton to see in Berlin, a city constantly changing with crane’s silhouettes in the sky as proof, from the reproduction of Checkpoint Charlie to the many green spaces and bike lanes to the haunting Holocaust Memorial and the oft-photographed Brandenburg Gate and so much in-between.
I won’t bore you with all the details. Suffice it to say I would live in this city in a heartbeat. If I had to pick, I had two favorite and opposing neighborhoods. The first is Prenzlauer Berg in what once was bleak East Germany. It is now a cute leafy ‘neighborhoody’ village-like place full of young couples, an inordinate amount of strollers, and cute little boutiques and cafes.
My other favorite place is the architecturally stunning skyscraper ‘times square’ sector known as Potsdamer Platz. It is dominated by the new and jaw-dropping Sony Center designed by German-born and Chicago’s own Helmut Jahn. This is the same man that did the controversial space-ship-like James Thompson Center in Chicago and the huge new Bangkok Airport. Like his other creations, the Sony Center is steel and glass everywhere you look done in a sleek sexy style that makes it hard not to stare upwards in awe. The striking glass atrium is topped by a cirque du soleil-like tent cover that hangs over an entertaining mix of several restaurants, shops, and cinemas.
And rounding out the whole ‘Ich Liebe Berlin’ (I love Berlin) experience was our hostel. Joining the list of some of my favorite sleeps on my trip had to be the brand spankin’ new Sleep-Inn. Run smoothly by a young Berlin couple, Yvonne and Ralph, it was spotless with fluffy new comforters and towels. Plus each room had all these fun whimsical touches like bright splashes of color here and there, murals on the walls and your own cuddly gnome in each room.
You don’t know how much brand new pillows, sheets, and towels mean to this world traveler after sleeping on 87½ different beds, trains, chairs, floors, and couches throughout the year… where, hundreds or perhaps thousands, of other icky travelers had laid their own greasy heads.
I liked it so much I went as far as offering to work there—something I hope to still pursue except for that pesky law forbidding non-EU citizens from working without a work permit. If I can only get them to treat this law as they do with their dog poop… I’ll be all set.
Into the West…
I so love Germany, too! Funny, it's somewhere I had no desire to visit until I was on a train from Paris to Vienna in 2003 that stopped in Munchen, and I was like, well I've never been to Germany before…what better time than the present? And thus begin my own love affair with Deutschland. While living in Holland and Denmark, I revisited several times b/c of the obvious proximity, but never Berlin. Next time, I must go! And I, too, love the cleanliness! And the public transportation! And the efficiency of the country as a whole! If only someone could teach NYC to be more German…
The answer to your problem is to pose as a German Shepherd who is fully capable of not leaving shit outside and in the rare and odd instance you do; you're perfectly capable of picking it up. I have a piece of the Berlin on my desk that I received as a gift from a Colonel who served there during the dismantling of the wall. One side painted in bright colors, the other is eerily clean of any marks at all. It's my own personal checkpoint charlie. I hope the job prospect works out. Tell them you know Helmut and Mies and you'll be fluffing pillows in no time.
Just this morning I was about to send you an email to ask how you were liking Germany – too funny! Looks like you totally hate it…! It looks awesome there! And holy freaking wow – that is a hostel? Are you sure? Because every one I've stayed in has been a little skeevie – and that place looks gorgeous!
Your title reminded me of the "jelly donut" urban legend regarding Ich bin ein Berliner. I copied the Wikipedia info on it below.
A Berliner.
According to an urban legend that has no basis in fact and is practically unknown in Germany,[2] Kennedy made a slightly embarrassing grammatical error by saying "Ich bin ein Berliner," referring to himself not as a citizen of Berlin, but as a common pastry:
Kennedy should have said "Ich bin Berliner" to mean "I am a person from Berlin." By adding the indefinite article ein, his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus "I am a jelly doughnut".
The legend stems from a play on words with Berliner, the name of a doughnut variant filled with jam or plum sauce that is thought to have originated in Berlin.
In fact, the statement is both grammatically correct [3] and perfectly idiomatic, and cannot be misunderstood in context. The urban legend is prevalent only in English-speaking countries but largely unknown in Germany, where Kennedy's speech is considered a landmark in the country's postwar history.[4] The indefinite article ein can be and often is omitted when speaking of an individual's profession or residence but is necessary when speaking in a figurative sense as Kennedy did. Since the president was not literally from Berlin but only declaring his solidarity with its citizens, "Ich bin Berliner" would not have been correct.[5] Similarly, after 9-11 many politicians said "today we are all New Yorkers" and nobody thought they meant "we are all glossy magazines" or "we are all cars" (see New Yorker for examples).
The origins of the legend are obscure. One prominent instance of its re-telling was in 1988 when William J. Miller erroneously wrote in an April 30 New York Times article:
What they did not know, but could easily have found out, was that such citizens never refer to themselves as "Berliners." They reserve that term for a favorite confection often munched at breakfast. So, while they understood and appreciated the sentiments behind the President's impassioned declaration, the residents tittered among themselves when he exclaimed, literally, "I am a jelly-filled doughnut."
In fact, the opposite is true: The citizens of Berlin do refer to themselves as Berliner; what they do not refer to as Berliner are jelly doughnuts. While these are known as "Berliner" in other areas of Germany, they are simply called Pfannkuchen (pancakes) in and around Berlin.[6] Thus the merely theoretical ambiguity went entirely unnoticed by Kennedy's overwhelmingly local audience, as it did in Germany at large. In sum, "Ich bin ein Berliner" was both grammatically and idiomatically the appropriate way to express in German what Kennedy meant to say, which is exactly how Germans have understood and celebrated it since the day it was uttered.[7]
Although it has no basis in fact, the legend has since been repeated by reputable media, such as the BBC [8], The Guardian [9], MSNBC [10], CNN [11], Time magazine [12], and in several books about Germany written by English-speaking authors, including Norman Davies [13].
As for the creation of the speech, it had been reviewed by journalist Robert Lochner, who was educated in Germany, and had been practiced several times in front of numerous Germans, including Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt. The many video and audio recordings of the event show only enthusiastic applause following the statement. During the speech Kennedy used the phrase twice, ending his speech on it. However, Kennedy did pronounce the sentence with his Boston accent, reading from his note "ish bin ein Bearleener," which he had written out in English phonetics.