Unbelievable U-bahns

OK, so they’re not unbelievable, but I do think some U-bahn stations are rather nice. The range of useful things you can buy on platforms themselves is great – lots of food and drink, newspapers and magazines and flowers, to name but a few. Just one of the platforms I use often at Zoologischer Garten station has a bakery, an internet café and a florist. Here are some of their flowers, and a bakers where you can also buy coffee on a platform at Bismarckstraße station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rathaus Schöneberg station has a large pond right next to it and you can watch the water birds (including a heron) while waiting on the platform for a train.

Many of the stations on the U3 line to Krumme Lanke are very elegant, each with their own style, building having started in 1910.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-Bahnlinie_3_(Berlin)

Here is Breitenbachplatz, where we caught a train tonight. (The pictures have somehow gone wonky.)

Basteln

Basteln is the German verb for “to tinker”, and “Bastel” means craft. I’m not sure if this is tinkering or craft, but here is some stuff I have been making since I came to Berlin.

I've always wanted an interesting advent calendar

 

I have always wanted an interesting advent calendar, and am pleased with this and my invention of the counting system “base button”. (A new fusion of maths and craft.)

It isn’t yet quite finished because it is a long way to the sewing workshop where you can use sewing machines by the hour, but it is held together sufficiently to hold chocolate which is what really matters. The fabric is from old skirts (Austrian dirndls, to be precise.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing with making felt - my first attempt at 3D on the left

Playing with making felt – my first attempt at 3D on the left.

 

Miniature Christmas tree from recycled skirt on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas decoration, o.n.o.

 

I’m in danger of getting carried away here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This beret is very comfortable and I wear it all the time.  I modified a pattern which I found on youtube. It helps me show up in a crowd so I don’t get lost (one of the hazards when short!)

 

 

 

 

It’s not cold enough to wear this snood/scarf yet as the wool is REALLY THICK.

Cloud cities and other delights at the Hamburger Bahnhof

The Hamburger Bahnhof is one of Berlin’s museum of contemporary art, in what used to be a railway station and not far from the fabulous new all-glass Hauptbahnhof.

http://www.hamburgerbahnhof.de/text.php?id=98&lang=en

Cloud cities is a dramatic new installation that hits you as you enter the main body of the museum.

http://www.hamburgerbahnhof.de/exhibition.php?id=29989

You can get inside some of the inflatables, and I was fascinated by how people behave once inside the large one. Norms develop. When we first saw it, a woman was doing yoga-like postures and having her photo taken. No-one else seemed to dare to do anything. A little later when she had gone, almost everyone who entered the big globe sat on the floor around the edge. People became part of the exhibit.

 

 

 

The whole exhibition had a very playful feel about it and people smiled with delight at the unexpected new objects. In the large suspended globe, you can lay down and crawl around. Some people borrowed gloves to get a grip so they could move.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hadn’t seen Paul Lafolley’s work in real life before, and the museum had an extensive collection on show. Lafolley has a very interesting way of looking at the world and combining ideas, and has been diagnosed as autistic. His draftsmanship is superb, but he doesn’t seem to have got the hang of letraset (when did you last hear that word?).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder if I can get the stuff in my garage to look this interesting?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a copy of the 8 square metre (or so) quarters for an officer in a ship. The museum attendant took great delight in showing us where the loo was (under the grating for the shower). There are three rooms in all.

The Museum of Musical Instruments

Apparently this isn’t strictly speaking a museum, but it looks like one to me.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/bauen/wanderungen/en/s61_instrumente.shtml

My photos only contain a very small range of the instruments on show. There are also harps, keyboard instruments, many stringed instruments and all sorts wind instruments. There are a few free reed instruments, including a pathetic example of an English concertina (a ropey old Lachenal). Part of a luthier’s workshop is there, the lovely old lathe shown in my slideshow.

The (not) Museum contains a great exhibition of pianos, showing how they are made. Another extraordinary exhibit is a vast Würlitzer organ, and it is possible to look inside it at the many different forms of percussion and organ pipes which it contains. It is played every Saturday at midday and we hope to attend before we leave Berlin.

The best eighty euros I have ever spent

At the beginning of our stay here, we hummed and haahed (admittedly only for a few minutes) about whether to buy a year’s entrance card to the Berlin state museums (the permanent exhibitions and special exhibitions). They cost 80 euros each, and we have more than got our money’s worth.

http://www.smb.museum/smb/home/index.php

Berlin was a number of excellent state museums, which benefit from huge collections. We have now visited most of the smb museums, and are on our second visit to some of them. There is a lot still to pack in before we leave Berlin at the end of this month!

One of my favourite museums here is the Pergamon which houses the vast the second century Pergamon altar, an enormous Roman market entrance and the fabulous glazed and coloured entrance to the city of Babylon. This video gives some idea of the massive treasures housed there.

http://www.smb.museum/smb/standorte/index.php?p=2&objID=27&n=15

At the moment there is a special exhibition with a panorama showing the Pergamon altar in context of what it would have been like at the time. It too is breath-taking. It is contructed in a temporary circular building, rather like a gasometer, which is ungainfully plonked in the forecourt of museum. You mount a slightly wobbly staircase to a viewing platform, and can then be engrossed for an hour looking down at the view of Pergamon, the wonderful buildings, landscape and the people going about their life on the day of the Caesar’s visit. On a cold day, wrap up warm to see the panorama, but in most of the museums, put your coat in the cloakroom or a locker, or you’ll boil.

http://www.smb.museum/smb/kalender/details.php?objID=24873&lang=en&n=0&datum=30.09.2011

Christmas markets everywhere!

Berlin is full of Christmas markets now. Some sell beautiful hand made goods. Our nearest Christmas market is in Tauentzienstrasse and Breitscheidplatz and is huge. It sells food, crafts, hats, and enormous quantities of Gluhwein and hot punch. I tried hot egg punch for the first time there and asked the stall holder what was in it: half egg liquer (like Advocaat) and half wine, topped with whipped cream and cinnamon! There are cherries, almonds and various other fruits soaked in spirits to add to the hot gluewein, or a dash of amaretto, rum or brandy. It is certainly warming.

 If you are hungry, there is always the half metre long bratwurst (sausage) in a baguette to fill you up.

Usually you eat or drink standing up at a high table, but there are some places to sit

Russian dolls in the Breitscheidplatz Weihnachtsmarkt

One cold evening we visited some delightful Christmas markets in Gendamenmarkt in the centre of Berlin. This one has an entrance fee of one euro, and is well worth it. There was a good choir singing carols, unaccompanied, and a marquee full of very good craft stalls, including clothes, jewellery, carvings, pottery, soaps and beeswax candles.

Lebkuchen

 

Last weekend on our way back from a bus tour of the palaces of Potsdam, we visited the Potsdam Christmas market (delightful, but more of the same). The highlight was a trio playing Vivaldi on accordians.  Also in Potsdam, we went on to a Polish market which was there for one weekend only. It was marvellous! I think I’d like to visit Krakow for a few days next December, if this one is and example of the crafts on offer. The artisans included silver smiths, sculptors, wood carvers, basket makers, potters and felt makers.There was a wonderful atmosphere as the market was held in an old, cobbled courtyard. Several stall-holders were cooking food, and a band which was suitably dressed for the occasion played Christmas music.