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Berlin Co-op Weekend #1
Feb. 19th, 2014 10:43 pmThis weekend was the much-anticipated (by me) "co-op weekend" in Berlin. The idea was to get together with all of the people I know in Berlin, all of whom also happen to have lived in the Berkeley co-ops. There are surprisingly many of them: there's Xylar and Evelyn from Wilde, then I met Rebecca and Sarah on my last visit. Rebecca's roommate is also a Davis house alum, and then Sarah met another through a Burning Man group, and .. well, eventually we were up to 10 people, including +1's and +2's. Kate came along too, which worked out well, since most of the other people flaked out.
Kate and I took the train out on Friday and, in Berlin, stayed at the same hostel where I stayed last time, the Cat's Pajamas. In the morning (well, noon) on Saturday we met Xylar for a tour of the Teufelsberg (it means "Devil's Mountain"), which is an abandoned NSA listening post built on top of a giant pile of West Berlin's WW2 rubble. (It was mentioned in the New York Times recently: "Where N.S.A. Kept Watch in Cold War, Artists Now Find Refuge.") This used to be an epic Berlin urban exploration venue, but now some developer owns the land and sells the right to give tours to some other company. These guys keep a relatively short leash on the tourgroups, and their goons are ready to step in if you try to stray from the group... which is very annoying. Notwithstanding this annoying reality, the view from the top is really epic, over the city of Berlin to the east, a massive expanse of seemingly uninhabited forest to the west, and these great geodesic domes covered in fiberglass, that once held giant antennas to spy on the Eastern Bloc.
After accompanying Xylar on a few errands, the next stop on our agenda was a visit to the Persital Singum. The video on that page might convey that the labyrinth is bigger than it really is, but it is still wonderful, pure Berlin weirdness. But it is not a labyrinth in the sense that a labyrinth is a maze. It's a mysterious, organic space to explore, where you sometimes wriggle through small spaces and wonder and the weird things on display and just have faith that this thing was meant to be explored.
The agenda for Sunday was: brunch, flea market, sauna. And for this our other co-opers actually appeared! We enjoyed "real Berlin brunch" at a very trendy cafe in Prenzlauer Berg, where a "no strollers" sign on cafe entrance doors is more common than the "no dogs" sign. And not because they don't like kids but just because there are so many young parents there that stroller overload is a real problem! For brunch and the flea market we had seven people, out of the promised 10. A good C- grade, I guess, but it worked out great.
After a short visit to the flea market at Mauerpark, Sarah joined Xylar, Kate, and me for a trip to the sauna at Europa-Center. The entrance to this place felt a little like the labyrinth - you enter a tall building at ground level near the Zoologischer Garten station in West Berlin, pass through a turnstile, and then take a tiny elevator up four floors. The locker room features delightfully retro-orange tall lockers and those old clocks where the digits are written on little cards that flip over (naturally there is a German word for it: Fallblattanzeige). The main atrium of the complex is centered around an indoor-outdoor pool (with little swim-doorways where you can swim between the indoor and outdoor portions), comfortably warm at around 27°C. There's also an actual hot tub (the hottest I've found in Germany - hot tubs aren't really a thing here) and of course also very cold pools for that post-sauna rush. The Saunas themselves aren't too much to write home about: there are two small "Aufguss saunas" indoors, and another dry sauna outdoors. And two steam rooms. The Aufguss was a hilarious experience due to the crowded sauna (really crowded, everyone elbow-to-elbow), joking and vying for space, and the incredibly intense Saunameistress who scolded, "quiet or I'll make you leave!"). We luxuriated here for 4-5 hours, completely au naturel as is the custom. Skinnydipping in a 27°C pool on the roof of a Berlin skyscraper: I recommend it.
Finally, just before Kate and I had to catch our train back to Hannover, the four of us got dinner at Dolores, a San Francisco Mission-district themed restaurant right around the corner from Alexanderplatz, dishing up the most authentic burritos within thousands of miles, with an intense hipster vibe permeating the atmosphere for good measure. (The guy or girl who takes your order may very well speak only English.)
So, Berlin Co-op Weekend #1: Not entirely according to plan, but a success nonetheless.
Reisekostenabrechnung
Friday
Indian restaurant: Indian Dhaba Mitra @ Hasenheide 11, €26 for two
Saturday
Tram ticket €6,70
Teufelsberg tour €15
Syrian restaurant €10
Labyrinth €10
Drinks at Labyrinth €10?
Lebanese restaurant €3
Sunday
Brunch @ Caféhaus Pakolat, €28 for two
Flea market @ Mauerpark €0
Sauna @ Thermen am Europa-Center €23,50
Dinner @ Dolores €20 for two
Misc
Train ticket €40.50 (mit Sparangebot, Bahncard 25, und Gutshein)
Hostel (Cat's Pajamas) €28 for two nights in 6-bed dorm
Petsitter (Laura Warnecke) €40
Kate and I took the train out on Friday and, in Berlin, stayed at the same hostel where I stayed last time, the Cat's Pajamas. In the morning (well, noon) on Saturday we met Xylar for a tour of the Teufelsberg (it means "Devil's Mountain"), which is an abandoned NSA listening post built on top of a giant pile of West Berlin's WW2 rubble. (It was mentioned in the New York Times recently: "Where N.S.A. Kept Watch in Cold War, Artists Now Find Refuge.") This used to be an epic Berlin urban exploration venue, but now some developer owns the land and sells the right to give tours to some other company. These guys keep a relatively short leash on the tourgroups, and their goons are ready to step in if you try to stray from the group... which is very annoying. Notwithstanding this annoying reality, the view from the top is really epic, over the city of Berlin to the east, a massive expanse of seemingly uninhabited forest to the west, and these great geodesic domes covered in fiberglass, that once held giant antennas to spy on the Eastern Bloc.
After accompanying Xylar on a few errands, the next stop on our agenda was a visit to the Persital Singum. The video on that page might convey that the labyrinth is bigger than it really is, but it is still wonderful, pure Berlin weirdness. But it is not a labyrinth in the sense that a labyrinth is a maze. It's a mysterious, organic space to explore, where you sometimes wriggle through small spaces and wonder and the weird things on display and just have faith that this thing was meant to be explored.
The agenda for Sunday was: brunch, flea market, sauna. And for this our other co-opers actually appeared! We enjoyed "real Berlin brunch" at a very trendy cafe in Prenzlauer Berg, where a "no strollers" sign on cafe entrance doors is more common than the "no dogs" sign. And not because they don't like kids but just because there are so many young parents there that stroller overload is a real problem! For brunch and the flea market we had seven people, out of the promised 10. A good C- grade, I guess, but it worked out great.
After a short visit to the flea market at Mauerpark, Sarah joined Xylar, Kate, and me for a trip to the sauna at Europa-Center. The entrance to this place felt a little like the labyrinth - you enter a tall building at ground level near the Zoologischer Garten station in West Berlin, pass through a turnstile, and then take a tiny elevator up four floors. The locker room features delightfully retro-orange tall lockers and those old clocks where the digits are written on little cards that flip over (naturally there is a German word for it: Fallblattanzeige). The main atrium of the complex is centered around an indoor-outdoor pool (with little swim-doorways where you can swim between the indoor and outdoor portions), comfortably warm at around 27°C. There's also an actual hot tub (the hottest I've found in Germany - hot tubs aren't really a thing here) and of course also very cold pools for that post-sauna rush. The Saunas themselves aren't too much to write home about: there are two small "Aufguss saunas" indoors, and another dry sauna outdoors. And two steam rooms. The Aufguss was a hilarious experience due to the crowded sauna (really crowded, everyone elbow-to-elbow), joking and vying for space, and the incredibly intense Saunameistress who scolded, "quiet or I'll make you leave!"). We luxuriated here for 4-5 hours, completely au naturel as is the custom. Skinnydipping in a 27°C pool on the roof of a Berlin skyscraper: I recommend it.
Finally, just before Kate and I had to catch our train back to Hannover, the four of us got dinner at Dolores, a San Francisco Mission-district themed restaurant right around the corner from Alexanderplatz, dishing up the most authentic burritos within thousands of miles, with an intense hipster vibe permeating the atmosphere for good measure. (The guy or girl who takes your order may very well speak only English.)
So, Berlin Co-op Weekend #1: Not entirely according to plan, but a success nonetheless.
Reisekostenabrechnung
Friday
Indian restaurant: Indian Dhaba Mitra @ Hasenheide 11, €26 for two
Saturday
Tram ticket €6,70
Teufelsberg tour €15
Syrian restaurant €10
Labyrinth €10
Drinks at Labyrinth €10?
Lebanese restaurant €3
Sunday
Brunch @ Caféhaus Pakolat, €28 for two
Flea market @ Mauerpark €0
Sauna @ Thermen am Europa-Center €23,50
Dinner @ Dolores €20 for two
Misc
Train ticket €40.50 (mit Sparangebot, Bahncard 25, und Gutshein)
Hostel (Cat's Pajamas) €28 for two nights in 6-bed dorm
Petsitter (Laura Warnecke) €40
