The thirst in the water’s midst

When the Berlin Wall was pulled down, parts of the Spree, Berlin’s main river – as well as many other areas along the wall – were flanked with real estate, the ownership of which was unclear, as East and West began the long process of reunification. Due to the plodding, bureaucratic nature of the situation, and the multi-generational timeframe, many of these pieces of land are still in contention. In the meantime, as many properties sit languishing and buildings fall into decay, the contentious plots along the Spree have been leased temporarily, and rather cheaply, giving rise to a stretch of ‘beach bars’ (Strandbars).

A beach bar basically involves covering the riverbank with sand, constructing some beachy structures, and establishing an open-air bar there. Patrons can mill about on the sand getting drunk on brash cocktails, in appropriately beachy attire if desired. I have heard that the beach bars create a very close approximation to the feeling of being on the beach, though I have not patronised this particular breed of bar myself.





Regardless of the approximation, it is not possible to swim at a beach bar, the Spree being quite filthy. This makes the concept of the beach bar closer to my idea of hell than anything, particularly during the heady Berlin summer. It is interesting, this obsession with beach culture in a landlocked city (though probably less bizarre than the Seagaia ‘Ocean Dome’ in Japan being located in Miyazaki, a popular coastal holiday destination).

A German gentleman I met could not understand how Jeff and I could have enjoyed spending an afternoon at the Badeschiff, lounging on the wooden decks and swimming in the pool which floats on the canal, when it was so tragic in comparison to the beautiful, spacious, clean beaches in Australia.

Which led me to consider that the two occupy completely different cultural spaces; in Australia one goes to a public pool, or to a crowded beach, for completely different reasons to those which draw one to a quiet beach. It is about the social, even if it doesn’t involve explicit socialising. People go to public swimming places to sport fashion (and dairy), to opine on the bodies of others, and I dare say to bolster their immune systems, at least unconsciously. These places have existed in cities for centuries.

On Foot

In the interests of sparing you, dear readers, from the tedium of my German language development, I have henceforth resurrected my other blog, On Foot, which will now serve as a site for me to blog in halbgebackt Deutsch.

Someone in our apartment block has been pumping the entire album of Wish You Were Here. And now that that's over, they are pumping Judas Priest. There are some truly eighties moments to be had in Berlin.

Favourite German word for the day:
Gegenwartskunst - Contemporary art (which translates literally as 'art against waiting').
Other favourite German thing of the day: The auto-tellers give out €5 and €10 notes.

I had a dream last night that I was sitting on a tram with my mother, and she was telling me that Kylie Minogue had died. ‘How?’ I asked her.
‘She had a pet jaguar, and she harrassed it until it finally became so agitated that it killed her and ate her.’

Yogic Painting

So,,, oder so.

It's interesting how your cooking changes when you are in another country. I can set out to make a meal exactly as I would make it in Melbourne, with the same set of ingredients, yet inevitably it will somehow come out Germanised. I have come to realise that this is the culmination of many subtle differences, like the butter being slightly cultured, the canned tomatoes being from a different source, the minced meat being more finely ground, the cheapness of white asparagus over green, the yellowness of the potatoes, etc. I like it, that locality is in the food.
Another thing I have noticed is that within the realms of bureaucracy in Germany, names count for very little. For instance, dealing with the electricity company, or yesterday with the locksmith, if you know a name but not a corresponding account number, then forget it. Maybe it's a hangover from the Stasi era, this cleaving of information from the personal...