City Weekend #1
What’s the point of living abroad if you stay at home every weekend, doing the shopping, feeding the cat, and going to the playground in the rain?This question surfaced at some point during our late winter domestic routine, and inspired two recent weekend trips to two of Germany’s most impressive cities—Berlin and Munich. We reasoned that although we had a 21-month-old (a solid argument against any and all urban tourism), Fernando did have a pretty liberal vacation policy, we had guests coming that would appreciate the excursion, and another little one soon to arrive who most likely wouldn’t be inclined to sightsee.
Our visit to Berlin, which is all I will mention here for now, was three days long, which gave us just enough time to get a feel for the place, as well as get used to traveling with other people, in this case, my Mom and Joel. Besides learning a bit about Berlin’s interesting history and seeing its sites, we also learned valuable lessons about traveling in groups, and some additional tricks about traveling with toddlers.
Lesson #1: You don’t need to hide your child in the bathroom.
Upon calling hotels to make reservations the night before our trip, we were discouraged by the news of a weekend-long Convention that would be clogging up Berlin’s hotels. Despite the opportunistic price gouging caused by this meeting of we-never-found-out-who-or-what, we made our reservations anyway at a decent sounding place near Savigny Platz, a leafy, yuppie quarter of the former West Berlin. Fernando then posed our routine question that always leaves the hotel concierge stumped: “How big is the bathroom?” No matter how well-trained s/he may be, no hotel employee has the loo size memorized. Sensing confusion on the other line, Fernando then attempted to explain the motive behind his question: “we just need to know if the portable crib will fit in the bathroom, because we would like our child to sleep in there.” When this comment was met with further silence, and then finally, news of the bathroom’s too meager dimensions, I made a mental note to request that Fernando never mention babies sleeping in hotel bathrooms again. Though it is nice to be able to put Leo down to sleep under the sink at 8:00 pm so that we can stay up awhile longer, in the main room, watching Spanish or Russian satellite TV, it’s just not worth having the German CPA knocking on our hotel room door.
Lesson #2: You don’t need to eat all your meals in restaurants.
Fernando and I used to be just like everyone else in “our generation”, that is to say, big fans of going out to eat. And while Leo’s babyhood made our restaurant trips more of a rarity, his toddlerhood has been nourished by humdrum meals prepared almost exclusively in our kitchen. But while we’ve made peace with the reality that restaurants just aren’t fun anymore, since Leo runs around and bangs silverware and plates on the table, and we usually end up with indigestion, it’s difficult to know what to do while traveling. Just in the vicinity of our hotel, where we arrived with empty stomachs on Friday in the early afternoon, there were several trendy restaurants being patronized by blithely childless Berliners. As the five of us stood there, hungry and disoriented, these establishments looked intensely appealing, each with an outside seating area, the chairs of which were all outfitted with a folded wool blanket to allow al fresco dining even in cooler weather. The Dicke Wirtin pub, the concierge’s lunch suggestion, which translated as “Fat Innkeeper” and had a life-size, plastic innkeeper (?) doll decorating its patch of sidewalk, had turned out to be a dark, smoky cave with no high chairs or even, really, customers. Should we keep walking and looking? What would be best for Leo? Time was running out, but no place looked welcoming for tots. Fernando and I quabbled about the potential of a little Italian deli that we had passed a couple blocks earlier, while Mom and Joel looked on, hunger and exhaustion in their eyes. By then it was clear that with Leo in the state he was in, running around lamp posts and yelling excitedly about the innkeeper’s puffy black “’patos” (his word for shoes, zapatos), a relaxing lunch wasn’t on the menu. My next suggestion would determine our eating habits for the rest of the weekend: to split into two groups. So while Mom and Joel decided to give the Dicke Wirtin (whose food, we later learned, is recommended by Rick Steves) a try, we ordered take-out at an Indian restaurant next door to the hotel. And thus, patterns were established: Mom and Joel would return on several occasions to that pub, and Fernando, Leo and I ate either in our hotel room, on take-out or supermarket fare (they make a great Caprese salad), or standing on the street, on bratwurst or Turkish fast food. It worked well, we were all nourished, and that’s all that really mattered.
Lesson #3: There is no one single way to get to know a city.
Expanding our little traveling trio to include two more was a good reminder that there are different ways to approach a new city. Saturday was our big, full day to catch as many sites as possible. As the travel guides will tell you, and as all the “good tourists” seem to be doing, in Berlin you can visit world-class museums, stand in long lines to enter impressive government buildings like the Reichstag, pose in front of the Brandenburg Gate, hunt for still-standing sections of the Wall, and take a walking or bus tour that will cover pretty much the entire, disjointed city. Or you can do the kind of touring that Fernando, Leo and I do, which entails looking at everything from the perspective of a stroller on a sidewalk. With this plan, one can walk along the main tourist boulevard—the Unter den Linden, in the former East Berlin--perfectly vibrant but also teeming with construction projects, marvel at the exteriors of the museums, walk through as many of the historic squares as your legs will allow, and stop when your toddler indicates that it’s quittin’ time. And while neither group followed the exact itinerary of the typical tourist, we all felt like we got a good sense of the city. And in the afternoon, Fernando and I even went to a museum (!) while the Grandparents babysat. Feeling some vertigo at all our choices, we chose the award-winning Jewish History museum, which held an enormous permanent exhibit in an oddly designed, spiral-like building with slivers for windows. Out of practice with pacing in museums—and exhausted at having to climb the hundreds of steps required to reach the top of the building and the start of the exhibit--Fernando and I spent way too much time hovering around the beginning sections, learning about Jewish migration patterns in Bavaria in the 15th century and spelling our names in Hebrew at a computer kiosk. By the time we descended to the 20th century section, it was already time to head back.
Lesson #4: Accordingly, different things impress different people.
Of course I can’t speak for Mom and Joel, but it seems that their bus tour, which allowed them a more extensive view of both the eastern and western parts of the city, left them with a strong impression of Berlin as a place that has withstood remarkable destruction and undergone several phases of renewal, with varying degrees of stylistic success. Joel’s aesthetic sensibility was particularly struck by the ugliness of some of the still-standing Soviet architecture that had replaced centuries-old bombed out buildings, as well as with what he described as a “melancholy” about the enormous, ongoing project of rebuilding a city from the post-War and into the 21st century. My Mom wished that she had brushed up on her history before coming, because it was definitely in the air.
As for Fernando, Leo and I, of a different generation and with a vaguer connection to that part of history, our highlights were rather superficial and silly in comparison. But Vive la Difference! Fernando, for example, was a bit disillusioned to discover that the elegant Gendarmen Markt, a relic of Berlin as a 17th century haven for French Huguenots, was not actually a “market” selling fun or delicious products, but rather just a somber “square” (“markt” in German) connecting some buildings and churches. Luckily, on a nearby corner we found an enormous chocolate shop/tourist trap that included an almost life-size chocolate stream, and a replica, also in chocolate, of the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church ruins (with the bombed-out steeple appropriately missing). But Berlin’s true commercial tour-de-force we would discover that evening-- the KaDeWe, or, The Department Store of the West. This city-block wide, seven-story building housed what was mostly just an upscale clothing store, but the fifth floor redeemed the whole enterprise: the gourmet food emporium. It was early on a Saturday evening, and the expansive floor was abuzz with attentive waiters dashing around, people sipping wine at the hundreds of different food stands, and aisle upon aisle of gourmet and international food products. Beautiful people dined on oyster and lobster tail, while still others picked out fresh produce and too-beautiful-to-eat ingredients for an amazing dinner at home. Sadly, there weren’t any samples on offer and things were pricey. Just before leaving we stumbled upon an odd section filled with middle-brow, American food products, presumably for ex-pats like ourselves. The eclectic selection included Dijonnaise, Betty Crocker cake mix, and cans of Campbell’s tomato soup (selling for €4.98each, or over $6.00). It was no wonder that this store was the first destination of thousands of East Berliners after the wall fell.
Lesson #5: While they will never entirely bend the rules for you, German train employees might sometimes give you a break.
Sunday came and we all felt like we had seen enough of Berlin for the time being (i.e. our legs/backs/feet were sore). Though our train wasn’t scheduled to leave until shortly before 2:00, we arrived at the train station at around 10:00, to see what our options were. We were diligently waiting in line at the ticketing office when Joel spotted departure information on a TV monitor indicating that the next train for Hannover was leaving in 4 minutes. We made a run for it, literally hopped on, found a cluster of non-reserved seats, and sat down, breathing heavily and crossing our fingers that the ticket taker would be sympathetic. Unfortunately, as we took in our modern, sleek surroundings, we realized we were on an I.C.E, or inter-city express, a different type of train that that which we had paid for. For the first twenty minutes we sat awaiting our encounter with the ticket taker. After telling us we’d have to buy four entirely new tickets, we expected the worst. She stood there with her little hand-held computer typing away for nearly fifteen excruciating minutes. By some stroke of luck, we only ended up owing €50, total, for our infringement. A nice way to end the trip, and we got back to Hannover quite a bit faster.
posted by J&F at 4:54 AM
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