Brecht house – one of them

I spent a lovely culture vulture day in the Brecht/Weigel-house (to get to look around in Bertolt Brecht’s library! Daaaaaat!) with a bunch of lovely people from all over the world yesterday. We took the guided tour and it was short but sweet, with an engaged and lovely guide.

We moved on to the graves of Brecht and Weigel – just outside their house, one can in fact see that part of the graveyard from Brecht’s old desk – (you’ll find the graves of Brecht’s old idol Hegel and Christa Wolf and and and… and many other important people, yours truly knows that graveyard like her own back pocket, it’s one of the best ones in Berlin, maybe THE best one) afterwards. Some lovely gravespotting, a beer in Monbijoupark and then we went on to – tadaaaaa – Dussmann.

The Brecht/Weigel love story is ANYTHING but trivial and I decided that I wanted to read Brecht’s love poems. Let’s see what they can do to a cynic like me.

In bloom

Spring is a bit late in Berlin this year, but I’m not gonna hold a grudge – it’s here now and I love it! Live it aaaand love it.

This week is all about cherry blossom and magnolias. I’ve visited many of my favorite spots – Vinetaplatz, Rykestraße, Schwedter Straße north of Mauerpark, the park outside the Carl Zeiss planetarium on Prenzlauer Allee. Well, many parts of Prenzlberg boast beautiful greenery right now, so it’s hard to go wrong. This is really really my best time of the year in Berlin. Enjoy!

Sameblod

I went to Germany’s oldest movie theater to see a Swedish movie, Sameblod, a couple of days ago. It was an unexpectedly strong experience for many reasons and I cried on and off for 1,5 hour. Das Mädchen aus dem Norden – go see it if you can, it’s a strong statement connecting to a shameful part of Swedish history.

Bonus: amazing scenery from the part of Sweden where my mother came from. Very moving. This will stay in my mind for a long time.

And I might engage in the association connected to the screening, I guess they could smell a culture vulture a mile away, so I was approached with the question “wouldn’t you want to join?”. Lass uns sehen. Let’s see.

Hopped on the S-Bahn again

One of my best friends from Sweden did a quick dash in dash out earlier this week, she’s a fairly seasoned Berlin visitor so I wanted to take her to a new place – we hopped on the S3 and headed towards Köpenick.

We said hi to the Hauptmann, ate some very brown and tasty (”the way your grandma cooked it”) traditional German food, took a walk in the Altstadt and finally sat down for a while in the sweet park by the castle.

It’s a fairly short trip, very very worth it. The small town feel, the water, the beautiful houses. The walk by the Dahme. Just do it!

The minions are back in Mauerpark

I caught the S9

Not as warm as that glorious Sunday two weeks ago, but 11C was good enough for me to do a loooooot of running around. I took the train to Plänterwald and then walked back to the city, passed by lots of favourite places before getting lazy in Kreuzberg = Ubahn home. I’ll walk all the way some other day.

Frühling in Berlin. I’ve waited for this…!

Back to the Tudors

I developed a huge interest for anything Anne Boleynish around 25 years ago (maybe even more 🙄), this escalated quickly into full on Tudor fixation, with a small branch aiming at Maria Stuart too. Buuuuut, as so often, this nerd area was replaced (or put on pause) due to a new geeking out opportunity, focusing on some other area. Ahem.

I’ve had these books sitting on my TBR shelf for many years now, I finally finished them this weekend and yes – amazing. I can see that the level of detail might be confusing for those who haven’t read much about this before, but for me it was a sheer pleasure.

I will have to have some patience waiting for the third book though. Might dive into the rest of her production in the meantime.

Meanwhile in another Berlin

Unexpected hikes: Marzahn and Hellersdorf.

Did I expect to meet alpacas? No sireeeee. Contrasts galore. And some trompe l’œil.

(More about this house here)

Berlin Easter Staycation 2018, pt 1

I had heard about Strausberg in connection to the small lake (Strausee), but that it was this sweet? I had noooo idea. It must be wonderful in summer. Small town some 30 km east of Berlin, well worth a visit for someone like me who wants to exercise my ABC-Karte in other directions than the Hennigsdorf one from time to time.

The old city centre (there are still some remains of the old city wall, built in 1254) was lovely, but the big surprise came when I started walking by the lake: oh the MANSIONS. It felt like a “Zehlendorf, east edition” (sorry non-Berliners, that reference might fly over your heads). Was surprised for ten minutes before it came to my mind that YES, this was Brandenburg, former East Germany, but the city has been connected to military and weapon’s industry for a long time (Swedish military even opened a centre there in 1631), and where there’s military there’s money, even in bancrupt countries.

There are still lots of run down but potentially pretty old houses in need of a loooot of love in the old city centre, but it’s easy to see that a lot of money must have been spent on renovating that part of the city since “die Wende”. The new part, with lots and lots and lots of houses built in the sixties, is a bit depressing, but no more depressing than any area built quickly to house many people regardless of where you find yourself in the world.

I will for sure go back this summer! The beautiful old lido was built in 1925, come August I hope to be able to dive into the water from the 5 m tower outside 😉

Started walking back towards Berlin, had to laugh when I passed by an old milestone pointing just that out (“<— Nach Berlin”), but nooooo, I didn’t walk all the way back. All in all 13 km of walking, pure bliss.

Meanwhile in tinder

I need to stop using tinder, but I just can’t help it: some guys just trigger my sarcastic sides…