2010 November 30 « Heading Overseas

Berlin, Germany

November 30, 2010 at 10:54 pm (Europe, Travel) (Food, Germany sights)

Our Thanksgiving trip this year was to Berlin. They’re currently having a photography exhibit at galleries all over the city, and George had a few he wanted to get to. We decided to drive instead of flying (George drove the whole way up). In retrospect, not a wise choice. There was quite a bit of construction that was frustrating, in addition to the roughly six hours of driving. But we made it to our hotel (Hotel Berlin south of the Tiergarten) and parked the car. After checking in and putting our stuff in our room, we went to the hotel bar for a couple drinks to unwind from the long drive. The hotel is very cool, kinda retro, 60s style. Our room was large, even by American standards. After our drinks, we ventured out for some dinner. We had a Lonely Planet guidebook, and one of the places it recommended in the area of our hotel was a Thai place called Edd’s. It took us a little while to find it (and a detour into a Calumet photography store). It wasn’t open yet when we got there, so we ducked into a little pub next door for a couple beers until Edd’s opened. The pub we went into was German, but the bartender was Russian, as was the radio station playing. I love how eclectic Berlin is!

After our two beers, we got a table in Edd’s and ordered spring rolls and chicken with peanut sauce for appetizers. The chicken was something like satay and was really well done. The sauce was just spicy enough without burning my mouth. The spring rolls were tasty, but much smaller than we’re used to. Then dinner arrived. George had a chicken dish with a spicy sauce, and I had crispy duck breast. Mine was absolutely fantastic. The sauce was kind of like a hoisin: brown, not-quite-sweet, delicate. The duck was perfectly cooked and still crispy under the sauce. It had red peppers, snow peas, and alfalfa sprouts and totally rocked. Any time we ever get to Berlin, we’ll be going to Edd’s, and we’ll both be ordering that duck.

We started back toward the hotel after dinner, but it was still kind of early, so we ducked into Bar am Lützowplatz. It’s got a very narrow frontage, but stretches quite a way back, providing for a long bar down one side and stools down the other, with several tables in the back. We had a couple drinks and hung out there for a bit, then retired to our hotel room since it had been a long day.

Friday we got a couple of coffees and croissants at a little place across the street from our hotel, then took a taxi to the Pergamonmuseum, which was the one thing I really wanted to see in Berlin. This museum has a very large Babylonian, Persian, and Turkish collection, including the Ishtar Gate and the Market Gate of Miletus, the main exhibits I wanted to see. I’ve never been in a museum with intact structures on display like that. It was a truly awesome experience to stand before these gates and look way up to the top, then to walk through them. I tried to imagine them in situ, with the rest of their respective cities surrounding them. The museum has models of each as they think they would have looked. They would have been incredibly impressive in their time.

After the museum, I mapped the photo exhibits George wanted to see and we started for the nearest one. Before we got there, we found another exhibit that wasn’t on his list, but it was advertised as street photography, which is what George is interested in. We went to a restaurant across the street for some lunch, then went to the exhibit. It was interesting, with some really good celebrity portraits (Milla Jovovich, Julianne Moore, and Robin Penn were the best), but it wasn’t really what either of us consider “street” photography. All the pictures were staged.

After a bit of a walk, we found the next exhibit, which was by a photographer of rock musicians. This exhibit didn’t really seem to have much of a coherent theme, other than being mostly portraits of rockers, but there were images of equipment thrown in, so we couldn’t really find one theme for the entire collection.

We started off to the next gallery, but it was so cold we ducked into a pub called the Village Voice to warm up. There was a small photo collection on display here, too, and this collection was truly street photography. We were drinking our schwarzbier (black beer) and consulting our maps for our next move when the man at the next table asked if he could help us navigate. We wound up sitting there for more than three hours, talking to Rolf, a native of Berlin. It was one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve ever had. He’s in his 40s, so grew up in a divided Berlin. We got such a unique perspective on life in Berlin at that time. The bar we were sitting in was in East Berlin. It was just amazing to think about all the history around us, and the monumental changes that neighborhood had undergone in the past 20 years. It was almost surreal for George, who joined the US military when there was still a wall, still a Communist East Berlin, to be sitting in a pub on the east side, drinking a beer.

By the time the three of us left the pub and we parted from our new friend, it was dark, and we were overdue for dinner. Rolf had recommended a neighborhood near our hotel, so we took a cab back down there and found an Indian restaurant that looked full, always a good sign for a restaurant, so we gave it a shot. George had lamb vindaloo, and I had tandoori chicken, and we split garlic naan. When we ordered, George asked if they had mango lassi, and the waiter’s face lit up to hear someone ask for a traditional Indian drink that wasn’t on the menu. Of course they made him a mango lassi. It was the first time I’d really enjoyed an Indian meal. My tandoori chicken wasn’t just the usual red-spiced chicken baked in a tandoori oven; it had a tomato-based sauce with crisp vegetables, too. After that great meal, we were ready for the hotel and sleep.

Saturday morning was just the drive home, which I took until a bit north of Frankfurt, then George brought us the rest of the way. We will most certainly be returning to Berlin…but in much warmer weather, and we’ll fly.