Heilstättin’

South of Berlin, the mysterious ruins of Beelitz Heilstätten seem to grow naturally out of the surrounding forest. What today resembles a 19th-century ghost town was once among Europe’s most advanced medical hospitals.

Day at the Races

We took advantage of a recent sunny sunday by going on a bike ride to Hoppegarten, a community bordering Berlin made famous by its horse race track. From the S-Bahn stop Frankfurter Allee we rode straight east for about an hour – fascinated as Plattenbauten gave way to some countryside scenery. We arrived just in time for a nice couple to hand us two free tickets. So we splurged on a program complete with detailed information on the art of betting, stats about each racing horse as well as the name and weight of each jockey.

To Stasiland

In one half of this city not long ago, you were being watched. Your family, friends, and neighbors were likely to be among the estimated two-million East-Germans working with the Ministry for State Security, or “Stasi” for short. In its prime, the Stasi is said to have employed 1 agent or informant for every 6.5 citizens.

The implements of state surveillance and control are now showcased in the former Stasi brain basket, which remains uncannily as it was abandoned in 1989 (1979 Eastern Time). We headed out one morning to the desolate middle-east of Berlin where the avenues were built for tank battalions. We took a tour.

In Case of Emergency

There’s always a scumball machine close at hand on the streets of Berlin–but what about in those plentiful green spaces: forests, parks and waterways? What is one supposed to do out there in a pinch? 

Forbidden Fruit

Exotic, with a soupçon of erotic.

The Whitest Chips

My dear old grandmother once remarked on a plain white freezer bag, in her gentle Florida drawl, “Isn’t that the whitest bag you ever saw?”. Her eyesight was failing due to macular degeneration at the time, but still she nailed it: that was a white, white bag.

I had to think of my Grandmama upon discovering the rather aptly named White Chips pictured above.

LEARN ENGLISCH

The Wall Street Institute used to advertise English classes around Berlin with a pretty conventional subway poster that depicted a gang of businesspersons in silhouette, heading for a bright future on The Wall Streets. The implied message: “Come join the crowd!”

Zoomeister

This is our neighborhood pet store. It has been here for fifty years, at least, he says. The old man is certainly old enough. He is old enough, in fact, to have opened the shop fifty years ago as a pet project upon retirement. He is small and bald and amiable. He shuffles very slowly between the bird seed and the fish tanks and the musky hamsters. He sports thick spectacles and a white lab coat, which makes him appear both adorable and wholly overqualified. He also happens to be the Mona Lisa of liars.

Vandalous Visage Round-Up!

Faces abound on Berlin’s markable surfaces. Some are tiny and elusive like the baby Mao my dad spotted around Warschauer Straße, pictured above. Others span vast windowless walls. The good ones belong.

Winterbeeren

In the winter months, Berlin’s high latitude and low altitude yield a bleak urban tundra. The abundant summer green deciduates and rots. Bushes and trees become dark skeletons. But if you look closely there is another kind of spring with strange and lovely blossoms all its own.