Category: NFN

These two fellas from Treptower Park right next to the Spree. Surely, if I moved to Berlin, I’d consider the outskirts. While Treptower Park does not seem entirely unlike Hudson River Park above 135th Street, something did not feel quite right to me. I guess I missed the Manhattanites. Hope I can make it to Grunewald and Wannsee tomorrow — the latter I only know from a boat trip a couple of years ago.

I’m in Berlin right now, for the first time in many years, for a quick visit with Jens. While I’m here, I want to research the grocery stores of the city. There are some large-scale markets that sell Mediterranean food to restaurants and ordinary people, and obviously, this interests me. So, yesterday I went to Mitte Meer at Invalidenstrasse. It is a useful store, and I really mean useful. It’s not inspiring, and many of their offerings are rather generic: the to-be-expected items from Spain, Italy, France, and so on. I searched for wine from my region, the Northern Italian Alps, and they didn’t have any. That’s just an example: they specialize in the things that the greatest number of tourists is likely to have encountered.

That being said, it is certainly nice to be able to buy proper pasta, olive oil, mozzarella, Mulino Bianco cookies, and so on, for reasonable prizes in the middle of Berlin. But on the whole, it all leaves me a bit depressed: Berlin Mitte seems to cater, quite generally, to tourists, in each and every way, be it tourists in Berlin, or Berliners in their nature as Mediterranean tourists. Two stars. **

I get interesting answers when I ask Berliners how the city is doing, for example: “Poor but sexy – people here are quite happy with that.” With the implication, I guess, that there’s not much ambition. That was from the owner of a couple dozen bicycles for rent (a classic Berlin startup, run from a small basement and a café nearby). When I told him that I’m from NYC, he immediately said: “That’s where I want to go!”

When I speak to people from academia, especially from the US, they see things in a rosier light. In those quarters, both Berlin (it must be the allure of the working class spirit) and Paris (ah, the art of living…) get tremendous credit.

So, when it comes to street smart vs. intellectual, whose judgement would you trust?