Marshall in Strange Places: Un-blog-able Berlin

After visiting Berlin something like six times I can honestly say that Berlin is a giant mess of a city.

No? Let’s journey back into history, as this blog is wont to do.

Berlin – on the swampy banks of the Spree – suddenly became a capital of an empire and hastily went about building itself up to suit the name. Then the war happened. Since then it’s been starved, had its streets taken over by revolutionaries and reactionaries, became a decadent party city, then a National Socialist party city, got smashed into ruins, surrounded by communist terriory, had a wall slammed through the middle of it, then got jolted into the rest of the world.

Since the beginning, Berlin has been an exercise in urban improvisation. It simply had to adapt with the circumstances that have swamped it over time. Today, there’s a civic spirit of improvisation in the city. Just look at all those famous clubs in old factories and bunkers.

The easiest blog would have been to chronicle the many trips there, and the Discovery Walks that Kata and I have taken. I don’t like writing those sorts of travelogues. I was always looking for a theme to write about after every visit. In my view, this beautiful mess of city in the East has been unblogable. Then I realized we’ve been improvising our trips as well.

The program for any weekend visit was pretty loose. We‘d have a desire to visit an exhibition or go to a particular park. Mostly we just bought a beer at a kiosk and walked about. We’d stroll down side streets. There are plenty of corner bistros on the corners of those side streets for a quick lunch. We never had a bad meal doing that. There were always plenty of kiosks for a second roady beer.

We made plans as we went. During the spring and summer, we found shady spots in the parks, having lunch and sipping beer among the hipsters. All the while, we kept walking. Through flea markets in Prenzlauer, through grotty warehouse bars in Friedrichstain, a gallery in Charlottenburg, and along the Landwehr Canal (easily our favourite Berlin landmark).

This is the Berlin I know and grew to enjoy.

Berlin’s messy beauty wants you to throw away the itinerary and walk about. Rent a bike. Use your two feet. Ride on a double-decker bus. If you see a bar that looks cool, chances are it is cool. Take a chance on that restaurant on the corner.

Go to Berlin. Ditch the plan. Get lost in the mess.