JK'ing Around in Europe: Berlin: Those Wacky Germans

After the heavy content in my last post, I thought I'd take the time to showcase some of the lighter and sillier sides of Berlin!

Because East and West Berlin were separated for decades, they developed their own, vastly different styles of infrastructure and architecture. Since reunification, much of East Berlin's individuality has disappeared and been absorbed into West Berlin. The most visible (and probably most beloved) holdover is their crossing sign, the Ampelmann! This little guy with his fedora was so popular back in the day that there were cartoons on TV with him teaching children about street safety. In 2004 they introduced a female version, the Ampelfrau, trying to promote gender equality. And now they have dozens of stores selling his merchandise all over Berlin.

For comparison, here are the Walk and Don't Walk signals in West Berlin. Not as adorable!

Visiting the Ampelmann store

Another holdover from East Berlin (or Ost-Berlin) is the Trabi car. This was a socialist government's plan for everyone being able to have a car (although it cost a year's salary). Everyone got the same car (with three exciting colour options - khaki, olive green, or light brown) so there would be no jealousy. You just had to put your name on the waiting list and wait for your car to arrive. And wait. And wait. The wait list took up to 16 years!

This paragraph from a Time article on the 50 worst cars of all times (linked here) made me chuckle out loud, so I'll copy and paste it here:

"This is the car that gave Communism a bad name. Powered by a two-stroke pollution generator that maxed out at an ear-splitting 18 hp, the Trabant was a hollow lie of a car constructed of recycled worthlessness (actually, the body was made of a fiberglass-like Duroplast, reinforced with recycled fibers like cotton and wood). A virtual antique when it was designed in the 1950s, the Trabant was East Germany's answer to the VW Beetle — a "people's car," as if the people didn't have enough to worry about. Trabants smoked like an Iraqi oil fire, when they ran at all, and often lacked even the most basic of amenities, like brake lights or turn signals. But history has been kind to the Trabi. Thousands of East Germans drove their Trabants over the border when the Wall fell, which made it a kind of automotive liberator. Once across the border, the none-too-sentimental Ostdeutschlanders immediately abandoned their cars. Ich bin Junk!"

Reading that paragraph, and the article linked here, makes me think we really missed out on the safari! That being said, sometimes driving in the UK is enough of an adventure in itself. Maybe it's best we skipped this one.

Not a historically correct colour choice

This seems like as good a place as any to post some funny German words! I have to say the compound words are pretty helpful once you start to get the hang of them. We saw a sign that said Prinzessinnengarten in the subway and were immediately asking 'what princess has a garden?'

"Hydrant" and "Pure water for fire-fighting" apparently. Not as obvious as Prinzessinnengarten.

Other times the signs seemed almost exactly the same as the ones we're used to at home:

Some of the pictures we took don't fit in with a particular theme, so here are a few we just plain liked:

America in the 1950s! (??!) This was literally the arrivals hall of Berlin Schoenefeld Airport. You can see the rest of our flight arriving to the far left of the picture

And directly outside the arrivals hall, a rustic hunting-cabin style restaurant and bar!

This seems like a fairly useless picnic table, so it takes up all of that space just for the pun? ("High Tea Table", if you can't read the red letters)

Several of their patios had beaches built-in. I wish we could have stopped at this one, but we were late for a dinner reservation!

That dinner reservation was at a restaurant called Fame, which is built into the arch of a viaduct for the subway, surrounded by derelict buildings. They didn't want pictures taken inside the dining room during dinner, so I got these beauties of the unisex bathroom when I found myself in there alone:

I can think of a few people who might be inspired to redo their bathrooms

Here are another couple of pictures of the restaurant, from online sources. It was very hipster-chic, but the food was great and the atmosphere was really neat - you could feel the subways run over your head every few minutes, and the alleyway that you exit the restaurant from was lined in candles. I'd recommend the place if you're ever in town!

Photo credit: http://blog.urban-apartments.com/fame-restaurant-and-schweizer-h%C3%BCttli

Photo credit: http://www.iheartberlin.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1200px-Kater_Blau_Berlin.jpg

Another place we ended up for dinner was Klunkerkranich, this open-air combination restaurant/bar/patio which occupied the top floor of a parking garage in a downtown mall. When we arrived in time for sunset, there was a lineup of at least 60-80 people, so we assumed we wouldn't be getting in. Luckily the line moved quickly because there is a ton of space up there! It was another quirky location to visit, and the view was pretty spectacular. Sorry in advance for all of the photos (I took a TON up here)!

Punny! It was neat that they started the ambience down here, in view of the line, instead of waiting until you were fully on the roof. I wonder if these use any of the food grown in these planters for their meals?

Old timey photobooth at the restaurant. We saw a ton of these (this was the one we used) and they do genuinely seem to be owned and operated by individuals.