Guten Rutsch! Starting a new decade in Berlin

New Years’s Eve in Berlin: 2 millions visitors, 3/4 of a million on the PartyMile stretching from Brandenburger Tor to the Siegessäule…and S-bahn Krise. But let’s proceed in order.

We were at the Gate in the late afternoon, after having left behind us a Sony Center which looked as if it was located in Gorkji. Snow helps in softening up the modern architecture’s edges.

A tour on the wheel provided the supporting evidence: it was cold and windy above the Tiergarten, even if it seemed that on the ground the temperature was comfortably zero. At sunset time we were back in our insular Schöneberg, enjoying the heavy snow fall and the first fireworks, stocking up on heat for the night out.

At around 10pm we headed back to Unter den Linden by U-bahn, the police was already checking that nobody with fireworks and glass bottles enter the PartyMile. We had an appointment with Eva at the Adlon at around 11pm but as soon as we approached Pariser Platz, the mood had shifted to high-security mode.

The entrance to the square was blocked and that was a bad surprise, spoiling the party. How come each time there is a party – the Mauerfall, Silvester – the poor Brandenburg gate is framed as an icon but sealed off? Maybe this time it was the fault of the American Embassy. Or the French and American together? It looks quite absurd that a measure like this be imposed by the Senat.

Anyway. Green police vans and uniforms in front of the Adlon. Frustrated crowd. This is not looking nice, and it’s 11pm already. We wished Guten Rutsch to Eva by phone, who was blocked at Gendarmenmarkt and with a brisk pace tried to get around the Gate under wet snow. At the Olocaust memorial the police was closing the…well, the checkpoint. Run along Wilhemstrasse to Leipziger Platz then.

Get behind Sony Center, avoiding Ebertstrasse. Probably our fastest périple ever on icy snow, 11 minutes.

Eventually we past through the Tiergarten checkpoint and that was the best part of the evening. Slowly trekking across the woods, moonlight reflecting on the thick snow, the noise of the PartyMile muffled down, the fireworks cracking softly above our heads.

At midnight big fireworks mimicked the Riesenrad on on Strasse den 17. Juni, seen from a clarière in the northern part of Tiergarten…

Getting ready for the Brandenburg Gate party…

Well I could not resist: the snow today in Berlin was too perfect, the preparations for the Brandenburg Gate too hectic, I must upload a few photos!

The Lustgarten from the Humboldt box…and plenty of snow and fun at the Rathaus Schoeneberg Volkspark…Guten Rutsch!

Off-line time, in Berlin

There’s a moment for chasing mice and climbing trees, being connected and multitask here and there. But now it’s time for being lavishly lazy and mysteriously elusive, purring along the winter’s icy winds. Off-line time. (it’s good for our fur).

See you in early January…

Purr: courtesy of Tinky @ Kessels.nl

after-sale service delight in open-source

I’m the proud user of WordPress since July 2008. I always wanted to blog but for some reason I didn’t like Blogspot. One evening I discovered WordPress and by 01.00 in the morning 2 blogs were born, BerlinRomExpress and his sister AflatinBerlin. The two blogs are now up and running, and 2 micro-websites (1920 and 1960) have been created by hijacking the blog format, because I am just a humble user, not a geek…and like all cats, a bit lazy too.

steel framed

Foto: Volker Wartmann

Polaroids of the Schoeneberg gasometer…who knows why these lonely objects, gasometers, look like they need a bit of affection? It’s the same with the Ostiense ones in Rome and the one in Sant’Andrea, Triest…

Techno Luxury: part 3 – in the lap of tech

Another interesting article by Markus Albers for Monocolumn on Berlin’s power of attraction on things techno is the right trigger for the final wrap-up report on the recent Techno Luxury Conference held in Berlin in November by Herald Tribune & The New York Times.

There’s a lot of talk about tablets and new interfaces, different on one side from the PC/Mac and from the mobile/smart phone on the other one. And during the conference the guys from the NYT Lab were in Berlin to show how the intermediate format can offer a different set of content, both in terms of text and images/video. Basically, another type of user experience. Today even Repubblica has an extensive article on the topic. Strange…in a country not used to buy books by the dozen, I would be surprised to see a success of e-books on a tablet. But gadgets are different animals from books.

Mayor Wowereit was a speaker at the conference (“Berlin Powerhouse”) and one sentence, in a nutshell, delivered his articulated message : “Berlin offers opportunities, but you really need to be prepared, be motivated, be disciplined in order to succeed“. Forums are full of people wanting to move to Berlin, but not all of them are planning it carefully, as if they would do when moving to Zurich or Stockholm. In the same forums in fact one can find dozens of posts on the thread “Berlin – graveyard of ambitions”. A cheap rent can be useful when starting up a new life or a new business, but hey, you need to turn a living and a profit nonetheless. You need a business plan.

Grand Hotel cosy at home

Russian tea, dull weather, lazy Sunday. Curious about Vicky Baum’s novel “Menschen im Hotel”, today was a good opportunity to watch the Grand Hotel movie with Garbo and a young Joan Crawford once more…Looking forward to many movies in Berlin, at Astor Lounge maybe…

40 years of blasting silence

Almost every working day there are protests in Rome. In the morning, close to the Ministry of Education. The Treasury. The Ministry of Industry. Students. Workers from Eutelia, Alcoa. People grumble in the buses.

Bubbling up decade

What a decade! 2000 started with the initial cracks in the New Economy after the Irrational Exuberance of the 1999s. 2009 is ending in the aftermath of the sub-prime, metro-sexual, über-leveraged Crisis, previously known as the Credit Crisis.

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles…maybe at New Year’s Eve we should toast with a shot of vodka, hot sake, breezy limoncello, strong grappa: you name it. Provided it’s nothing remotely bubbly, please.  Need something really strong. We have a decade of bubbles to digest. Burp.

We may resume the consumption of beloved champagnes, proseccos, chinottos, perriers and sanpellegrinos once we’ve safely in no-bubbly territory again.

Photo: La Stampa

10 things I won’t buy at Christmas (or even after)

Retail is in full-blown customer withdrawal syndrome. Inventories are high. The Crisis is not over and we’re living with its symptoms. Stimulating the economy is in our interest, as consumers and even more as employees. But let’s think before shopping.

Over the past year MeinMann and I shopped with a thriftier angle, but invested generously in our flat in Berlin. So we stimulated the economy more than ever, by our standards: by buying a flat, refurbishing it and paying for professional services – from the notary to the builders, buying materials and furniture (new and second-hand).

We remain in a thriftier mode also this Christmas. Here is our No Wish List. Things we won’t buy. Not even if the economy was growing in the double-digits.