Halle an der Saale might be one of the largest German cities you’ve never heard of. In the little-visited eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, Halle was my home for three years during the 1990s. I was thrilled when I managed to talk my friend Kim into stopping by on our way back to Munich from Leipzig a few weeks ago. » Read the full post
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I recently visited Leipzig for the first time in more than 10 years. Back then the city was a mishmosh of decrepit old buildings, hideously ugly GDR-era new buildings, and a lot of construction. » Read the full post
4 commentsI meant to write about this in connection with our trip to Germany in December, but I guess it got lost in the holiday shuffle. At any rate, Ampelmänner are back on my mind, so today you’re going to learn about them (or stop reading this post – unfortunately I haven’t found a way to force you to pay attention to me yet).
The Ampelmann, simply put, was the man on the pedestrian traffic lights in East Germany. He came into existence in the 1960s in East Berlin, and lights with his likeness were soon installed all over the country. He stands out amongst other pedestrian crossing signs because of his big hat, dramatic gesturings, and all-around adorableness. The Ampelmann was so popular that he made the jump from traffic symbol to film star in the 80s, coming to animated life in road safety movies that were compulsory viewing for school children. Thus the Ampelmann became even more loved by the East German people. » Read the full post
Sometimes it strikes me as odd that so many religious holidays are state holidays in Europe, given that Europeans themselves are much less involved with organized religion than Americans are. But when it means a day off of work for me (when I am actually working), who am I to argue?
Today is Ascension Day, which seems pretty boring as far as holidays go, at least in Switzerland. No parades, no fireworks… not even some trick-or-treating. The only things that tell me it’s a holiday are the fact that the TV schedule is different and the shops are closed.
In Germany today has become known as Father’s Day. In eastern Germany (where I used to live, in case you haven’t been following along), they take it even further and just call it Männertag (Men’s Day). Starting in the morning, men take over the town, walk around with canes and horns, and get progressively more wasted as the day goes on. Bars, pubs and streets are packed full of embarrassingly drunk men who are shouting, leaning on each other for support, and peeing in alleyways. It’s as if the presence of women is the only thing keeping men from acting like this every day.
So where are the women, you ask? At home cooking and cleaning and doing other womanly things, whatever those may be. My first year living in the east, I didn’t heed warnings and went out for a bit. As I walked down the street, I was alternately cat-called and told to go home and clean. The next year, a friend of mine organized a Männertag women’s barbeque at her place, where we could have our own fun without having to deal with stinking drunk men. By the time we had to venture out into the streets again to go home, most of the Männer were already passed out. And a good time was had by all. I wish I had pictures to share.
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After a few hours in Halle I jumped on a train to Dresden to meet up with my friend Natale, who was eager to see a piece of the GDR after reading Stasiland, an excellent book about an Aussie who explores the East after the wall fell. I warned her in advance that we may be hard-pressed to find authentic East-German experiences 17 years after the fact, but that I’d do my best to dig something up for her. I was thrilled to have someone to talk to about my east(ern) German experience who was actually interested in hearing it.
Despite being pummeled by the Allies and then neglected by the communists, Dresden is a gorgeous city. Certain landmarks, such as the Frauenkirche and the Zwinger, have only recently emerged from extensive renovations (or in the case of the Frauenkirche, being completely rebuilt). The Altstadt is full of large, regal, beautiful buildings, and the Neustadt (which is luckily nothing like Halle’s Neustadt) is full of hip cafes and restaurants.
The one semi-authentic piece of ‘Ostalgie’ (nostalgia for the GDR) we managed to find (in addition to the occasional Trabbi) was a bar called Knast. True to its name, this place gives you a little look into what it was like to be in an East German prison (well, except no one tortures you, and you get to drink beer). But I’m pretty convinced it was almost as depressing as being in the hands of the Stasi.
What was meant to be a couple days of exploring this adorable city unfortunately turned into a couple days in bed sick for me (while Nat shopped, explored, and made trips to the pharmacy). At least we were in a nice hotel that was close to a 24-hour clinic. The doctors and nurses were exceedingly friendly and warm, and they succeeded in making me nostalgic (or rather, Ostalgic) for my time living in this culture, despite my raging fever. It was nice to be an appreciated novelty (American who spoke German and had lived in eastern Germany) instead of a common nuisance (non-Swiss-German-speaking resident foreigner) again, too.
Luckily the antibiotics kicked in soon enough for me to make my scheduled flight home without feeling like complete ass. At the airport gift shop I picked up a couple of bottles of Rotkäppchen and a Dresden shot glass to add to my collection. I boarded the plane convinced that I needed to move back to the former GDR. Now how to persuade the husband of this?
Dresden is probably the most beautiful European city I’ve been to that hasn’t been overrun by tourists yet. As opposed to its neighbor Prague, Dresden just doesn’t seem to make it onto many people’s travel itineraries, probably because you already have plenty of other German destinations on there. For what it’s worth, I really, really recommend it (but not to people who freak out if not everyone they encounter speaks English). I’m looking forward to returning soon.
On my way from Berlin to Dresden, I couldn’t pass up the chance to go visit my old home Halle an der Saale, which I hadn’t seen in six years. I don’t have much to report, especially since I was only there for a couple hours, but I wanted to at least throw a few pictures up here.
The first thing I noticed on my walk from the train station to the center is that a lot of construction has finally been completed. The tunnel where the neo-nazi beggars used to hang out is gone, and a lot of the roads and sidewalks have been redone. The main square (or Marktplatz) still revolves around the statue of Handel, Halle’s most famous native son, but the soviet-era information booth is gone, and still more construction is ongoing.
Like pretty much every other city in former East Germany, Halle has been constantly under construction for the past 15 or so years. Even though Halle was more or less intact at the end of WWII, the Altstadt (old city) suffered horrible neglect in the GDR, while all construction efforts of the era were dedicated to building up Halle-Neustadt, possibly the most depressing place on earth. Imagine a giant, cold, grey, square slab of cement that is 10 stories tall. Then imagine about 100 of these, all in close proximity to each other, separated only by grey, paved streets and walkways. No trees, no parks, not so much as a red fire hydrant. Neustadt is just like that, only more depressing.
I was lucky enough to live in the Altstadt, in a partially-renovated old building. I say “lucky” because at least when I looked out the window, I didn’t feel like jumping. Although run down, the Altstadt definitely had more charm than Neustadt. The partial renovation of my building had involved adding plumbing to one and only one room in each apartment (the one closest to the central stairwell). Therefore my shower was in the kitchen (where else would it be?). To get to the toilet, I had to actually leave my apartment and go up half a floor to a tiny little room just off the stairwell. While the top of the stairwell was covered, the bottom was completely open, meaning it was damn cold in the winter (the toilet room did have a little heater, but who wants to go out in the cold to turn on a heater five minutes before going out into the cold to use the toilet?). I had constant nightmares about waking up in the middle of the night needing to tinkle, and somehow locking myself out of my apartment (the door locked automatically when shut).
The other reason I was lucky was because I had electric heat in my home. Many people I knew had to literally haul buckets of coal up from the basement each day to heat their apartments and bathwater. Others had to suffer the fumes and black scum left by oil heat.
But back to my recent trip. I met a couple of old friends for lunch at one of our old hang-outs, the Café N-8. Back in the day, it was THE place to be and be seen. Newly opened, it was the only locale in town with such modern décor and glass walls. Plus the bartenders were hotties. We sipped Rotkäppchen (a staple of my diet during my Halle years) and reminisced about the old days, like when the large glass front of the café used to look out onto an unending construction site.
Before I knew it, it was time for me to head back to the station to catch my train to Dresden. This short trip back to Halle brought back so many memories of my life there, in a dynamic city full of fascinating people trying to adjust to the fact that although they hadn’t gone anywhere, they suddenly lived in a completely different country. Obviously this visit inspired me to write about some of my experiences there. Maybe I’ll keep going.
We spent Easter weekend in Berlin with Kesha and her giant husband (who, by the way, looked quite reasonably-sized among the Germans). I lived in Berlin for the summer of 1997, and hadn’t been back to the city since 1999, so I was eager to revisit my favorite parts and see how the place had changed in the past seven years. Here are some of the highlights from the trip.
Biennial. This large-scale art show was installed in a variety of buildings along Auguststraße in Berlin-Mitte, including private apartments, a ballroom, and a former Jewish girls’ school that has been abandoned for 10 years (and was re-opened just for this exhibit). It was the kind of exhibit that gets into your brain and makes you think, but doesn’t necessarily give you anything intelligent to say. For days afterwards, I went around critiquing almost everything I saw as art.
At the very start of Auguststraße, where it intersects with Oranienburgerstraße, I had the chance to briefly re-visit Tacheles. Back in 1997 it was a mostly gutted and bombed-out shell of a building that had been turned into a couple bars and a cinema by squatters. We used to go there often to see undubbed movies in English, and to drink cheap beer while watching the crazy variety of people around. Today the building has been renovated and glassed-in, but the remnants of the bombed-out part were left there (although cleaned up a bit).
Walking, drinking, more walking. We spent the better part of Saturday wandering through the heart of East Berlin. We started with some shopping and lunch in the hip neighborhood around Hackescher Markt, and then meandered towards Museum Insel, an island in the Spree River which is home to several museums and the magnificent Berliner Dom, an imposing, gorgeous neo-renaissance cathedral.
On our way to Alexanderplatz, the center of East Berlin and the home of the Fernsehturm, we visited the Ampelmann store, which was full of kitschy souvenirs featuring the adorable little guys from the East-German walk/don’t walk signs.
Next we headed to the Nikolaiviertel, an adorable little medival-style area that was created by East-German architects in the 1980s. There we found a nice outdoor café and I forced Kesha to try Berliner Weisse, a bizarre drink that is technically beer, but thanks to the sweet syrup flavoring (you can have “red” or “green”) it tastes more like something that should contain an umbrella. She actually liked it enough to order it again that night.
Afterwards we walked back towards Museum Insel and continued on along Unter den Linden, the showcase of East Berlin. This street, which leads to the former border crossing near Brandenburger Tor, was über-maintained by the GDR to show just how wonderful things were behind the iron curtain. Along the way we stopped to see the memorial at Bebelplatz and the fancy Peugeot design showroom (this is the boys’ fault), and also wandered through a couple random souvenir shops.
Reichstag Dome. When I lived in Berlin, the Reichstag was still under construction (and the federal government had not yet moved from Bonn), so it was fun to see the finished product. We had to wait in line for about an hour to get in, go through the metal detector, and hop in the elevator that whisked us up to the roof. The dome was actually a really nice piece of architecture, and we could look down upon the eagle that dominates the German parliament, which I had last seen in Bonn when the government was still there.
Film Museum. This brand-new museum presented the surprisingly interesting history of German cinema from before Metropolis to after Lola Rennt (Run, Lola, Run). The stories of the many German actors and directors who fled to Hollywood to escape the Nazis were fascinating. Plus, Marlene Dietrich is a babe.
Stasi Museum. On Sunday we sent our friends off to see the museum at Checkpoint Charlie (a must-see on your first trip to Berlin) and ran off to the Stasi Museum. Situated in the former headquarters of the East German secret police, deep in the heart of East Berlin, this museum is a fascinating reminder of the not-too-distant past. The exhibit is almost exclusively in German, so if you don’t speak the language, make sure you bring along someone who does. Some parts are understandable even without translation, such as the rooms full of various objects designed to hide spy cameras and guns, such as watering cans and briefcases.
Another remarkable thing about this museum is how old the actual Stasi offices seem, even though they were in full operation through 1989. There are no computers, no electric typwriters, and only the old manual-style telephone switchboards (not to mention 60s-era décor), mainly because the last head of the Stasi was an extremely paranoid man, who was convinced that if he used an electric typewriter, someone could find out what he was typing through the power lines.
You can also pick up an application to receive your Stasi file here; all East Germans are allowed to request their Stasi file and find out which of their neighbors were spying on them back in the day.
I was delighted to find that the café in the museum served Rotkäppchen Sekt, an East-German brand of sparkling wine which I remember fondly from my days in Halle. After drinking a bottle ourselves and grabbing another to bring back to Kesha the birthday girl, we headed back out into the cinderblock sub
urbs of East Berlin and took a subway back to Potsdamer Platz.
Potsdamer Platz. The whole area was just a giant Baustelle (construction site) when I lived in Berlin in 1997, so I was excited to see what it looked like now. It looks like the cross between a newly-built city business district and a newly-built American-style mall. But for some reason I liked it.
OK, the part I liked best was the martini bar in the lobby of the Marriot hotel at Potsdamer Platz. Not only were they beautifully presented, but they were delicious, too. My girl-drink-drunk husband thoroughly enjoyed his appletini (served with little marinated apples) and his cosmo (served with dried cranberries).
I was ecstatic to learn of the existence of another kind of dry martini that was almost as yummy as a dirty martini – called a ‘salt and pepper’, it was made with Absolut Peppar and served with a salted rim (and blue-cheese-stuffed olives). Yum.
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On Monday morning, Scott flew back to Zurich and I hopped on a train to Halle, a city deep in the heart of East Germany that had been my home for three years.
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