Started the day with Joe at the supermarket around the corner looking for nail polish remover. None to be found on the shelves I saw a woman with painted nails (silver) and asked her where I could find some. Speaking English supplemented by miming taking polishing off my nails. She looked bemused, so that was that. Until a few minutes later she rushed up and somehow managed to tell me there was a shop around the corner with what I wanted. I love interactions like these. We found a mega beauty store where she said and I got what I wanted. After that excitement we purchased weekly train tickets and caught the train from Wedding
to Potsdamer Platz. I like the station names and the fact all of the stations are clean. Not all of them have tiles, but I like these as well.
Initial thoughts walking across from the station confirmed criticisms of the place by Kirsty Bell in her memoir, The Undercurrents where she describes the new buildings here as anonymous boxes of twenty-first century mall architecture.
Bell regrets that what was once a death strip in the final days of WWII has been sold off to corporate investors Sony and Daimler Benz who constructed buildings (since sold to financial institutions) so spitefully angled they seem to slice your body in two every time you pass them by.
Thereby creating an atmosphere that is not lively or welcoming, exciting or desirable.
I reminded me of Docklands in Melbourne. The few restaurants and coffee shops were big barns of places looking like tourist traps. We would have liked coffee but were not tempted. The only bit of history to be seen was this clumsily presented exterior of the former Grand Hotel, one of the most famous hotels of the era of Kaiser Wilhelm II
It all looked out of place. There were two bits. In the Golden Twenties the plaque informed us international screen stars like Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo met here – at Berlin’s busiest intersection.
It was unclear to us whether the cafe behind this wall was in use or frozen in time as a memento. There was a cinema complex nearby behind which was a History of Cinema Museum which we didn’t attempt to enter.
But across the road we were delighted to find the German equivalent of America’s Hollywood Boulevard. Some notable names here.
Here’s the whole avenue. You could look through boxes on posts beside each star to view a hologram image of the person being honoured. I went down looking at all of the stars – not the holograms.
We then went across the road and joined what seemed to be office workers from the surrounding buildings buying lunch from caravans parked in a little cul de sac. Joe looks at home waiting for his number to be called. He had a currywurst – disgusting things. I had pulled pork with barbecue sauce – Germans, Berliners at least, like sauces with everything. Both came with chips. Eating like the locals! At least some of the time.
We were en route to the State library. I was particularly interested in seeing the spot where the angels converge in the movie Wings of Desire. And I’d been told the coffee shop was great. However it was not to be – entrance denied. Only library members could enter the library proper. We were so disappointed I didn’t bother taking any pictures at all of the library – which in the public spaces was pretty spectacular. Huge! All concrete, very light, comfortable chairs in an area beside a huge window overlooking a lovely green space. It’s near the Berlin Symphony building which is also spectacular and very big. This is only a small part of it.
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