Greetings once more! We are out of the thicket of our last few gigs in Italy and are now able to post more regularly. There’s a few weeks of catch-up to do, so let’s begin.
After several fun days in Frankfurt we packed our belongings and hopped a bus to Berlin. We had been told that the bus was a cheaper option than taking a train and a cheaper option it was, albeit a tedious nine-hour trip. Sitting in a chair for a really long time can be surprisingly tiring, and our energy levels were very low by the time we got to the bus station. Stumbling slightly, we navigated our unwieldy gear through the maze of the Berlin subway system and finally emerged on Oranienburger Strasse for our final destination.
Our home-away-from-home in Berlin was KuLe, one of the oldest artist squats in Berlin. In America, taking over an abandoned building in a major city and making it your permanent home seems a little unusual, but there are a number of such places in Berlin. East Berlin and its people were in terrible shape after the Berlin Wall fell and their subsequent exodus to the West left abandoned buildings everywhere. Artists slowly began to occupy and develop these abandoned spaces, many of which are still around today.
Kule was one of these, an abandoned apartment building with no roof and a tarnished façade that belied its cavernous interior. A group of artists moved into the building in 1990 and were eventually able to get legal ownership of the place, all the while using their meager resources to turn the building into a beautiful arty paradise. And paradise it was; gorgeous murals in every stairwell (some with permanent sound installations) a floor-to-ceiling mosaic bathroom and no less than fifteen artists living communally in some of the coolest rooms you’ve ever seen. The Art Monastery’s director lived in Kule for a number of years and hooked us up with one of his old buddies who still lives there. For seven Euros a night we got our own fully-appointed corner in the attic with blanket walls and a skylight looking out across the city center. Gorgeous.
In Berlin we had once again been hooked up with free circus tickets (thank you Gregg!) but were at risk of missing the show due to our late bus. Upon arrival we threw on fancy clothes, got done up and sprinted out the door to make it to the show in record time. Yes, we could have just gone in our street clothes, but this is us we’re talking about and it’s the CIRCUS! Our destination was the Chamaleon, an ornate ballroom in the middle of Berlin that has been retrofitted for producing world-class variete shows. This was a more contemporary circus than the one we saw in Amsterdam, resplendent with nebulous themes of Resisting Conformity and the Struggles of Urban Living. Replace Cirque du Soleil’s mystical language and psychedelic bodysuits with high-decibel rock music and edgy urban fashion and you get the basic idea. Though not as engaging as Circus Roncalli, there were some cool acts, including a terrifying four-man Chinese Pole act. Imagine, if you will, four men climbing tall poles, hugging their knees around the poles in a tight fetal position, then releasing their grip to fall nearly twelve feet before tightening their grip and catching themselves inches above the floor. In unison. Wow.
Going to the circus together is a special experience for the two of us and usually results in endless postshow scheming about developing fantastic new acts. After shows we also tend to scheme about running off with the circus and this was no exception. Know someone who runs a traveling circus? Drop us a line. Have van, will travel.
The following day took us to the Tiergarten, the Berlin equivalent of Central Park. We had high hopes for a peaceful day of lounging in the grass, but Berlin had other plans for us. We had been told there was a game that day, and figured that this meant that places like public parks would be deserted in favor of bars and public viewing squares. Hundreds of rowdy German soccer fans thought otherwise. The Berlin public viewing is so well attended that the only place they can hold it is IN THE TIERGARTEN. You can refer to our first Frankfurt post for an overview of German soccer culture, but for now it will suffice to say this was the biggest frat party we had ever seen, complete with the requisite indecipherable group yelling and assertive vomiting. We had fun nonetheless and enjoyed being outdoors so much that we decided to visit Berlin’s botanical gardens the following day.
As with soccer, the Botanischer Garten was even more intense than its Frankfurt counterpart. If you’re ever in Berlin, check it out – just take the subway to the Botanischer Garten stop, take a right at the giant strawberry and you’re right there. (Incidentally, the German word for strawberry is “erdbeer,” which for some reason provided us with hours of chuckles.) The Botanischer Garten’s breathtaking greenhouses and seductive paths were alone worth the price of admission (no, we didn’t hop the fence this time), but it was the pack of feral children playing on the lawn that made it an afternoon to remember. When was the last time a naked two-foot elf appeared out of nowhere to stare you down for the duration of your ice cream cone?
After Berlin it was back on the plane for the next installation of our saga…the Triumphant Return To Labro is next.
The second half of the second half of our Amsterdam odyssey found us quartered in the home of Marije Nie, Art Monastery associate and tapdancer extraordinaire. That's her to the right, wearing the fake paper moustache, clearly the most adorable person in the world. We had met Marije a week previous and talked with her about putting some kind of performance together during our final days in Amsterdam. When we returned from Belgium she and her boyfriend Erik not only offered to house ourselves and Art Monastery bandmate Charles for five days (a long time to have three musicians in your home) but had gotten the four of us a gig at her cousin’s wedding the following weekend. We spent several days rehearsing for the show and put together some material that we will likely continue to work on when Marije visits the Art Monastery in July. Marije drove us around, introduced us to her Amsterdam musician friends, fed us, found us rehearsal spaces, borrowed us gear, educated us on the Dutch arts scene and rocked some crazy foot percussion to boot. Very cool woman; check her out at http://tapdanser.ne.
While in Amsterdam we discovered that we would not be needed at the Art Monastery until a week after our projected June 13th arrival date. A quick inventory revealed a disproportionate number of connections and resources in Germany, so we threw some travel plans together and shortly found ourselves bound for another strange and wonderful adventure.
Naomi’s father Jeff attended high school in Germany for a year, where he still has many friends that were connected with several during our stay, the first being Jeff’s friend Gabi, who met us at the Frankfurt train station, tended to our weary souls and got us situated in her daughter’s apartment in downtown Frankfurt. There were several public viewings of the Germany vs. Australia World Cup game that night, so we decided to go check one out for ourselves. We had no idea what we were in for.
We followed a flood of rowdy soccer fans into a large fenced outdoor square containing a huge TV screen. Though it was still two hours before the game, the place was packed with thousands of people consuming gallons of beer while blowing air horns and chanting “DEUTSCHLAND!” in varying stages of coherency. It soon became clear, however, that we were only in the overflow lot. The primary lot was even bigger and packed so full of people that the fences could barely contain the flag-waving tide of red, yellow and black. We watched the game for awhile but had much more fun watching the sea of fans, who would transform from typical spectators into a deafening mob for several minutes anytime a goal was scored. We left before the game ended and walked home through abandoned streets, the lone atheists at the prayer meeting.
Our Frankfurt adventures also included a visit to Marburg to see Jeff's friend Andreas. The picture to the left is Naomi with Andreas and Gabriella (Andreas' wife) and Gabi. This was the closest to everyone actually looking at the camera that we managed to get. I think the dog was doing something funny.
While in Marburg we visited a store that only sold gummi candies (85 varieties), ate a delicious homecooked meal with Andreas and had the most amazing ice cream of our lives. The establishment will remain unnamed so as to keep the spot from blowing up, but if you ever happen to be in Marburg, ask a local for directions to the best frozen treats in town and go for the coconut, two scoops for a Euro fifty.
The castle that Naomi's dad lived in (well next to...) in high school!
The following day we returned to Frankfurt and wandered around until we stumbled on the Palmgarten, a large botanical garden in the center of town. We spent the day ogling magical plants from the world over, many of which can be seen in the photo from a few weeks ago. In the evening we stopped at the supermarket for our new favorite edible: green sauce. Green sauce is a Frankfurt specialty consisting of seven different herbs in a yogurt-like base with the consistency of salad dressing. We know for sure that it’s got dill and sweet relish in it, but the rest is still unknown. What is clear, however, is that this is the most delicious sauce ever. We ate nothing but potatoes and green sauce for an entire day an were happy as clams – go to Frankfurt, get some, get your mind blown.
Our last day in Frankfurt was spent with Gert and Ula, two very distant relatives (like, twelfth cousins) of Naomi’s dad. Their beautiful house in the country was a welcome break from city living, as were their amazing hospitality and functional washing machine. We mentioned an interest in cycling before we went to bed and awoke the next day to discover that a guided 35-kilometer bike tour had been arranged for us. Wow, German hospitality. Wow.
Our tour of the countryside terminated at another delicious ice cream parlor, where we marveled a new and bizarre culinary creation: spaghetti ice. This frozen confection consists of vanilla ice cream squeezed through a giant garlic press, producing a pile of what looks like…you guessed it! Spaghetti. The frosty faux noodles are then topped with strawberry “marinara” and white chocolate “parmesan” flakes. Other iterations of this concept can involve anything from lime-green kiwi sauce to reddish-brown chocolate meatballs and ambiguously lumpy white “alfredo.” How someone came up with this in a country known for sausage and sauerkraut is still a mystery.
Next up: a tale of falafel, futbol, circus and bohemian living in the “poor, yet sexy” hub of contemporary German culture. Stay tuned…Berlin is next.
Auf Wiedersehen!
