European Vacation: Berlin

From Holland, we took a train to Berlin.

I was still in my graffiti-tagged-arse jeans, which enabled me to blend right in with the other odd-clad Europeans on the train. I had been to several German cities, but never to Berlin. The f had been there before, but it was years ago, shortly after the wall fell. We'd both heard only good things about the city it had become in the decade-plus since then. Now it was time to see for ourselves.

One of my favorite parts about traveling (and life in general) is encountering oddball characters, as long as you can extract yourself from their clutches easily. In this case, the f was the one talking to the weirdo, so no extraction was necessary on my part, I could just sit back and hear all about it.

I suppose just to be more Euro, the f began rolling cigs over in Europe and smoking one or two a day. While our train was stopped at a station, the f took a smoke break and was befriended by a short balding pipe- smoking pal in a leather Harley jacket and circular Lennon shades. Over the next few smoke breaks, Pipey made many claims. He claimed to have been on the train for 48 hours, and that he was George W. Bush's bodyguard, then he proceeded to lift up his shirt to shoulder height show off his bullet-hole scar. He claimed to be traveling from one biker convention to another, and at the next one there would surely be "bikes, barbecues, and go-go dancers...we going to pah-tee," said Pipey. Despite that accent, our man claimed to be from Canada, and when the fiance asked him which part of Canada, he said, "I don't know." Pipey confided that he could die any day because he had a bullet in him, and so he starts drinking when he wakes up, and is drunk every day by three. I'm pretty sure it was after three when this conversation went down, especially since Pipey finished smoking one of his pipes in the WC nearest our seat, which really stunk up the joint, and also the front leg of his pants was all wet. Oh, Pipey.

We arrived in Berlin's bustling modern train station, which doubled as  a somewhat confusing multi-floor shopping complex, and found a bus to our hotel, which wasn't as conveniently located to the park or attractions as the Internets had led us to believe. In fact, the hotel wasn't really convenient to anything, plus both of us were starting to get sick. So Berlin was not to be our best stop on the trip. But of course we still found sites and foods and beers to enjoy.

One of the first things I was reminded of after arriving in Germany was that band names, or potential band names, are everywhere.

I don't understand much German, but I sure do enjoy it. Comedic potential is high when reading signs in Germany, since so many words are English cognates and also compound words. If you know a few German words (or think you do), you can make up your own compound words. For example, when in Cologne with friends on a previous trip, we stayed in a hostel on a street with a very long name beginning with an S, but we just remembered it as Schiessegassestrasse. (Keeping it classy like always.) Plus the word "wiener" is rampant on signage, and for some reason this is still funny even after working at Naked Man Magazine where you think I would have tired of any such jokes. And in addition to the DIY German word-fun and phallusery, some everyday German words are enjoyable to pronounce, like "unterschrift" ("signature"). And some just sound cool because they are German (which brings us back to the band name observation).

Another pleasant rediscovery was the starchy, carby local food, an improvement over the bland cuisine we'd tried in Holland. The first night, I had spinach dumplings with butter and parmesan, easy on the spinach. But we did have to adjust for the duration of the trip to the relaxed, inattentive table service we encountered everywhere in Europe, as well as having to request water ("no gas") and hot sauce and/or some semblance of spice (even at an Asian restaurant).

Two of our major sightseeing stops were Nazi-related, since we were after all in their former headquarters. Topography of Terror was an exhibit located at the long-demolished former site of the Gestapo, SS, and Riech Security Main Office on the Prinze Albrecht Terrain, with parts of the lower level parking garage walls still in evidence on the site. An intact section of the Berlin Wall is still there as well.

The exhibit twice featured the same photo of a guy with a gun held to his head about to be shot and dropped into a ditch, which was at least one instance too many. I was additionally disturbed that people were so casually perusing dozens more photos and biographies of people who were killed for no reason and none of the other visitors looked particularly put out.

I felt that the large-scale modernist sculpture piece Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was much more moving in a less sensationalist way.

It's almost a nameless graveyard, consisting of 2,711 "stelae" (like squared-off columns) arranged in a grid pattern, and the viewer makes his or her own way through the valleys between them.

The bunker of Goebbels' office villa is located underneath the northeast corner of this tribute, and the "Furhrerbunker" is not much farther away. Creepy.

Anyway, back to the jackassery you've come to expect from this blog. A bit about what Germans find funny. I have to say, I'm not quite with them on it. First of all, a current top-selling humor collection over there is a series of Complete Peanuts collections.

 

As a previously easily amused child and today as an easily amused supposed adult, I never found the existentially troubled miniature adults of the Peanuts gang to be very funny. But then again, Germans did coin the term "angst."

Then there was the program on German Comedy Central called "Para Comedy." Think of it as a handicapped-themed version of Holland's "Naked and Funny."  Yes, that title means that physically handicapped people prank innocent bystanders on the street by shocking/disturbing them with their handicaps for the benefit (?) of the viewers at home. One bit featured a guy with a severed arm acting as a bartender, cleaning out glasses with his stump. (That last part of the sentence after the comma was the whole joke. Or rather, bystanders' reactions to this scene were.) Another clip featured a birth-defected woman using a prosthetic thumb to hitchhike to Lourdes. Hilarious, right? Watch clips online here; the one I linked to, Der Sklave, requires no foreign language comprehension.

I'm not entirely opposed to cringe humor like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and Sascha Baron Cohen's stuff, some of it's quite funny, but...not so much with this program. But Germans did bring us the (awesome) term "schaedenfreude," meaning pleasure taken at others' misfortune, and this would fall under that term for sure (although in this case the pleasure is supposed to be taken from the discomfort of the onlookers). Some of my best friends are of German descent, and this isn't intended as a slam on the culture, it's just to say that...our aesthetics don't quite line up in the humor category.

Another unusual TV program we saw in Berlin featured women in their underwear playing football/soccer, complete with triple replays. Between that and the late-night topless phone chat-line commercials rampant in every country we visited, young European lads are pretty lucky (and the girls, not as much).

This time, the big Euro 08 football game was between Holland and France, while we were at this awesome biergarten.

Obvs, we were rooting for Holland. The second game was Sweden vs. Russia, and Russia won, around the time we got back to the hotel. Guess what? We were in the Russian part of town, or at least there were Russians nearby. As were, if we heard right, celebratory gunshots.

We also strolled through the main park Tiengarten, where our European foe Je Ne Sais Quois was discovered to have met a temporary doom. But we were not to be rid of him for long.

So, that's about it for only about two days in town. Here's my favorite photo taken in Berlin.

Those kinderen should totally form a band.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

Great post! But that puppet - why did he have to pop up at the end and scare me like that?

I have to admit that I find the idea of that Para Comedy TV show hugely hilarious, but then, I'm a huge Jackass fan, too.

[Lioux]

In Germany, my band Sister Kisser is known as Schwester-Fresse®™©™.

[The Hoff®™©™]

Oh yes, Colleen and The F.

I played a huge part in reuniting East and West Germany with the wall coming down and everything.

No need to thank me.

[Apollo]

but if you don't eat meat how did you enjoy the bratwurst and other delicious sausages that germany has to offer?

[JDizzle]

WOW! Fab trip. So jealous over here! I think I'll be taking a stay-cation this year.

[Ellen]

Hey Colleen,

Did you know that bit about Pipey made me pee my pants (almost).

[beth]

Okay I had to take a break and come back and finish this post. So much for my little brain to digest. Must admit...I was also enthralled with Pipey. But so much...That is a fabulous picture of the kids on the cow. I stared at that for a while. And not in a creepy way.

[kartek]

Somebody needs to cut that passed out cow kid off. I know german kids drink but this is ridic!

[Lioux]

Is Pipey a sailor man?

He sounds pretty strong to the finich.

[Terri Nunn®™©™]

In Germany, my band Berlin®™©™ is known as Berlin®™©™.

[Trey]

Colleen, you're just not giving BR enough of a chance. I mean, we've got... wait, what?

Oh, Germany and all that. Well, you know who else didn't give other cultures a chance?

;-)

/Came for the flamers
//Stayed for Mr. Pipey
///New penis nickname!