Ich bin ein Berliner

Newsletter 06.02.2024

Bienvenue and welcome back to Musée Musings, your idiosyncratic guide to Paris and art. This week, pack your bags, we’re off to Berlin! But first, a brief update on my trials and tribulations in the Dordogne. You may remember that I found a professional gardener to cut the grass at Rousset. Which because of the incessant rain, has been growing four times faster than it usually does.

The scene, when we arrived from Paris just before dusk on Wednesday evening was more nightmare than ’the corn (grass) is as high as an elephant’s eye’ because first of all, it wasn’t a beautiful morning and it certainly wasn’t a beautiful evening.

After the gardener finished on Thursday, I knew he hadn’t done a good job. He knew he hadn’t done a good job. But he managed to blame it on me all the same.

On Friday, when Guy, the brocante guy came to talk about all the things he hadn’t sold, he took one look at the grass and told me that it hadn’t been mowed properly. When he came back on Saturday with his friend Eric, to move some things to my little house, Eric looked at the grass and shook his head. The grass was not good.

Guy said he would try to find someone to fix the grass before the real estate agents and the buyers arrived for their final inspection. Nobody he asked was available. Later that day, the son-in-law of the ébéniste (cabinetmaker) who made most of the furniture that Guy has been selling for me, came over for a few things his father-in-law had made. That I wanted him to have. He looked at the grass. He concurred, it was a mess. But unlike Guy, he has a tractor. And even though he is a baker with only one day off a week, Monday, that’s the day he came back to mow the lawn. Properly.

All the while, Nicolas and I kept cleaning the house and the barn and the atelier and the garage. Did I mention that there are 11 bathrooms at Rousset? That also needed tidying? And of course, I kept worrying about the pool. When Des, the handyman, came over Friday afternoon to see how much stuff there was for the decheterie (dump), I persuaded him to look at the pool. I have a thing for second (and third) opinions. He said the motor wasn’t running efficiently, so he adjusted a few things. On Saturday morning when he came to pick the stuff up for the decheterie, he brought a pool testing strip with him. The Ph and Chlor were low. According to Des, both had to be treated because until the Ph went up, adding Chlor would be useless. Saturday afternoon, Nicolas and I bought Ph+ and Chlor. And ate at McDonalds. (Fig 1)

Figure 1. Nicolas helping me eat my McFlurry which, as most things, is better in principle than practice

A few hours after I put the chemicals into the pool, I tested the water again, with a pool testing kit of unknown vintage that I found in the garage. Chlor was good (yeh!) Ph was still low (boo). That was Saturday evening, the stores were all closed.

Sunday morning trying to find someplace that sold chemicals was tricky. I say Sunday morning because nothing is open after 1:00p.m on Sundays in the French countryside. I found a container of Ph something at a little store. It was my only option, the three supermarkets within driving distance were all closed. I dumped some of it in and hoped for the best. I returned one last time on Monday morning. To say hello to the baker who was mowing my lawn and to test the pool chemicals. (Figs 2, 3) Everything looked okay. Nicolas and I left for Libourne to catch our train back to Paris. Later that evening, Des checked the pool again. The chemicals were still okay.

Figure 2. The Baker mowing my grass on Monday, his day off

Figure 3. Testing the pool chemicals with a pool testing kit I found in the garage

The agence immoblier and the buyers inspected the property on Tuesday morning. On their way to the Notaire. I was in Paris, so I participated by Zoom. Happily the video wasn’t working. The documents were all signed in less than 30 minutes. The funds were supposed to transfer from the Notaire’s checking account to mine immediately. Of course they didn’t. When I called the Notaire at the end of the day, I was greeted with the bureaucratic indifference that I know too well.

To make this farce even more ridiculous, since Tuesday I have been on the telephone with Chase Bank. Turns out that my bank account, which was at First Republic, which went bankrupt last year, transferred to Chase on Tuesday. My personal bank account information transferred without problem. But when I tried to find my business account, it was nowhere Turns out that while the account transferred, the signatory cards did not. After hours and hours on the telephone, on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, only one thing is clear. Until I establish my credentials, in person, at the bank, I will have no access to that account. When I asked if Ginevra could be a signer, since she is actually in San Francisco, the answer was no, because I need to be there, to get verified and then to verify her. This information was ‘explained’ to me by several ‘Customer Service’ advisors online and reconfirmed when I was talking to Ginevra on FaceTime at the bank. Noon her time, 9:00 p.m. my time. The bank manager spoke with me on FaceTime. He saw my face. In the bank! But no go. At Chase, rules are rules, even when the error is theirs.

Berlin!!!

Two fun facts before we start.

1. When John F Kennedy was in Berlin in 1963, he said ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ which may or may not mean, ‘I am a jam filled doughnut’ (Fig 4)

Figure 4. John F. Kennedy in Berlin, 1963

2. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, dreamy David Hasselhoff’s (who you know from reruns of Bay Watch) song, ‘Looking for Freedom’ (based upon a German song called "Auf Der Strasse Nach Süden,) became the national anthem. When he was asked to sing it during a New Year’s Eve special in Berlin in 1990, he agreed but only if he could sing it at the Wall. Which he did, hoisted high above by a crane. He was a rock star in Germany! Who knew? Freedom loving Germans knew and still do! (Fig 5)

Figure 5. David Hasselhoff singing his song, ‘Looking for Freedom’ at the Berlin Wall, 1990

Anyhow, when Nicolas told me he was planning to attend the Glass Art Society (GAS) Conference in Berlin this year, it seemed the perfect opportunity/excuse to visit a city that has never been on my bucket list. In fact, after visiting Munich on my very first trip to Europe, I never wanted to return to Germany. My girlfriend and I were camping. In Munich, we stayed at one of the former Olympic sites, the same Olympics during which the Israeli wrestling team was kidnapped and assassinated. And then there were all those road signs with all those familiar names, names of concentration camps.

But I have been hearing good things about Berlin for years. Just as New York replaced Paris at the turn of the 20th century as the place for artists to be, Berlin was touted as New York’s successor. His conference was a good excuse to see the city.

We stayed in a flat I found on HomeExchange. In Wedding, a transitioning neighborhood close to Leopoldplatz and the metro line 6. The apartment had two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a bike for Nicolas to use to get back and forth from his conference. Which he also used late at night to find places to do graffiti. Berlin is a graffiti ‘artist’s’ heaven. It’s everywhere. Some of it is really good. But knowing that Nicolas was riding around late at night, in a city he didn’t know, on a bike he didn’t know, didn’t make getting to sleep (or staying asleep) easy for this mom.

Based upon my trip to Copenhagen last July, I brought layers of clothes, to stay warm. Berlin, mid May. Surely it would be cold, dreary and rainy. Ironically, while France froze, Berlin was warm and mostly sunny. So, once again, 3/4 of the clothes I brought stayed in my suitcase. Except the hiking shoes I bought before I left Paris. Hokas, recommended in a Condé Nast Traveler article Ellen sent me, called ‘Camino de Santiago Packing List…’ They are blue, they are big, they are like walking on clouds.

I planned our trip so we would have one day before and one day after the conference to tour together. Our first day in Berlin, we checked out a few of the graffiti sites that I found on the internet. I didn’t need a guide, I had Nicolas. For an itinerary, I plotted a route based upon where each site was in relationship to the other. We took a metro to our first stop, walked between graffiti spots and took the metro home. (Figs 6 - 9) I had been too ambitious, we got to only four of the five places I had on my list. The last stop was the highlight, the East Side Gallery.

Figure 6. Our first stop - it’s not graffiti, it’s Street Art

Figure 7. An exhibition about Ann Frank at our first Street Art stop

Figure 8. Gorlitzer Park, close up. Graffiti

Figure 9. Gorlitzer Park, from a distance

The East Side Gallery is the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall. After the opening of the Wall, 118 artists from 21 countries were invited to create the world's longest open-air gallery as both a celebration of the end of German devision and as historical testimony of what the wall had been. The gallery was opened on September 28, 1990. Most of the art here is replicas of the original paintings, sometimes recreated by the artists who had originally painted them. Nicolas wasn’t as impressed with the ‘street art’ as I was. (Figs 10 - 12) He was more interested in the more recent graffiti that he found and to which he would be adding all during the week.

Figure 11. Berlin Wall, Escape to Freedom

As I planned what I wanted to see and do on my own, I knew I didn’t want my days to be filled with the Second World War and the Holocaust. When I was with my kids in Amsterdam about 10 years ago, we focused on that period. We visited Ann Frank’s house, the Dutch Resistance Museum and Corrie Ten Boom’s home in Haarlem, where she and her family of devout Christians hid Jews until an informant notified the Nazis of her activities. She was arrested and deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. She survived and wrote about it in a book you might know, The Hiding Place. Amsterdam seemed the right place to learn about the Holocaust. After all, the Dutch were victims of, not creators of, Nazi aggression.

And I didn’t especially want to focus on Communism and the Cold War, either. We had learned about the heartbreaking abuses of Communism when we visited Prague. We had a private tour guide. In addition to telling us about the brave students who risked their lives and sometimes intentionally ended them in an ongoing fight for freedom, she told us some of her family’s own history. Her father, an architect, had never been able to advance in his profession because he wasn’t a Party member. He died young, of cancer, like all the men on the street where they lived. They suspect it was from all the toxic gases that escaped from Chernobyl. She also told us that after her father’s death, she found solace in the Catholic church. A teacher told her mother that she would never progress academically unless she abandoned religion.

Another thing I didn’t want to do was visit museums filled with the kind of art that I could see here in Paris.

I know, it sounds like I put a lot of restrictions on what I was willing to explore in Berlin but I had an amazing time. And the more I explored, the more I wanted to learn. Getting around became easier, too as I became more familiar with the metros, buses, trams and trains, on all of which you can use the same tickets. And contrary to what I had been warned, Berlin is a city of friendly people, some of whom went out of their way to point me in the right direction. Getting lost is one of my specialities.

For my first day on my own, I booked a five hour tour to nearby Potsdam. There were about 10 of us, couples and pairs and singles. We learned so much from our excellent guide whose timing was impressive. We moved from one venue to the next, sometimes by bus, other times by train and sometimes on foot, Her commentary was intelligent and thoughtful. I thought that learning about Frederick II, aka Frederick the Great would be fun. (Fig 13) And that history is ancient history. I couldn’t imagine all the other things I would learn about, too. And in and around Berlin, it’s just a fact that monuments and artifact from the Holocaust and Cold War cannot be avoided. We went to the Wannsee Villa, (Fig 14) where the Final Solution for the Jewish problem was decided. And then we were on the porch of the building where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met in 1945 to divide up Europe, and especially, Germany, the Potsdam Conference. (Fig 15) I stood on the Bridge of Spies, (Fig 16) where spies from the East were traded with spies from the West. I walked through the Brandenburger Gate. (Fig 17) And in Potsdam proper, we visited the Dutch quarter, (Fig 18) filled with little houses built by Dutch workers.

Figure 13. Frederick the Great, Andy Warhol, Chateau de Sanssouci

Figure 14. Wannsee Villa where ‘Final Solution’ on the Jewish problem was decided, 1942

Figure 15. First Potsdam Conference, Churchill, Roosevelt & Stalin

Figure 16. Bridge of Spies, exactly where the film of that name with Tom Hanks was filmed

Figure 17. Brandenburg Gate, Potsdam built in 1770–71 by Carl von Gontard and Georg Christian

Of course I learned a lot about 18th century Prussia and how horrible Frederick II’s father (Frederick I, duh) was to him. And why people put potatoes on the tomb of Frederick the Great, (Fig 19) which is on the grounds of his summer palace, Sanssouci, (Figs 20, 21) just outside of Potsdam. That’s where our tour ended. The guide and most of the group returned to Berlin. I got a ticket to tour Sanssouci. The audioguide which came with the entry ticket told the story the guide had shared. I felt so smart, I already knew most of what I heard. Although it was terrific to hear it as I toured Sanssouci. Oh dear, I’ve run out of space! I’ll tell you about Sanssouci next time. And the newly opened (2017) Museum Barberini, in Potsdam which had an amazing temporary exhibition about Modigliani which I want to tell you about. And about all the sites and museums I visited the rest of my jam-packed trip to Berlin. Next time.

Figure 19. Potatoes on the crypt of Frederick the Great, Chateau Sanssouci

Figure 20. Frederick the Great's Sanssouci, just outside of Potsdam

Gros bisous, Dr. B.

Thanks to everyone who sent me words of encouragement about my hopefully last Rousset ordeal. Those comments meant the world to me.

New comment on This Time Tomorrow :

Oh, my gosh, I am sorry you are going through this!!! I do NOT wish this on you, but if everything collapses at the last minute, call me and maybe I can rent your lovely home for a month or so until you can breathe again and find a dependable buyer. I have lived vicariously through you for so long that I would love to step into your shoes and escape for a bit! Sending you love and smooth sailing ahead! Bonnie

Ich bin ein Berliner II

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