Category Archives: Berlin

My favourite city

A walk through Park am Gleisdreieck to the area around Bayerischer Platz

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(on my way to an evening class at VHS Charlottenburg Wilmersdorf)

Along this route, more or less, with detours once I got close to Bayerischer Platz.

I wanted to finally see at least some of this memorial. I don’t know how many signs I missed, but those that I did photograph are in the last block of photos.

The German bureaucracy is getting worse, not better

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Final edit 27 February: “Happy ending” 🙂 – I found an HNO doctor who unlike the first one I went to is competent and friendly, and unlike the second one I went to has friendly receptionists who do not lie about what my insurance company wants and does not want. Ear infection, or whatever it was, is now gone. Dr. S. Schölzel, Bergmannstraße 5. Highly recommended.

We now have to bring our “Anmeldebestätigung” along when seeing a new doctor for the first time. Despite having lived here eight years and seen many doctors and one hospital, I have never been asked for that one before.

After having been treated for an ear infection unsuccessfully by one ear doctor and three different kinds of eardrops for a couple of months, I wanted to get a second opinion from another ear doctor and made an appointment with Herr Dr. med. Christian Scheiber in Leipziger Straße.

Having arrived there and filled in the usual two-three pages of blabla (that German IT angst again) and presented my passport and insurance card, I was asked to produce my “Anmeldebestätigung” and if I did not have it with me – go back home to fetch it. At some point, they even claimed that my insurance company demands it. (?????). That is a blatant lie. I am privately insured with JSIS – the sickness insurance for current and former European Union employees and have been since 1976. I think I would have known by now if that were the case. I even offered to pay the bill in cash then and there if necessary – but no, not good enough.

Due to gail-force wind gusts (accompanied by rain), I had already been almost blown off the pavement three times on the way there, so I was not about to make an extra return walk under those conditions. And – in a country whose motto seems to be “why make things easy if you can make them complicated?” – how could I be certain that when I got back there they would not lie about something else. Once a liar, alway a liar. I therefore left, telling them I would not be back and that they should just send me the invoice.

I am sure my “alleged” address is good enough for billing me, even if not good enough for treating my ear infection.

Hibernation, and VHS’s latest insanity

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One of the advantages of staying indoors for three or four days is that you are spared the stupidity you without fail encounter every time you stick your head out of your own home.

But you are not safe from it. Quite apart from, against your better judgement, watching the news on Danish TV these last few weeks, here is my example from today, of the German IT angst/incompetence/paranoia/resistance:

Volkshochschule Berlin (VHS), which already has the most moronic system for searching, signing up and paying for courses (something they say takes years to change whereas anyone with the right IT knowledge say it would take them less than an hour), for some strange reason insists on calling me Heike although that is, for obvious reasons, not the name I have signed up with, and is, for even more obvious reasons, also not the name on the bank details I had to send them.

Weirdly enough, I only had to send the bank details once, although VHS is very proud of being divided into about twelve offices – one for each of the Berlin districts, and whether they ever speak to each other, or are connected in any way, depends on their mood and how the wind blows.

In addition to crossing out Heike and writing Helle very clearly on the attendance lists which I assume are sooner or later returned to admin, I have also several times e-mailed them and drawn their attention to the fact that they – on their own initiative – invented a new name for me.

I finally received a reply. Guess what: I have to not only send in an application for a name change (can you believe this – I repeat: THEY invented that other name for me – no I?). But wait for it: I have to send an application for a name change to each of the districts in which I am signed up for courses.

I wish I had not e-mailed them. Before, it was not even all that important to me. Now, with that reply, I am really p….. off.

It is not immediately obvious from the above tsunami, but words actually fail me.

Someone ought to introduce IT and computers to them – properly, and real software to replace the kind of Mickey Mouse software they seem to be using currently.

I am more inclined to stop going to any of the courses I am now signed up for, and make sure I never see or hear or read anything about that brain-dead institution, or is it those brain-dead institutions? ever again.

And people wonder why I hate people.

Added 25 January:

A person wearing a Wattenfall coat turned up at our respective doorsteps and rang our doorbells and knocked on our doors insistently. I finally opened thinking it must be an emergency, but he just introduced himself as coming from Vattenfall and only wanted to know who is my electricity supplier. Which is in fact Vattenfall. Which seemed to come as a surprise to him.

??????????????????????????????? Does Vattenfall also not have real computers? And if they do, are they using the same Mickey Mouse software that they seem to use at Volkshochschule?

11 May walk to the laying down of “stumblestones” in ten locations in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg

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The route here.

More information about the programme for today here.

Information about the background here.

Some photos from some of the events, and some snapped along the way:

He of “Berliner Luft” lived here (check out this version with Placido Domingo).

Hamburger Bahnhof, Europacity, and Haus Kunst Mitte

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I wanted to catch two exhibitions closing this week: “Under Construction” at Hamburger Bahnhof, and the current exhibits in Haus Kunst Mitte. While I was in the area, I took a look at “Europacity”, a whole new part of Berlin which has sprung up over the last five or so years, with an unbelievably large number of apartment blocks and some shops and nice cafés and other eateries. The area is clearly still under development.

My route on MapMyWalk here. (I did not have my phone with me on the walk inside Hamburger Bahnhof. Since the cases of vandalism of museum pieces, most museums no longer allow even the smallest of handbags inside.

This work by Anselm Kiefer at Hamburger Bahnhof is not part of the exhibition I went to see, but I have always loved it and it bears seeing again and again:

This one is from the exhibition “Under Construction”:

Walking through “Europacity”:

The walk also took me through the cemetery in Invalidenstraße with a gruesome history in more ways than one, and past the watch tower in Kieler Straße 2, now a memorial. The Berlin Wall went straight through the length of the cemetery.

The “Haus Kunst Mitte” has appeared under my radar so it was definitely time to check it out. It seems like an interesting place worth keeping an eye on.

And finally, yet another ghost bike in Berlin. The most tragic of sights in recent history:

From Rahnsdorf to “Neu-Venedig” to Wilhelmshagen 1 September 2022

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Exactly five weeks since surgery, I woke up this morning knowing immediately that something was different. MY SCARS WERE NOT HURTING! What a difference that makes! They are each about 25 cm long, and it still feels better to wear compression than to not wear it, so I guess it is no wonder that it is taking time for them to settle, but I also think it is time now for me to not be reminded of them 24/7.

On top of this positive development, the weather was at its Berlin September best, so it was time to finally make an excursion to the the outskirts of Berlin – something I have not felt like since early June when a sneaking suspicion about the final diagnosis started to creep in, followed by weeks of uncertainty about the surgery and the outcome.

For the second time, I brought my new camera with me in the hope of also rekindling my interest in photography.

Recommended pitstop: Café Gerch.

The route on Mapmywalk here.

From S-Bhf Wittenau to a little beyond Köppschensee, including “Naturschutzgebiet Niedermoorwiesen am Tegeler Fließ”

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The route on Mapmywalk here.

This and that

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On my balcony, contemplating shapes and shadows and black and white vs. colour; a walk in Alt-Lübars; and some old photos that turned up while I was tidying up my harddrive.

On 26 May, I had actually planned to walk about 15 km from Alt-Lübars, along Tegeler Fließ, round Hermsdorfer See and back on Tegeler Fließ, to Alt-Tegel, but felt tired and got distracted by the prospect of lunch in a restaurant by a lake. Here is the route I ended up walking, but will go back and do more of Tegeler Fließ in the near future.

And some old photos – the first one from the good old days when the ABC art fair was still alive, although never really kicking:

17 May Lehnin-Kolpinsee-Quellgebiet der Ermster-Ermster Schlau-Gohlitzsee-Kloster Lehnin with Berliner Wanderclub

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Lovely walk organised and led by Margot Dietzsch.

Regional train from Berlin Central Station to Potsdam (I always forget that that only takes about 30 minutes) and then bus 580 to Lehnin bus station.

My walking route on Mapmywalk here.

(I left the group prematurely in order to be certain to make it home for my zoom course). Also, on the way home, Frank (the dogwalker) informed me that Max had a case of diarrhea and that I should take him out as soon as I got home.

I actually saw a cuckoo for the first time in my life. I was only able to identify it because it was flying overhead while cuckooing. Smaller than I thought.

I did not take my camera this time, so these are just some snaps taken with my phone:

Kloster Lehnin

Emstal Backöfen:

Ludwigslust Thursday, 5 May

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Approximate route planned here.

Route walked here.

Ludwigslust – about 75 minutes from Berlin on the ICE – turned out to be a very pleasant, if a little sleepy, town with a nice Thursday market and – probably most importantly to the locals, Ludwigslust Castle at the edge of its huge park. The park has a lot of the elements which you would expect from this type of park but fortunately some of the grounds are forest left almost to its own devices.