Monthly Archives: November 2012

A walk along the Panke, at the edge of winter

A few Saturdays ago I was invited north from our (west Berlin) neighbourhood of Wedding to the north, and our friends in the (east Berlin) district of Pankow. These two once stood on opposite sides of the wall, but even through those long years of division they were linked by the bridge on the Bornholmer Straße, which would be the first breach in the structure on that famous November evening in 1989, as well as the waters of the Panke that run south from its source just beyond the Berlin city limits, through Pankow to Wedding and eventually into the River Spree. It also runs past our house, so it seemed like the most logical (and traffic free) way to head north, following the footpath and the neatly painted signs that mark the route of the Panke Way.

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Once a park for Pioneers, Wuhlheide – Berlin

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Katrin takes Lotte to the FEZ in the Wuhlheide, south-east of Berlin city centre. The park is quiet on this November weekend, although in the main hall kids crowd around the arts and crafts tables or wait, patiently or otherwise, for the play on the stage of the Astrid Lingren Theatre to begin. When Katrin first came here, as a child herself, this was the Ernst Thälmann Pioneers’ Park, inaugurated by the first President of the German Democratic Republic in 1950. It was the location for the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students one year later, and again for the tenth edition in 1973. By that point it had grown from the original tent village to a facility including an open air stage, a sports stadium and indoor activity rooms… tens of thousands of children who grew up in East Germany came to the Pioneer Park each year. Most of attractions that Katrin enjoyed as a child are still there for her daughter, from the playground and forest trails, swimming pool and stages for different events and shows. The railway still runs – although it is no longer operated by the Pioneers themselves, for they have all grown up now and are bringing their own children to the park, to find their own adventures beneath the trees.

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A Belfast Diary

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We have been back from our trip to Belfast for a couple of weeks now, and alert readers will have already seen a short piece on a walk to the Black Mountain with its wonderful views out across the city and beyond. More on that in a moment. We had a week in Belfast, four years after our last visit – which itself came after a string of annual, autumnal trips that all seem to blend together in the memory. So it is hard to remember exactly when, during the period of 2005-2008 that we went on the walking tour up the Falls Road, explored the murals of West Belfast, wandered amongst the chaos of the Halloween celebrations in Derry, or got out of town to a windswept and beautiful stretch of the Donegal coast…

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A West Berlin Utopia: The Hansaviertel

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You might remember that a few weeks ago I was invited to take part in a tour, which included the Karl-Marx-Allee in the eastern half of Berlin. The title of that tour was the Divided City, and it covered the differing approaches to architecture and post-war reconstruction either side of the Berlin divide (there was no wall at that point). From Karl-Marx-Allee we jumped on the U- and S-Bahn to cross over to the west and the Hansaviertel, a residential quarter tucked away in a bend in the river at the northern boundary of the Tiergarten Park.

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Forgotten Land, by Max Egremont

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Due to Germany’s role in World War II and the crimes of the Nazi regime, the expulsion of millions of Germans from territories in the east of Europe received little sympathy at the time, and little recognition later. But the Germans of East Prussia – territory that would become part of the Soviet Union and Poland in the re-ordered post-war Europe – left behind lands in which the German culture had flourished for centuries, a land of forest, lakes and legends of the Teutonic Knights, birthplace of Immanuel Kant and Käthe Kollwitz, and a place that of course still exists and yet has been changed so dramatically over the past half a century that it can truly be described as the “Forgotten Land” of the title of Max Egremont’s book.

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Then and Now: On the Potsdamer Platz

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“The announcements of music halls, movies, the promotion of cigarettes, the fervor of business advertising – their nightly blaze above the roofs of Potsdamer Platz – drown, suffocate, and obliterate any of the political battle cries in an inferno of light and noise and color.” – Joseph Roth

In between the World Wars Potsdamer Platz was the busiest intersection in Europe. Berlin’s population had grown to 4.4 million – larger than it is today – and the neighbourhood immediately around the square was the ultimate symbol of this modernity, of the Metropolis on the Spree… a relentless intersection celebrating commerce, modernism and a glittering future. This was a place of crowds and noise, of lights and buildings that towered above the individual standing on the street. A hundred thousand such individuals passed through the Potsdamer PLatz each day, alongside 20,000 cars, as well as numerous bicycles and other vehicles such as horse drawn carts.

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Sonic Iceland: The end is the beginning is the end

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Sonic Iceland is the story of a journey by Marcel Krüger and Kai Müller to discover the music of a country. They collected interviews, pictures and notebooks filled with texts, which became the basis for a website and what will be a book. Here is Chapter 0 – the short introduction for how the idea for Sonic Iceland was conceived.

It’s a cold and miserable winter morning in Cologne, and I am grumpy. It is the day after Boxing Day 2009, and in recent years Christmas has not been a good time for me, so I don’t feel very motivated as I walk up the stairs of the subway station in Ehrenfeld and towards the Weltempfänger-Café. I’m supposed to meet my friend and former housemate Kai, who is planning to visit Iceland. He wants to create some kind of documentary about Icelandic music, and has asked me to join his project. I have no idea of what this whole thing is going to look like, but besides my holiday-grumpiness I’m stoked about the idea of combining a visit to one of my favourite travel destinations with good music. I enter the café, and as I see Kai, beaming and sitting beneath a large map of the world, my mood lifts even higher. After a short shake-hands and catch-up (he lives in Cologne and I in Ireland), we set to work.

Kai and I have been fascinated by Icelandic music for a long time. It was always surprising how many different sounds and styles such a tiny nation produces, compared to Germany, for example. Plus we have watched the “Heima”-movie of Sigur Rós once too often. So the idea for Sonic Iceland was born: to go and talk to the Icelandic musicians in their natural habitat, record the interviews and document this with pictures and text. We set up a blog and started talking to people to help us get to Iceland.

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Görlitzer Park, Berlin

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It is a November Sunday in Görlitzer Park, Kreuzberg. One of those days when it never gets properly light, not really, and without much wind it feels as if weather itself has taken a day off. We drop off Lotte at a friend’s birthday party, and then walk back towards the U-Bahn through the park. It is not summer, so there are less people around, but nevertheless there is still some action. This is Kreuzberg, so there is the usual mix of punks, students, hipsters and Turkish kids. The drug dealers as well, still open for business whatever the weather.

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About the Balance of Things

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By Annika Ruohonen:

I’ve been away. Living, like a friend so accurately put it. First east, then west. Exploring places, meeting people, embracing all that is new and precious, but also facing challenges, overcoming obstacles and testing my boundaries. I’ve learned so much and I’m grateful for all that makes me bigger and wiser. I have so much to tell you, as soon as I find the spot where to start. You know how things happen in a certain sequence, but then they eventually find a way to regroup when your experiences eventually get new meanings. Once there is a missed opportunity, then there is an unexpected opening. One soul dies, another one is born. When time passes, it does not seem important at all in which order everything took place. All you see is how it all interconnects.

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Loving our Lake, Lyn Padarn

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We were sent details of a project initiated by our friends at Snowdonia Active, based in the Llanberis area of North Wales, which is inviting residents and businesses to join in to help improve the water quality of Lyn Padarn. The project will last a year, and will include numerous different activities to help identify and promote ways in which the community can take small steps to make big differences to help the lake and its wildlife.

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