Amsterdam and Berlin (First Impressions)
Jet lag and a feeling of loneliness did not leave me with a favorable first impression of Amsterdam whose uniform grayness and tight sense of organization I felt respectable but suffocating. It didn't help that I got lambasted on the 17 tram by an unhinged derelict. In San Francisco we have our fair share of crazies on the MUNI but they are usually berating the universe in general. This French-speaking guy directed his ire on me and my one regret was moving to another part of the tram rather than sticking up for myself.
Adding to the insult was a humid density to the City of Canals, similar to a bad day in New York (not surprising given their shared history) of heaving throngs and claustrophobic architecture, boorish tourists and locals clad in black. An obligatory trip to the Sex Museum and a "coffeshop" in Rembrandt Park proved to be elusive distractions –– I left the latter because of the horrific R & B blasting from the strategically-placed video screens. Twice I requested a change in tunes (some John Coltrane, perhaps?) only to be rebuffed. A half-smoked indica spliff leaned limp and stubbed in an ashtray as I made my exit.
The Dutch I met were all extraordinarily friendly with their dapper, nautical clothing. Historically, you have to commend the Dutch on their craftiness with the hand they've been dealt, manipulating a Maryland-sized piece of land so that it can function below sea-level. Ringed by three larger empires, Holland has never lost its cool and for hundreds of years had its own colonial ambitions mostly by acting as traders in world markets. They've made money by fashioning themselves as a liberal destination in regulating drug use, prostitution and gambling but I can't help but wonder if a place like Amsterdam is a victim of its own success, packing in the tourists thus making life unlivable for the residents.
After 1 night in Amsterdam, I boarded a train bound for Berlin, Germany. Ah, Germany! From the train's window somewhere outside Hanover, I remember seeing the sun breaking through the foreboding clouds that trailed us from Holland and witnessing your sleek, milky-white windmills spinning towards a brighter future. In you I felt a sense of strength and hope, a "get-er-done" attitude that seeks to eliminate fossil fuels by 2020, an attitude that promises to put to work the 800,000 war-fleeing migrants you've agreed to accept. France, in contrast, was delectable and refined and deserves all the cutesy clichés that its 80 million yearly visitors heap onto it but it was Germany who really spoke to me over the course of my travels as if I had found another strand in my lineage or a familiar provenance for one of my past lives.
In truth, I was only in Germany for 2 days, more specifically in Berlin's Kreuzberg, its punky/hipster neighborhood where I felt right at home. A big part of Berlin's appeal is the low population density akin to that of Los Angeles (3,848 people per square kilometer vs. 3,198 people per square kilometer, respectively). San Francisco's population density is almost twice that of the average of the two. Yet, while Berlin felt as roomy as LA it also felt like a scrubbed version of decrepit, artsy Buenos Aires.
We met up with Mauricio's Chilean friends: Julietta, a dancer and young mother, and Roberto, a documentary filmmaker. While I wasn't able to communicate in German and (throughout the trip) made the smallest of advances in French, I was able to converse freely in Spanish, feeling fabulous as we hit the clubs and art shows late on a Tuesday night. Especially fun and plush was Roses, a tiny bar brandishing fuchsia walls and furniture adorned with fake fur. It was shocking to me that people could still smoke inside Berlin bars but it also spoke to how sanitized we've become in the West about having a good time.
In the daylight hours, Mauricio and I rode our bikes along the River Spree to Mitte, the Jewish neighborhood. We stopped and took pictures at the wall and caught a wonderful, cheap lunch at one of the Turkish joints in Kreuzberg. Bikeriding in Berlin was wonderful because even beyond its dedicated bike lanes, the traffic seemed reasonable. There also seemed to be a culture of law and ethics with transportation which made the VW scandal so startling.
Beyond the smoking in bars, we also had another cultural surprise, this time at the Turkish spice market in Neukölln. We passed by a group of thirty hippies and shoppers who sat indian-style and transfixed in front of a magician putting on a little trick. His show lasted for a good 15 minutes without a single person busting out their phones, either out of boredom or a need to document the event for Facebook. Life in Europe in general seemed a little more present and pressing and I think it's because so much of the drama gets played out in the public square instead of the physical and technological cubbyholes where Americans choose to hang. It made me feel institutionalized by San Francisco's mores. It was at that moment, watching the innocent crowd pay attention to a silly magician, that I had realized my last trip beyond U.S. borders was nearly six years ago and that a whole world with infinite realities had continued to spin without any input from titans like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page.
Up next for us was the French countryside...
Adding to the insult was a humid density to the City of Canals, similar to a bad day in New York (not surprising given their shared history) of heaving throngs and claustrophobic architecture, boorish tourists and locals clad in black. An obligatory trip to the Sex Museum and a "coffeshop" in Rembrandt Park proved to be elusive distractions –– I left the latter because of the horrific R & B blasting from the strategically-placed video screens. Twice I requested a change in tunes (some John Coltrane, perhaps?) only to be rebuffed. A half-smoked indica spliff leaned limp and stubbed in an ashtray as I made my exit.
The Dutch I met were all extraordinarily friendly with their dapper, nautical clothing. Historically, you have to commend the Dutch on their craftiness with the hand they've been dealt, manipulating a Maryland-sized piece of land so that it can function below sea-level. Ringed by three larger empires, Holland has never lost its cool and for hundreds of years had its own colonial ambitions mostly by acting as traders in world markets. They've made money by fashioning themselves as a liberal destination in regulating drug use, prostitution and gambling but I can't help but wonder if a place like Amsterdam is a victim of its own success, packing in the tourists thus making life unlivable for the residents.
After 1 night in Amsterdam, I boarded a train bound for Berlin, Germany. Ah, Germany! From the train's window somewhere outside Hanover, I remember seeing the sun breaking through the foreboding clouds that trailed us from Holland and witnessing your sleek, milky-white windmills spinning towards a brighter future. In you I felt a sense of strength and hope, a "get-er-done" attitude that seeks to eliminate fossil fuels by 2020, an attitude that promises to put to work the 800,000 war-fleeing migrants you've agreed to accept. France, in contrast, was delectable and refined and deserves all the cutesy clichés that its 80 million yearly visitors heap onto it but it was Germany who really spoke to me over the course of my travels as if I had found another strand in my lineage or a familiar provenance for one of my past lives.
In truth, I was only in Germany for 2 days, more specifically in Berlin's Kreuzberg, its punky/hipster neighborhood where I felt right at home. A big part of Berlin's appeal is the low population density akin to that of Los Angeles (3,848 people per square kilometer vs. 3,198 people per square kilometer, respectively). San Francisco's population density is almost twice that of the average of the two. Yet, while Berlin felt as roomy as LA it also felt like a scrubbed version of decrepit, artsy Buenos Aires.
We met up with Mauricio's Chilean friends: Julietta, a dancer and young mother, and Roberto, a documentary filmmaker. While I wasn't able to communicate in German and (throughout the trip) made the smallest of advances in French, I was able to converse freely in Spanish, feeling fabulous as we hit the clubs and art shows late on a Tuesday night. Especially fun and plush was Roses, a tiny bar brandishing fuchsia walls and furniture adorned with fake fur. It was shocking to me that people could still smoke inside Berlin bars but it also spoke to how sanitized we've become in the West about having a good time.
In the daylight hours, Mauricio and I rode our bikes along the River Spree to Mitte, the Jewish neighborhood. We stopped and took pictures at the wall and caught a wonderful, cheap lunch at one of the Turkish joints in Kreuzberg. Bikeriding in Berlin was wonderful because even beyond its dedicated bike lanes, the traffic seemed reasonable. There also seemed to be a culture of law and ethics with transportation which made the VW scandal so startling.
Beyond the smoking in bars, we also had another cultural surprise, this time at the Turkish spice market in Neukölln. We passed by a group of thirty hippies and shoppers who sat indian-style and transfixed in front of a magician putting on a little trick. His show lasted for a good 15 minutes without a single person busting out their phones, either out of boredom or a need to document the event for Facebook. Life in Europe in general seemed a little more present and pressing and I think it's because so much of the drama gets played out in the public square instead of the physical and technological cubbyholes where Americans choose to hang. It made me feel institutionalized by San Francisco's mores. It was at that moment, watching the innocent crowd pay attention to a silly magician, that I had realized my last trip beyond U.S. borders was nearly six years ago and that a whole world with infinite realities had continued to spin without any input from titans like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page.
Up next for us was the French countryside...
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