Berlin, the third post
Jan. 8th, 2013 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbI have conceived a dislike for this city. With its rain. And its roadworks. And Friedrichstrasse's glittering temples to capitalist consumption - a nice riot would take the shine off that glass - and the neo-Classicist monstrosities of Fredericus Rex and his successors.
It is probably a fine city to visit if one is wealthy and could afford to pay for taxis and tours and the museums that the three-day MuseumsPass (for which I paid a tenner!) does not give one access to the Berlin Historical museum.
Look, I realise that I was spoiled by Greece and by Ireland, whose national museums are free to enter for students, pensioners, and social security recipients (or at least they were). But I firmly believe that culture belongs to all of us, not just the ones able to pay out the price of a meal to get inside. Even foreigners. Even fools. Art and history are the heritage, the intellectual property, of the whole human race. Asking for more than a token payment (eight euro is not a token payment; two euro is a token payment) to see the permanent exhibits is an offence against justice.
I didn't go in to the Historische Museum. I did stop into the Huguenot museum, which was entirely in German and French (the French I understood), tiny and niche and marvellously documentary, in an 18th century building. And I walked down past the Brandenburg Tor as far as the Reichstag before going back to the same place I ate last night for an early dinner. At least the food here is good: Schnitzel Vienna-style (which turns out to be thin pork steak, breaded and fried) with a light salad of crunchy lettuce - normally I hate salad dressing but this one was nice - and dessert, which involved hot cherries in an alcohol base, vanilla ice-cream, and cream. Is nice restaurant. They did not laugh at me when I said "Eine grosse cola, bitte," or "Eine heisse schokalade, bitte."
Jedermann's, that's the name. I kept the receipt this time. Nice, and apart from the soft drinks not terribly pricey.
Also, I found a Lidl on the long, cold, damp, dark walk back to the hotel, and stocked up on water and caffeine. "Praise god fasting," I said, "somewhere that sells bottles over 0.25l!"
Now I am tired and cranky, because I did not sleep well last night. And I've rearranged my flights (at the cost of pretty much my savings) in order to go home on Thursday morning and not explode my crankiness in a stabby haze of bloody rage all over this city.
It is probably a fine city to visit if one is wealthy and could afford to pay for taxis and tours and the museums that the three-day MuseumsPass (for which I paid a tenner!) does not give one access to the Berlin Historical museum.
Look, I realise that I was spoiled by Greece and by Ireland, whose national museums are free to enter for students, pensioners, and social security recipients (or at least they were). But I firmly believe that culture belongs to all of us, not just the ones able to pay out the price of a meal to get inside. Even foreigners. Even fools. Art and history are the heritage, the intellectual property, of the whole human race. Asking for more than a token payment (eight euro is not a token payment; two euro is a token payment) to see the permanent exhibits is an offence against justice.
I didn't go in to the Historische Museum. I did stop into the Huguenot museum, which was entirely in German and French (the French I understood), tiny and niche and marvellously documentary, in an 18th century building. And I walked down past the Brandenburg Tor as far as the Reichstag before going back to the same place I ate last night for an early dinner. At least the food here is good: Schnitzel Vienna-style (which turns out to be thin pork steak, breaded and fried) with a light salad of crunchy lettuce - normally I hate salad dressing but this one was nice - and dessert, which involved hot cherries in an alcohol base, vanilla ice-cream, and cream. Is nice restaurant. They did not laugh at me when I said "Eine grosse cola, bitte," or "Eine heisse schokalade, bitte."
Jedermann's, that's the name. I kept the receipt this time. Nice, and apart from the soft drinks not terribly pricey.
Also, I found a Lidl on the long, cold, damp, dark walk back to the hotel, and stocked up on water and caffeine. "Praise god fasting," I said, "somewhere that sells bottles over 0.25l!"
Now I am tired and cranky, because I did not sleep well last night. And I've rearranged my flights (at the cost of pretty much my savings) in order to go home on Thursday morning and not explode my crankiness in a stabby haze of bloody rage all over this city.
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no subject
Date: 2013-01-08 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-09 08:52 am (UTC)But your post has reminded me what an ordeal I always found being in a strange place, and how deeply unhappy I always was at the lack of tea. The food sounds good though - I've always loved German food.
Safe journeying.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-09 12:06 pm (UTC)Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you, as I believe the saying goes.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-09 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-09 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-09 06:42 pm (UTC)But while the food is good, the soft drinks are overpriced, the weather is kinda shit, really, and Helpfulness To Visiting Idiots appears to be at a pan-European low, apart from in the Nikolaiskirche and the house-museum-thingy beside it.
And I disapprove of being charged two euro in order to take pictures of the inside of a former church, however pretty...