Berlin

(February 18th, 2010)

The building was made up of filthy gray brick. Giant colorful graffiti murals covered its eastern facade, where chunks of brick missing from the wall showed evidence of WWII shelling. Nearby stood a trailer park, slippery patches of blackened snow, and scaffolding along its front. It was Kunsthaus Tacheles.

As we crossed Oranienburger Strasse in the Berlin-Mitte quarter, our eyes were drawn to a dark gaping hole in the front of this building, where graffiti covered every inch of surface. Inside, a cold cement staircase led up into the realms of some black abyss from which rock 'n roll music was drafting.

Like a medusa, the graffiti snaking up the walls lured us to climb the chilled staircase, apprehensions aside. Two flights up and already we felt like we were in a vertigo trance of color and words. The rock 'n roll got louder as we continued to climb.

What at first warned us to avoid the place--the layers of graffiti--then intrigued us to find the end of its painted madness. But it did not end. As we rounded the final staircase, a blast of music and color hit us square in the face from the single open doorway. This was no run-down building for drug addicts, or homeless refuge. This was a gallery with the work of abstract Belarusian artist Alex Rodin.

And it was some of the most beautiful work I've ever seen. 10-foot-high canvases of hundreds of colors imagining a sort of cosmic existence--a hand or an eye with fifty little scenes incorporated into the big picture--this type of work was exactly the reward I needed for braving the disconcerting entrance to the Kunsthaus Gallery. I bought a print after spending time reveling in the beauty of art paired with music.
This was Berlin.

Mischief on the Metro

Today on my morning metro ride to work, I was terrorized by two 11-year-olds.

I was sitting reading my Lyon Plus, which had a rather boring article about the US ambassador's visit to Lyon to present a plaque or something, when all of a sudden I found a baseball cap on my head. I turned to see an 11-year-old French garcon looking at me in feigned astonishment and pointing to his friend, "C'etait lui!" It was him! Right. I give him back the cap.

Back to my article about the plaque, I realized that this could happen again, and if it did, I would play a trick on these boys. Sure enough, approximately 1.35 minutes later, the cap was back on my head, but this time I was quick. I grabbed the cap, walked out of the metro, whose doors were about to close, and smirked at the yells from the French boys behind me for their hat back. 'Well,' I thought, 'they are just kids. They're harmless. I'm not really gonna take their hat. Plus, this isn't my stop.' So, being the nice & friendly American that I am (or naive and blonde, as these French boys seemed to think), I gave the hat back to the boy who had run after me and sat myself at the other, far end of the car.

At the last stop, I got off and made my way to the exit. Of course, the boys walked directly by me, so I decided to give them a look of dissatisfaction, so they could know their wrongdoing (to touch a stranger on the metro is a major faux-pas). Crack! One of the boys sticks his leg out in front of mine, which hurts but doesn't cause me to trip, as was his intention. I was pissed.

"Excusez-moi! C'etait tres impoli, ca!" I sternly rebuked the he-children. Excuse-me, that was very RUDE! I was flabbergasted--as were they, apparently, as I left them staring in disbelief at the reality that this tall, long blonde-haired foreigner actually spoke French.

I walked away laughing to myself.