…because it really is all your fault, Rick. More of that later.
I could have titled this post ‘Bare in Berlin’ to perhaps entice the more cultured reader to thinking this post contained reference to the exotic and risqué 1920s & 1930s underground cabaret scene of the city but this is making some assumption on my part. This also requires the reader to understand how ‘BERLIN’ is correctly pronounced for the reference to work. ‘BURLIN’, as I would suggest most of you think it is pronounced would render the point useless. Or, more appropriate for the city, I could have titled the post ‘Bear in Berlin’ but that requires knowledge of the city’s iconic symbol, as well as the correct pronunciation. Way too much to ask for. I could even have called it ‘Beer in Beerlin’, which would have raised an eyebrau or two but even I hof my limits. Really.
On the subject of beer, Reinheitsgebot, the regulations which determine the strict ingredients for German beer, translates as ‘German beer purity law’ (my italics). You would have thought the caring, modern, socio-global considerate Germans would have realised that they, perhaps of all people, should have chosen a slightly less evocative (my italics again) word to describe the purity quality of their wonderful product.
Back to Berlin. I love the place. The city blends urban desolation, brutal gun-metal Cold War apartment architecture dressed up as AirBnB trendy, Teutonic arrogance-efficiency, an expansive transport network (but not quite as expansive as expected, see below), big city anonymity, a populous almost as rude as Londoners and, of course, fantastic beer (see above) and hearty, yet delicious, food. Actually, hold the last two words from that sentence for a bit longer.
So, in the need to getaway from a very depressing domestic situation (self-inflicted, as per), I took off for 24 hours of me time, with the express intentions of doing things I really wanted to do (as if I haven’t already been doing this for years, hence my very depressing self-inflicted domestic situation). In no particular order, my intentions were to:
- watch a football match at the Olympiastadion
- watch a football match at the Olympiastadion whilst drinking shedloads of pure German beer (strictly verboten, where I’m from)
- drink shedloads of pure German beer
Vorsprung durch Technik, kind of
My flight lands at the brand spanking new, shiny, all-singing, all-dancing Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Built in May 2012 to relieve the burden on the Cold War duo of Tegel and Schönefeld Airports, plus the stylish Art-Deco Templehof Airport (d.2008), Brandenberg is the city’s glory. Well, not quite. Both Tegel & Schönefeld are still the city’s hubs, and 7 billion US dollars later, Brandenburg sits and waits. And waits. Technical issues, apparently. In Germany! How we laugh, conveniently forgetting the debâcle of Heathrow Terminal 5, a never-happening 3rd runway at the same airport, the most expensive city-to-airport train journey in the world (the bargain value-for-money Heathrow Express), the 2nd most expensive city-to-airport train journey in the world (the super-bargain value-for-money Stansted Express), Gatwick Airport with its ‘one-at-a-time’ take-off & landing runway, clogged-up motorways, more over-priced train tickets, roadworks, stabbings, Brexit, Windrush, etc etc.
Let’s start a war (no, let’s not)
The irony is that Berliners (and more importantly, me) are very happy with Tegel. Yes it is overcrowded, past its sell-by date, the ‘new’ 3rd terminal could easily pass off as a coach station/building site combo from somewhere in the north of England, but its proximity and access to the city is fantastic. And it’s iconic. It is Berlin. Can’t speak about Schönefeld however, as I wouldn’t dare set foot on Ryanair (again) or Easyjet (again) flights although for some unknown reason people (including me, stupidly) always assume BA is a ‘superior’ option. Think again, fool. However, BA do fly into Tegel. And on the (very) off chance that BA were ever to make Tegel a hub airport (WW3 or WW2 re-enactment with redrawn boundaries, perhaps), I would seriously expect them to rename the airport ‘BAgel’.
footnote: Brandenburg Airport opened in October 2020, and my beloved Tegel is no more.
Shalom Arthur, shalom…
On the very tenuous subject of German airports and bagels, a very good friend of mine, oy vey, told me of the time he was collecting a hire car (rental, Yanks) at Frankfurt Airport. He was offered an upgrade to his reservation and wanted to test the water to see if German humour had been found by asking that the upgrade be a tank, so he could “see what it feels like to drive down Frankfurt High Street like you people did in Europe all those years ago”. Disappointingly, for future anecdotal purposes, he took the upgrade graciously, without (un)necessary comment. Recently, prior to attending this person’s leaving work-gathering, I was asked by the person organising the event for any humorous recollections of this person which could be used at the leaving-do. Annoyingly, I got no positive feedback from my offering of the above. It’s a mad PC world we live in and I want no part of it.
Eventually, I head off to the stadium to collect my pre-ordered match ticket with ridiculous ease, and my guess is that there are more English-speaking German ticket office staff in a two-person booth at the Olympiastadion than there are German-speaking English ticket office staff on the planet. From a distance the Olympiastadion has the appearance of a gigantic granite UFO, plonked onto a big open space to the west of the city, with sculptors carving out the unwanted granite to shape the stadium we have. Visually it is a fantastically stunning piece of architecture but as per the translation of Reinheitsgebot, its history leaves things not quite right.
I have a few of hours to kill before the match (Hertha v Eintracht Frankfurt) so wander off to many of the pop-up bars that are located around the stadium, and as expected, it didn’t take long to start a conversation with some relatively-fluent English speaking German new-found friends. Conversation of sorts, and beer flowed, although as the flow of beer continued, the fluency of the conversation, understandably lessened and my schoolboy German ‘O’ level rapidly turned to adult German ‘nO’ level, and at some point sign language and grunting became the main methods of dialogue at which we were, surprisingly or otherwise, conversable (I do know that’s not a word in any form of language). Zwei bier, bitte was as good as ever got. And for a good period of time, this was sufficient.
An aside, if I may: I am used to years of attending football (soccer, Yanks) matches back home and abroad along with the attendant drinking culture that is part of the whole ‘match day experience’ but I have never, ever seen as many people drinking from bottles (big bottles at that) around any stadium in any part of the football globe. Ever. And I’ve been to Glasgow. I felt quite posh drinking from a plastic receptacle at a wooden bench by a caravan-cum-mobile-bar. The dainty extended pinkie invited some curious looks but nevertheless, in comparison I felt as though I was sipping Espresso Martini cocktails with the stunning and sultry-voiced Ute Lemper back in the 1920s underground cabaret night club mentioned at the top of this overly-long piece of work. Although thinking about it if were the 1920s it would be Ute’s Großmutter I’d be dealing with so maybe a few more Espresso Martinis would be needed, from both perspectives, admittedly.
Back to being sufficient. Well, sufficient enough until I wanted food. Needed is probably a better adjective. Choice wasn’t a problem. For every caravan-cum-mobile-bar in view there was its caravan-cum-mobile-food-outlet partner. Now, I have made many mistakes in my life, and I know with absolute certainty and conviction that I will continue to specialise in this department until the day I die but what I did next ended up in me completely losing the respect for someone I have genuinely admired for years (all my self-respect went yonks (that’s yonks, Yanks) ago). In a media world where the genre of Celebrity Chef has infested UK life almost as much as the grey squirrel (although I have yet to see squirrel of any colour on a menu in my local eateries), one man has generally kept to his theme, and not gone all hair-gel and political, to the point where I have only his cook books and watched only his TV shows on a regular basis. I was loyal to the man, although the Diana-like national outpouring of grief when his dog died, passed me by somewhere. No more walky for Chalky. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, if you will (it was coming).
Now, if I possessed the ability to see above my own head without a mirror, I would have seen the proverbial 100w bulb flashing. Of course! Rick Stein! Long Weekend in Berlin with Rick Stein. My hero. He actually said he liked the local ‘speciality’ of currywurst: a bastard (I think that’s the German translation) concoction of local sausage and curry powder. Why in the name of Christ wouldn’t I believe him? Gott in Himmel. This is Rick talking. I don’t need to use his surname. Rick. My ex was convinced that I had a man-crush on Rick (let’s get this right, Rick, you are no Kumar Sangakkara or Rob Walkker, let me tell you). And Rick, let me tell you (again), you now may as well have hair-gel and move into Number 10. My cat, alive but living away from home during his gap year, uses the pages of your once-revered books as lining for a certain type of tray. And I don’t mean the one I used to eat your recipes from. And the contents of His tray were far tastier than those in the first picture.
To end (woohoo), I remember drinking (somehow) more beer in the stadium and in sight of the match, and having a really good bratwurst (ohne curry powder, Rick) from one of the concession outlets. However, for some strange unknown reason I had to leave the match early and for more reasons unknown it took me an inordinate amount of time to make the relatively short S-Bahn journey from Olympiastadion to Charlottenburg. It must have been Blätter (honestly, Google Translate it) on the line. I did end up back at my stunning AirBnB property after some seriously tense negotiations with an Uber driver: I was trying to give him money even though I had pre-paid the ride. The driver was fluent in English. After a day of drinking/currywursting, I wasn’t. Safe to say that I wasn’t feeling too clever at this point. Could have been jet-lag, could have been the bratwurst, there may even be a case that if could have been a result of the beer(s) drinking. But I think we both know it was really down to the the currywurst, Rick.
footnote: Hertha 2-0 Eintracht Frankfurt, full-time, apparently. I saw the goals on telly on Match von der Day later that night, after I woke up.
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