blog: postcard from berlin

[nikos]

here's the comment area from today's blog post found at
http://zabkat.com/blog/06Dec09-ESWC2009-berlin.htm

[Kilmatead]

Last time I was in Berlin it still had a wall - which made simply getting there interesting in and of itself, standing the rest of the architecture in a vast terrible relief.

Last time I was in Berlin they seemed to have a similar shortage of shaving utensils.  

Last time I was in Berlin the vibrancy of culture in the Western side masked a deeper sadness that photographs could never capture.

Last time I was in Berlin I remember auditing some classes on European History at Universität Berlin... still have the t-shirt, if I since lost some of the knowledge.  Ironic, considering Berlin is fundamentally about memory.

It was a lonely painful place, filled with everything one's heart could desire.

An interesting dichotomy.

I
hope
it
has
changed.

[Tuxman]

Meh, Berlin is everything I dislike in Germany. It is loud and big and the people there are weird...

[nikos]

all people in berlin think of themselves or aspire to being artists of some sort (like all students in greek universities think of themselves as revolutionaries), so you see some unusual types in the streets, however to my experience they are not snobby quite the contrary. Of course my sample is extremely small...

[Kilmatead]

all people in berlin think of themselves or aspire to being artists of some sort

Frederick the Great and the Prussian Kings of the Enlightenment saw to that.  Mass psychological siege mentality (as real or perceived against the rest of the world) for a few centuries will do that sort of thing to a populace.  Some repress, some express; the zeitgeist often moves on in spite of their best efforts.

It seems to have spent an inordinate amount of time in that city though, so their beliefs are not all pure vanity.