Of colors and Colours

To make  up  for the Grey sky, Berlin has maple. The tree turns yellow as it sucessively gets darker, it lights up the landscape.  Other trees prefer to turn red or brown. Today is leaf rain day.

 Every tree I see is shrugging off its leaves and they are falling faster than our groundsmen can clear them with their mechanical mini truck sweepers... I know know what is "fall." Leaves do fall in India but never so dramatically. To make up for the really subdued people and colours, the landscape creates drama.

The passing of time is measured in so may small ways. The leaves turn green to yellow. The carpet of leaves gets thicker and the piles of raked leaves get larger.

Some leaves that are yellow fall down. Branch tips get bare. Flocks of birds fly across the sky in large V's and W's and I's. Sudden sprouts of mushroom appear.( and toad stools..)

And in aldi I found a frost root cover package. The pictures on the packet showed how to dig up your plant, pack its root and move it indoors for the winter. Soft drinks are less and the I found a tin of cocoa or Schoko for the warm night drink. Christmas things are already up for sale, including toys cookies and a zillion things. All colourful but the skies are grey.

QED for Pictures speak more than a thousand words!

Window as text! Thats the wallpaper window I was talking about in the last post! Those are yellow leaves in the background.

and one more  you can see a station through them.

details from the stained glass window of the Pill box.

each part makes the whole...

and then this whole

On stations underground and overground 1

The most important thing you need in Berlin is a map showing you the  connections between the various under and above ground train lines. With this small double spread sheet, one can make one’s own way across any part of Berlin with ease. Well, from student dorf its always bus 118. It’s a friend, a guide, a welcome Vahan that will take us out of the southwest sector where we live to, Mitte (centre / downtown) or to the other distant corners of the city. Catch the bus to Krumme-lanke ( named after a close by lake I have not yet seen) and take the U#3 route out you are in soon in a world that is punctuated by station names as are full stops in a running paragraph.
“ eienstien bitte”( Halt for a minute? ) says the mechanical male voice in the train at the station. And as the train is about to leave, “ turwitsoplaz bitte” or something that means- train leaving or stand away from the door! Interestingly the Bus has a female voice calling out every stop. I love the way she calls out “lindenhaller alle” or “am rohr garten.”
Most of U3 runs above ground in the first few stops. The first interesting train stop I describe is ONKEL TOM’S HUTTE. You guessed it, it is Uncle Tom’s hut! Most of hut station has interesting that shop-windows line both the train platforms. This is one of the stations where there is no wall opposite to the track as the train gently goes a few feet below road level (more in a train gutter than underground route). There is a Chinese take away, a cosmetic store, the ever welcome Aldi’s supermarket and a camera shop. Also a travel agent and many other small businesses like a florist and a electric lights showroom. It’s like the wild west main street we see in movies- with a few shops and one main road. The added attraction is a sparkasee atm from which we can draw money (when we have it in the account).
Moving along U3 towards the university stops we see green grassy slopes on both sides and interesting graffiti on retaining walls which I can never photograph. As every glass window of the Ubahn, for decorative pride, has the famous stencil outline of the Brandenburger gate painted in white many times on it. Like a silly wall paper or a tee shirt pattern. Some gates stencils are upside down, looking like strange dead insects with the legs thrown up or with the columns pointing to the sides like many EEE or Mirrors of E or standing normal like the sticky elephants we drew with many legs). So in any photo, there will be graffiti on graffiti of the photograph which is too much even for a philosopher. Wall as text. Text on wall as a text. Window as text for text on wall. Brandenburger stencil as text on window as text for text on wall. My photo of “Window as text for text on wall along with Brandenburger stencil as text on window as text for text on wall” as text…. You get the drift?
At Dalem Dorf and Thielplatz, most people who get on and off are students and so expect a crowd. The university is sprawled out between the two stops you can climb out at Dalem and find yourselves walking through campus and suddenly Theil platz is closer. Interesting to note that all these stations get deeper, so by now it’s one floor below the road. The U-bahn starts to go underground. And every station has a glass lift that you enter through the one door and exit through the opposite. No maneuvers of reversing your pram or shopping trolley. Oh! this trolley must be written about. Many elderly people (and also other shoppers) carry a trolley with long stiff bag and trundle along their shopping like prams or airport cabin baggage. Very useful I thought!
Back to the station. The intersections begin after that you have to change lines to other Ubahns or to S Bahns and to get to the Charlottenburg area you climb out at fer-berliner platz. Most stations are uniquely designed. In the earlier tour, the lady had told us that they were colour coded but even otherwise they look nice and the pillars and the walls are different with photographs or some artwork or as usual, advertisements.


Charlottenburg has a schloss ( german word for castle/ fort/palace) but more interestingly it has some good shops for cheap clothes and Asian markets selling good Chinese and thai stuff. Check out German Woolworth’s and the local C & A and H & M if you are only if you are desperately looking for cheap winter wraps. Otherwise just wait till you get home to Chickpet or Sarojini market Delhi. We reached the schloss on a late Sunday evening and it was gloomy and locked. Just as we turned away disappointed, M shouted “ look at the lights, they are turning them on.” And soon enough we saw the timed lights switch on and slowly, sequentially light up the Schloss from the bottom to the angel on top and then go off slowly one by one. Very nice but what was the point? Anyway we photographed it along with the dozen other people who were busy with tripods and perfect pictures of the light ( gimme Mysore palace lights or the musical fountain anyday). I give this schloss an A for effort, B for the hype and C for architecture!

The zoological garten station where I have been to twice now is painted with animal silhouettes and these are in the pictures. The wall writing must be inspired by the station walls opposite to the platform which are seen as some public notice boards that go beyond just advertising. They are canvases and museum display areas. There seems to be a Berlin-like culture of writing on the walls but it may be true of any other of the towns of Germany. As you wait for the train, you can let your eyes scan the walls opposite and see stuff instead of peering in to the tunnels to look for the train lights









You walk out of the zoo-station at night and see the famous church with the bell tower that was damaged in the war.The Protestant Kaiser William Memorial Church (in German: Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche) in the centre of the Breitscheidplatz. The original church on the site was built in the 1890s. It was badly damaged in a bombing raid in 1943. The damaged spire of the old church has been retained and its ground floor has been made into a memorial hall. It’s reconstructed with blue stained glass and looks beautiful. Its said to be  made of a concrete honeycomb containing 21,292 stained glass inlays. The glass, designed by Gabriel Loire, was inspired by the colours of the glass in Chartres Cathedral.

The central paved courtyard is beautiful and has the cleanest WC, I have ever seen. Steel and glamour with the treads on the steps- so you cannot slip. For 50 cents that I paid to use it, I got to see a sensor flush in operation! Also prominent is the Benz logo on a tall building and lights arcing out around in like search lights. They seem to say “who dares challenge the merc, we will searchlight you out!” the church, the merc and the blue glass wall were more interesting light display than the C. Schloss.

Another station i describe for this posting is the westhafen . The walls of this were inscribed with scrabble boards or the word seeker kind of letters. Artist project. Certainly a kind of neat graffiti. And there was an interesting inscription on the wall that I photographed. I will let the pictures speak. Notice the eyes, the birds and the human figures. The outside corridors had names of movies maybe but there was French line and it said “tout les monde"or something. This was a post-modern station so the exit opened bang on top of a flyover road  that ran over both the Ubahn and the Sbahn stations, all layered like many meanings on an old word. There was no signboard or any welcome or whatsoever, just the pavement, empty foot path and the road!

Hope this will keep my readers happy for sometime, so next blog we travel the sbahn to the peacock Island, the pfauninsel!

non serious fun stuff !

The last entry was a bit too heavy and informative so I thought I will be very funny in this.
Starting with A's "apply apply, no reply!" That's the common slogan for our mails to the many professors of Frei university asking to meet them. After many  silent mail boxes we found out that we had to write to secretaries for appointment. The we got " apply apply, one reply" from the director of the phil dept for oct 21st at 3! Better not forget that date!
 Then we tried Humboldt University and wrote a number of letters, very happy to see very important profs there and then realized that it was Humboldt Univ in USA, not the Berlin Humboldt!!! OOPS...

WE are singing Dank-ke sooon like the checkout lady at the penny markt who says it so musically. Means "Thank you beautifully" Kind of "Shundar danyavaad." A started it and now every one chants it often.


Shower time drama:

Pick up clothes, shower cream, body lotion, shower cap on the head. Balance everthing in one hand , lock the room take key along. Check corridor for others...

No one?
Good. Afternoon clear for bath.
Rush to Bathroom at end of corridor.
Use key again and lock main door. If you remember there are no dead bolts only keys.








Run water( to test temperature first) on the shower. No tap outlet in there, only shower, so get head out of the way.

 Balance shower cream tube on top of tap.
It falls.
Pick it up and achieve equilibrium.

Get in to shower. Shower decides to slide down shiny pipe fitting.
 Make a grab at the shower head, elbow clangs against the cubicle wall.
Shower cream tube fall down.
 Replace shower head, tighten the clasp on the shiny tube, Shower head is soapy!
Try rinsing it, accidentally elbow presses against the shower tap. The water stops.
Give up and begin watering one self.




RED RED shower curtain blows inward  and envelopes body.
 Oops that's because the air -vent fan is above cubicle on the outside,  so it draws in wind in to the bathroom that pushes the red curtain in to the 3 ft by 3ft shower cubicle. Notice the strong bent towel rod ,  outside, the shower cubicle!






Stop! some knocking on the door! OMG
Go way... Pleeze. Prayers and loud shower sounds.
 Knocking stops.
Resume ablutions.

 Open curtain partially to manange air pressure.
 Bend down to scrub toes.
oops water stops. Head hit the tap.
 oof. Red curtain  clings to the behind. Fight shower tap,  scramble out from the loving embrace of the red shower curtain.

Drip out of the cubicle. Dry with towel warmed on the hot water heater. ( the white stripes in the Pic)  Generously cream the skin.Wear layers of clothes. One more bath ceremony done!!






Gimme my bucket and mug  some one....

The Underground Berlin

These are some doors you would notice as you walk past a flight of stairs in Berlin to reach the underground station at Pankstrasse. Looked like a broom cupboard or like some nice door hiding the meter boxes or electrical equipment. But during our guided tour of the Berlin Underground bunkers, I discovered that it was the entrance to a complete living quarters for many people , in short, a fully functional bunker. The thrilling history of this city came alive for me in this trip when it suddenly hit me that this was a city that was at the centre of the world wars and the cold war too. It was the introduction to the painful heart of the city that is under its surface.With tunnels, bunkers, sewage systems and its transport systems there is a pathala loka to explore in Berlin.

For those of you who don't want to Google right now, let me remind you that bunkers are safe places that people can go to underground to avoid air raids or nuclear contamination. As our guide explained their purpose was more psychological than functional because the roofs were never reinforced with the correct amount of concrete and all the electricity to run the air pumps or lights was anyway linked to the city's main resources. If the power went off, strong men would have to hand turn the pump continuously sweating and making the place more stinky.

You had enough chances surviving outside as much as you had in a bunker. She gave a demo of the demoralizing effect of the pump switching off and the psychological problems of the people inside the bunker. And also cheerfully told us thta the bathrooms had no doors and very lightly attached light fixtures to prevent suicides by hanging or cutting wrists. (Aaa, may be that's the logic of common shower room at studenten dorf too)

We saw an infirmary and sleeping places. and the stretcher like four level stack-able beds . One for every two people who would sleep in 12 hour shifts. There were behind some other white doors, more than 3000 of these beds and supportsThe bunker has been redone in the modern times, for a cold war and the whole metro station seals itself off as a bunker against contamination for two weeks. It can hold 3000 people and has the VIP rooms behind the white doors. The common people sleep in the station platform!! Every metro station  I have begun to look for these pillar things  that have drawer like structures for air flow to flow down through sand on the walls near the track.That station can be a bunker...

Very wry sense of humour , the guide had. " Of course in case of a direct nuclear attack we would all evaporate bunker or no bunker" she said with a finality. Then we trotted behind her through the tunnels and through doors and corridors painted with very good luminous paint markings to find our way in dark. We traveled to shower rooms and an infirmary bodily and at the same time mentally we were walked through the wars and rushed past painful II world war and then sauntered through the Berlin divide of 1961.

In one of the opening rooms when we were given a history lesson, as I looked at a map of Berlin, I suddenly realized that the whole of Berlin was in East Germany, DDR! West Berlin was an Island and so supplies had to be air lifted from West Germany and flown into West Berlin during the lock down period in 1961.

You can look at the history here. Or see these Wikkimaps

Whats interesting is the how the transport lines of Berlin's metro ( called Ubahn) were stopped by the wall. It is supposed to have happened in three days and the soviets influenced DDR simply closed all borders.So instead of cutting across mid-town, some west Berliners had to skirt around the East Berlin walled areas to reach other parts of the south- west Berlin by metro. So  West Germany paid East Berlin lots of money to use only the already laid train tracks and these West Berlin metro trains would pass right through  the underground of East Berlin. Of course there were no stops at ghost stations that were sealed off completely and guarded like fortresses on the east Berlin side. Guards would line the empty platforms in these, warning off people. The people from East Berlin who wanted to escape never got to use this metro tunnels for escape as it was too well protected. When the wall came down, 20 years ago, theses trains stopped at the stations again.


The underground of Berlin has other tunnels besides the metro or the bunkers. Large sewer systems run across the city and cannot be blocked off by a wall or political action. There were cage like blocks that would block people but not sewage but nothing that a good hacksaw couldn't tackle. The story of an escape was narrated by the guide where many people (over 180, I think) escaped from a manhole to the west through the sewers. The smart move- the man hole cover was opened by a west Berlin tourist who came in to east for a day, gently who closed it after they moved in, so nothing was discovered amiss and they escaped.
Then, suddenly others who may be had seen what was happening tried the same trick but alas, without the man hole moved back in place, they were caught .The DDR put in new types of bars in the sewage routes. With alarm triggers and lubricated inner rods and concrete filed pipes.
All this got me really excited and I am going to do another tour called the M tour, which is about Escape routes and tunnels underground.
Some students of Frei University also tunneled routes to the East to help people escape. Do you think we at NIAS should dig a tunnel under the China wall to IISC? LOL!


Another fact is that the S bahn runs above ground so when the U bahn was constructed, to avoid vibration damage they had to go really deep for the tunnels. That left them with a nice in-between space to use for the bunkers. If you come to Berlin do take one of these tours in English, they are by a non-profit NGO and it is  really nice to see history from bottom up. You have to go by Sbahn to Gesundbrunnen, which is in the northeastern part of the city . The ticket office is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m Monday to Friday, and at 10:30 a.m. on weekend days whenever tours are scheduled. Take along a shopping bag, there is a huge shopping centre close by called "Gesundbrunnen " and.. just behind the exit is
which we didn't enter. But for the non veg foodies,who want Kebab... Go ahead, stuff yourselves.





Ladies and gentle men there's also... this- Kaufland, (that you can see in the sign) that has good cheap clothes and shoes and also one Euro shops selling knick knacks. The large circular building is a huge shopping mall with an electronics shop that has lots of cameras piled up like potatoes in a large basket and you can pick off the tvs and goods off the shelf with a mega shopping cart! The prices are not that different from ours, so no fun.

PS Can you see the wrapped up people? That's how cold it is.


The pavement is very wide. You can see the Bicycle tracks paved with red tiles towards the roadside. Note the central foot path. They have a red, then amber light followed by a go signal for the cycles. Then the green light for traffic. So cycles get out of the way first. The little yellow box on the signal pole is the 'request for crossing' light . It can allow a walk across green signal based on traffic density and signal co ordination. And no speed bumps. Residential areas have rubble- pavemented whole streets to prevent speeding.
More on the FU -berlin University campus. nad naturalist observations next.

Its cold and rainy today and the grass in front of my window is covered with leaves. More next time. This is Meera signing off from Berlin!

Provisioning food

" Why don't they serve plain water at the table? asks my friend once again. They don't. I guess in the land of the beer, water is unusual. So if we ask for water, they will give you what Germans call "Sparkling water." I have not yet tasted it , but I plan to do so at least once, soon. I think it's like aerated plain water but I cant say anything without experience, can I? So if you want " just water," you should ask for "stilles wasser," which is a plain water order that comes in a fancy wine- like bottle. Speaking of wine, however we found some tetra-packs of wine at the penny market. We do get bottled water at the markets but we can drink water off the tap here with confidence. Let me not water down the food blog.

Lets talk food shopping now. Aaah the markets...
There are Bio- markets, very expensive, very organic with tur dal ( lentils / pulses) and ayurvedic medicines and we can buy tulsi tea also. I just peeped into one today and gave up becoz of the costs...
Then there are the great supermarkets, where bio products are sold with other brands. Fresh and cut veggies with ample car parking and flowers at the door.
Then we come to Kaiser, another mall, but more mixed prices and options of buying bargains. The nearest Kaiser supermarket is at the bus stop where we catch our metro to the univ so very convenient) Nice market. We found "reis" ( rice) and the massor dal ( red lentil) there.

Then there is the Aldi chain. Bulk, cheap and has all kinds of knick-knacks. If you want to buy socks, apple juice (appfel saft) and calcium tablets, then Aldi is the place. ( Also opposite our bank so that will make it attractive when we get our money in our accounts). We also have Aldi -talk sim cards. We can recharge them at the cash counter ; they print you a number you can use to recharge your talk time. And they had cacti and herbs, not flowers.

Finally after a week in Germany we discovered "penny markt," really cheap and most stuff is reasonably priced ( like Jantha bazzar). Things are on sale every week and may not be the next week. Clothes, pans and dog food... what do you want?
All of these places have mashed meat, cut meat and ready slices to throw on sandwiches and eggs too.
On an aside they charge 50 cents for every plastic bag we take out from the shop and have an incredible waste segregation system I will tell you about.

Every shop is closed on a Sunday. Except kaiser mall. so there is a Monday stock up and a Friday stock up.

So what does me, a vegetarian eat?
Simple
1. kellogs special K with chopped carrots in it.
2. Sandwiches BBJ or cheese veggies or toast / mashed potato puree
3. Rice with chutney podi or masoor - dal/ curd rice!
4. sometimes pasta instead of rice or bread rolls or croissants.
5. sometimes pizza if we go out and are " invited."

PS : If the host is paying they will tell you," you are invited."

In the outings we had I had potato salad and bread rolls, a cheese noodles dish, Rocket salad pizza ( spinach and parmesan cheese) and one fantastic turkish bread (that was like a very large vada) with corn and cabbage salad. I haven't yet eaten at the menza ( the univ canteen) but I have a pre - cash loaded card that can be recharged at a machine.

Among the best things I like is the tamara jam; I love the strawberry flavor. I also love the yogurt both plain and fruit- flavored. Love the milk, its fresh wholesome and very filling!

There Voll milk: whole milk and Fettarme milk ( skimmed milk).
Fresch milk is good but picking up packets that say "langer haltbar" means it will have a longer shelf life and has been homogenised.

It's apples falling everywhere in the garden and rotting . It is great eating them all the time, for the leaves keep falling down, soon a sign that winter is ahead and there might be no more fresh fruit and veggies. The fresh things may be replaced with frozen products and warmer soups will replace the saft drinks but till then scrunch and slurp. I haven't even thought of Ice-cream once, its that cold outside.
It's Halloween time in October so there are lots and lots of tea candles and Aldi had funny masks, skeleton gloves, witches hats and false dracula teeth.
Christmas is also coming and already there are sparkling things showing up on the market shelves. Pretty red and green decos .

And closer to my heart I am going to light up my window with tea candles for Diwali and try a payasam by provisioning from the expensive Bio market! If I cannot afford it there always the ISKON temple to visit.

New tunnel to Berlin 1

ARRIVAL

Its cold and windy and we are standing outside studentdorf reception building. We have been told that tomorrow is German reunification day and that since there have been terrorist threats we should try not to visit the crowded celebrations. We are too jet lagged to take it all in. The Roads were three laned and pretty much all traffic was whizzing around us and smoothly.
We landed at Studentdorf which seemed to be in an outskirts kind of posh neighborhood,( think of a sadashivnagar in devanhalli area.....)

The sun which had just come out for a bit as we landed, vanished and clouds came in and then a drizzle followed. We didnt see much around us as sights go. All we noticed was the cold wet tarmac and well bundled-up people speaking German at the desk and that our room keys were mysteriously missing.We spent over an hour or may be more getting acquainted with studentdorf admin processes, getting disheartened by the minute.
As the keys came in one by one ,the first one was for my colleague with the baby, who thankfully got her double room. The reception person held up a second key. I grabbed the key, said "danke " in smooth move displacing my male classmate with a stern "ladies first," ( actually my feet were killing me ) and walked into the small single room and headed off to check the restrooms. Aah...they were clean. Then the Bade zimmers- the bathrooms. Tada.... I had a bad case of culture shock. Beautiful shower cubicles with the red red shower curtains and no doors. Open to the larger room with three spotless sinks and thats that. It didn't seem there was any gender division in the bathrooms. AYYO...very nice but what if some one walked in if I was having a shower! Bitter with the wait and cold, hungry and with the shower curtain shock I said to myself " Oh my god, what karma."
After sorting out all the stuff in my head and then on the way to the supermarket for my first resource gathering, I thought of the program name " A new passage to India" and said to myself. "This country will have a lot to give me but I will have to mine it out. "
So that's why I am calling my blog new tunnel to Berlin. Pass me a shovel, volks ( F=V in german). I am going to be a miner in Duestchland. "Meera Miner." Sounds nice actually.
In my first walk around the streets I took these photographs. And hope you enjoy seeing in my web album what I saw. Its fall ( autumn) and the leaves are turning red and yellow and falling everywhere.




http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=150732&id=732387989&l=c479c4f2e6

Graffitti is popular in here and is a landscape feature very much everywhere. Its something I intend to find more about.

Next: The Food Blog entry

Will keep updating this blog in between cooking, cleaning and working. I miss my friends soooo much.