The flight from San Francisco to Amsterdam was on time. I was able to get some sleep, but there was a crying infant on the flight that punctuated my sleep every ten or fifteen minutes. So here’s my new million dollar idea: not noise-canceling headphones, but infant-canceling headphones. You may send royalty checks to me any time.
Schiphol airport in Amsterdam is really quite lovely. I got this shot of this lamp. (A co-worker asked me to keep an eye out for interesting typography, and this appealed to me.)
The flight to Berlin was also on time. I sat next to an artist who was originally from New York and is now living in Berlin. He gave me recommendations of some things to see.
The next pictures were taken on the way to the hotel. Bus stops are equipped with signs that tell you (accurately) when to expect the next bus for each bus line. The text scrolling at the bottom tells you that the times are subject to change given road conditions.
Here’s the street sign at the bus stop that’s about a block and a half from the hotel. In the background is the Commerzbank building, which is well worth a picture all to itself. The Kurfürstendamm is a main drag with all sorts of high-end shops. The advertisement on the bus stop shelter is for an art display by a guy named Carsten Höller. No, I don’t get it either.
Well, here’s temptation. I will definitely have to stop by the chocolate store at least once while I am here. The vegetable shop, eh, maybe not so much. Its name is clever; it translates to “Little Vitamin.”
The hotel, at last. I cannot say enough good things about this place. It’s an apartment-hotel with a kitchenette. The room is well laid-out and sized quite nicely. The closet is fairly narrow, but you can’t have everything. The bed is actually a sofa-bed that has been pulled out. The room has a wired DSL connection, so I’m happy.
I included the picture of the garbage can under the kitchen sink because it’s very clever. The string you see attached to the lid is attached to the underside of the sink, so that when you open the cabinet, the lid of the garbage can goes up automagically. (No, it doesn’t take much to amuse or impress me.) The last picture shows the elevator keypad. As typical in Europe, you have the ground floor (E for Erd), and the floor above it is the first floor. K is for Keller, or basement.
After unpacking my suitcase, I went out in search of dinner and a cheap cell phone to use while in Berlin. I went down Kurfürstendamm towards the Europa Center. I don’t know what the building with the blue lights is, but I liked the way it looked. The neon bars are in a store called idee (idea). I got two pictures, one from an angle and one straight on. This store is in Ka De We (Kaufhaus des Westens; Shopping Center of the West, pronounced “Kah Day Vay.”) Warning: site has music when you enter.
On the way there, I asked directions from a man who was going in the correct direction, and we walked together for several blocks. It turns out he was originally Russian and had lived in Berlin for 20 years. Our conversation (about where we were from, our jobs, etc.) was all in German, but the weird part is that when I play our conversation back in my head, it’s all in English.
The rest of the pictures are from the walk back to the hotel. The chandeliers are inside the Europa Center. I’m not sure if the snowman is a leftover from Christmas or just a winter thing, but it seemed worth a photo. The sign for Lösche, is very clever. They put the two dots on the umlaut-o (ö) on the side to make it look like an animal’s ears. Appropriate, since it’s a fur shop. You may now write all your angry emails to me and tell me to join PETA.
Oh, yes, I did stop by Ditsch and got their Mozarella and Peppers pizza. Warning: site has music when you enter. The pizza was quite good for the price. I was still hungry when I got to the hotel, so I stopped at the Kaiser’s market about a block from the hotel and got some more stuff.
And that about wraps up day 1 in Berlin.