So, I decided, after I went grocery shopping, to go up to Dussmann, to look for books and CDs. I found a book about the Geisterbahnhoefe, which I can't wait to read, and I decided against getting the 30-Euro, very heavy book on the Berlin train system since 1880. There was a smaller one, but it wasn't as cool and had fewer pictures.
I seem to have developed a thing for trains and train stations. I'm becoming a train-station otaku. WTH. If I end up doing a real life Tetsuko no Tabi, ... actually, that could be awesome, especially if I could get someone to pay me for it.
There were also books you could buy to give yourself a guided tour of the remnants of the Kaiserzeit. I considered it but eventually passed.
Then I went to the CD section. They have a section marked "ClubCulture," which is where they stuck all the techno and trance stuff (though the Rammstein was in the "German rock and pop" section.) Schiller has a new CD out, but I've only been able to find the deluxe edition with DVD ... which won't play on any of my machines. And he's playing a concert here ... the day AFTER I leave :P Anyway, I got 2 of his older CDs that I didn't already have. Then I got one from Unheilig (because I remembered the name and liked the snippets it played when I stuck it under the 'play this' thingy.) I looked at some Wolfsheim, but their CDs were all 18+ Euro, while the old Schiller ones were 9.99.
Not that I can listen to them; I don't have a CD player.
Lastly, I got a book called Das Paradies am Rande der Stadt, which purports to be a dystopian SF tale and was nominated for the German SF prize. We'll see. Hopefully I'll have better luck with my German SF than![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yhibiki did.
After all that, I went out and decided, since I wasn't too far, to walk up Friedrichstrasse a bit. I ran into Unter den Linden and said, hey, what the hell, I'll walk up to the Brandenburg Gate. So I did. There were a bunch of signs saying that the road was blocked off, so I wondered what was going on. I stopped in a Berlin souvenir shop and bought a t-shirt (olive with a red star and "berlin germany" written on it) and a mini postcard book.
Then I get there and see tons of Polizei. There's a smallish crowd of people protesting for the decriminalisation of marijuana. Then I went through the Gate, and a man asked me if I wanted to ride his sightseeing bus for 5 Euro and get good views. It was an old-fashioned open-top double decker bus, so I had to XD Though it was ass cold on top of the bus when it was moving, though I had a blanket for my lap and zipped up my jacket to the neck.
Then we got back to the Gate, and I was feeling peckish, so I got a Dunkin Donut. It was a spring donut with yellow icing and a ladybug, and the icing had a flavor, but I can't tell you what it was. Not lemon. (perhaps not-lemon, actually.)
I'd seen ads for the Komische Oper playing The Abduction from the Seraglio, so I swung by their ticket office and bought one for Wednesday, for a whole 12 Euro. (Woo, cheap seats.) The ticket lady told me the balcony is a good place to sit anyway, and I have a good view and good acoustics. She also said it was a very modern Inszenierung, and very controversial when they ran it several years ago, and no one under 18 can go see it. (Because it's about sex. A seraglio, after all.)
Then I started walking back to a train station and decided I had to pee, so I swung into a coffee shop and used their bathroom. Then I felt obligated to buy a drink, so I got a chai. It was nice. After that, I came home.
The sun just came out a bit, but it's still not exactly warm. We've still got a hour and a half until sunset. Northern Europe and long summer days are great. The long winter nights really suck.
I don't know what I'm going to do the rest of the day. Maybe I'll go up to Potsdamer Platz and enjoy the sun a bit. Tomorrow I think I'm going to find Berliner Unterwelten and take their Cold War tour (#3). (Who's surprised I'm interested in that one?) Whatever I do, I should eat some leftover pizza for dinner. Though there's no microwave here. I guess I'll eat it cold.
Speaking of cold, I'm going to make sure there are no cats on the balcony and shut my door.
I seem to have developed a thing for trains and train stations. I'm becoming a train-station otaku. WTH. If I end up doing a real life Tetsuko no Tabi, ... actually, that could be awesome, especially if I could get someone to pay me for it.
There were also books you could buy to give yourself a guided tour of the remnants of the Kaiserzeit. I considered it but eventually passed.
Then I went to the CD section. They have a section marked "ClubCulture," which is where they stuck all the techno and trance stuff (though the Rammstein was in the "German rock and pop" section.) Schiller has a new CD out, but I've only been able to find the deluxe edition with DVD ... which won't play on any of my machines. And he's playing a concert here ... the day AFTER I leave :P Anyway, I got 2 of his older CDs that I didn't already have. Then I got one from Unheilig (because I remembered the name and liked the snippets it played when I stuck it under the 'play this' thingy.) I looked at some Wolfsheim, but their CDs were all 18+ Euro, while the old Schiller ones were 9.99.
Not that I can listen to them; I don't have a CD player.
Lastly, I got a book called Das Paradies am Rande der Stadt, which purports to be a dystopian SF tale and was nominated for the German SF prize. We'll see. Hopefully I'll have better luck with my German SF than
yhibiki did.After all that, I went out and decided, since I wasn't too far, to walk up Friedrichstrasse a bit. I ran into Unter den Linden and said, hey, what the hell, I'll walk up to the Brandenburg Gate. So I did. There were a bunch of signs saying that the road was blocked off, so I wondered what was going on. I stopped in a Berlin souvenir shop and bought a t-shirt (olive with a red star and "berlin germany" written on it) and a mini postcard book.
Then I get there and see tons of Polizei. There's a smallish crowd of people protesting for the decriminalisation of marijuana. Then I went through the Gate, and a man asked me if I wanted to ride his sightseeing bus for 5 Euro and get good views. It was an old-fashioned open-top double decker bus, so I had to XD Though it was ass cold on top of the bus when it was moving, though I had a blanket for my lap and zipped up my jacket to the neck.
Then we got back to the Gate, and I was feeling peckish, so I got a Dunkin Donut. It was a spring donut with yellow icing and a ladybug, and the icing had a flavor, but I can't tell you what it was. Not lemon. (perhaps not-lemon, actually.)
I'd seen ads for the Komische Oper playing The Abduction from the Seraglio, so I swung by their ticket office and bought one for Wednesday, for a whole 12 Euro. (Woo, cheap seats.) The ticket lady told me the balcony is a good place to sit anyway, and I have a good view and good acoustics. She also said it was a very modern Inszenierung, and very controversial when they ran it several years ago, and no one under 18 can go see it. (Because it's about sex. A seraglio, after all.)
Then I started walking back to a train station and decided I had to pee, so I swung into a coffee shop and used their bathroom. Then I felt obligated to buy a drink, so I got a chai. It was nice. After that, I came home.
The sun just came out a bit, but it's still not exactly warm. We've still got a hour and a half until sunset. Northern Europe and long summer days are great. The long winter nights really suck.
I don't know what I'm going to do the rest of the day. Maybe I'll go up to Potsdamer Platz and enjoy the sun a bit. Tomorrow I think I'm going to find Berliner Unterwelten and take their Cold War tour (#3). (Who's surprised I'm interested in that one?) Whatever I do, I should eat some leftover pizza for dinner. Though there's no microwave here. I guess I'll eat it cold.
Speaking of cold, I'm going to make sure there are no cats on the balcony and shut my door.
