The wonderful world of Mauerpark

Forget the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate or the Pergamon museum, Berlin's top attraction on a Sunday is the one and only Mauerpark! All year round huge crowds of locals and tourists flock on a Sunday morning (not too early mind - this is Berlin) or afternoon to this once abandoned piece of land divided by the Berlin Wall.
 

Mauerpark Karaoke

The Mauerpark caters for all tastes. Fancy some live music? Care to spend a few hours browsing the flea market stalls selling everything from GDR furniture and paraphernalia, to jewellery and clothes made by local designers? Or perhaps you would like to try out your singing talents in front of hundreds of cheering people at the karaoke? Then head to the Mauerpark! Of course there is also a good selection of food and drinks available. The Schoenwetter beach bar and the Mauersegler bier garden are always a good choice for chilling out on a Sunday afternoon.
 

The Mauerpark is a great place to try out your artistic talents: be it wall spraying, juggling, tightrope walking or breakdancing. It's also a good place for entrepreneurs - be it karaoke entertainers, Pfand  (deposit) bottle collectors or improvised bakers. The popularity of the Mauerpark has reached unprecedented levels. It's also a good place to keep fit: you can play boules, basketball, jog, cycle, dance... the list is endless.  The number of visitors has grown exponentially over the years. It's mentioned in every respectable guidebook, blog or travel web site. Alas, the Mauerpark as many other unique Berlin attractions is at risk!
There are plans to build hotels, houses, businesses threatening the survival of the Mauerpark as we all know it.
 

The mayor of Berlin once famously said that Berlin is “arm aber sexy”, which translates as “poor but sexy”.  Whatever happens I cannot believe that the city of Berlin will destroy one of its most important attractions to make way for some rich but uncool investors.

This post was written in April 2012, but never found its way onto the Blog.  Two years later nothing (or very little) has changed.  I recently met a friend to spend a couple of hours at the Mauerpark on a Sunday afternoon leaving Papa and son to play football in a nearby park.  The place was so busy that although we had previously arranged to meet by the entrance at Eberswalder Strasse it took us 40 minutes to find each other! The mobile phone networks were overloaded so we couldn’t call or text either. This just shows that the Mauerpark is still extremely popular and attracting very large crowds.  The future of the park is still uncertain, as plans keep changing.  However, I don’t think there is any danger that the Mauerpark and its colourful crowd will disappear any time soon.

A tale of two cities: the East-West divide

The wall has been gone for over 20 years, but in many ways Berlin remains a divided city.  On the one side you have the former Eastern districts of Mitte, Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Pankow, Weissensee, etc. and on the other you have the former Western districts of Charlottenburg, Wilmersdorf, Zehlendorf, Grunewald, etc.  Officially Kreuzberg, Wedding and Neukölln belonged to West Berlin, but in spirit they are much closer to the East.

The TV Tower dominating the East Berlin skyline

In my experience East Berliners who were born in the GDR tend to stay in the East and West Berliners who grew up in the part of Berlin that belonged to West Germany tend to stay in the West, even now after all these years.  I have met very few original Berliners that have made the unconventional move from East to West or West to East.  Last weekend a friend of a friend who is originally from West Berlin and obviously lives in West Berlin told me she hadn’t been to Kollwitzplatz (one of Prenzlauer Berg’s landmarks) for 15 years!  And the only reason for this trip (or should I say voyage?) was to visit my friend, an Argentinian, who like most “foreigners” lives in this part of Berlin.   

The truth is I know very few people who live in West Berlin.  The majority of my friends or acquaintances either live in the former East or in the “cool” Westerns districts of Kreuzberg and Neukölln.  I haven’t seen any statistics, but it is apparent that the vast majority of those who move to Berlin (the Zugezogene or newcomers), both West Germans (Wessies) and expats alike, tend to move to one of the following districts: Mitte, Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg or Neukölln.  Schöneberg is also fairly popular, but apart from the one time I went to the Haus der Berliner Festpsiele and to someone’s party (a West Berliner of course) I have no idea what Schöneberg is like.

In fact, I have to admit that after two and a half years of living in Berlin I still have very little knowledge of West Berlin.  On my map, Berlin stops somewhere around Potsdamer Platz.  I still get a buzz every time I cross the Brandenburg Gate, thinking about what an extraordinary and unthinkable step that would have been two decades ago, but I quickly turn back to face the TV Tower – the symbol of East Berlin.  Once my husband and I were on a plane to Cape Town and the West Berliner sitting next to us couldn’t believe that we’d never been to Savignyplatz!  He seemed concerned that we should get to know that charming part of Berlin and he would act as a tour guide for us. Alas we never took up the offer! It’s not that I haven’t tried to get to know West Berlin, but every time I feel that I don’t belong there.  It’s only when I am in East Berlin that I feel at home. It’s much more than a geographical divide; it’s an ideological abyss! Perhaps I am exaggerating a little, but there is no denying that the differences between East and West are still very alive today.  Although the physical wall has been knocked down, there is still a cultural barrier in the head of most Berliners and it will take many more years for this wall to fall.

Fireworks at the Brandenburg Gate marking the 20th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin wall

The deep freeze

Cyclists braving the cold

We all knew it was too good to be true, but deep down we hoped for a miracle, i.e. that we would get to the end of winter without experiencing any really cold spells. But this is Brrrrlin after all and sooner or later it was bound to happen.

The cold arrived about a week ago, at the end of January, and it doesn't look like it will leave us any time soon. 

The temperature in the mornings oscillates between -10 and -14 degrees Celsius, then slowly creeps up and reaches -6 degrees or so during the "warmest" hours of the day. 

I'm not complaining: it could be worse and it could have started a lot earlier. Two years ago it was much much worse. Plus I'm one of the lucky ones: I work from home so I don't need to leave the house when it's -14. I wait till it's at least -9 to pop out to the baker's and the greengrocer's!

I have to admit that Berliners are a tough lot. You still see them out on their bikes, even cycling through snow and ice. And they don't all hide indoors... the other night I was really surprised to see that the cinema Hackesche Hoefe in Mitte was packed. In this day and age of high tech, high def, high res, 3D, etc. it was refreshing to see a silent film in black and white like The Artist, but it was even more refreshing walking home from the tram stop with a temperature of -9.