Dear Phantom Reader,
As hard as 2020 has been (and it ain’t over yet…), I definitely feel like this year has helped me be better at not taking things for granted and truly celebrating the life I have.
Yes, I still haven’t gotten the kind of recognition for my writing I want to have–and I don’t know if I ever will. (I’m about three quarters finished with my novel and already I’m dreading the stress and near constant rejection better known as publishing). My two adorable daughters turned into moody, un-cooperative teens what feels like overnight, and they’re constantly at each others throats which is driving my husband and I bonkers.
But really, life is good–I’m blessed. We all will get through this.
Hope you all are well and staying safe. In the meantime, here’s a post I wrote last spring about my lovely neighbourhood in Berlin before any of us had ever heard the words Covid-19. Enjoy!
XOXO
Rebeccah
PS Bergmannstrasse is still the same, just more people are wearing masks these days, of course!
Dear Phantom Reader,
Do you live in a big city? If you do, is it a big city full of tourists? If it is, I’m sure you know something about virtual streets in trendy neighborhoods.
Virtual streets aren’t seemingly touristy places like, say, Brandenburg Gate, Hackescher Markt or Check Point Charlie, if we’re talking about Berlin. But they’re made for tourists just the same.
Hey, they say. Isn’t life great here? Wasn’t your guidebook right on the nose? I live about a ten minute walk from one of these streets: Bergmannstrasse.
For most locals in Bergamannkiez, Bergmannstrasse starts and ends with the Marheinke Markthalle. This is the market hall where I buy most of my produce and some of my meat. When I take a “lunch break” from work (aka the desk in my office/bedroom) it’s often at one of the food stands here.
Greek, Vietnamese, Vegan, Spanish, there’s a lot to choose from and, to be honest, none of it’s that great, but it’s cheap and it’s quick and it’s around the corner. And a trip out there makes me leave my apartment at least once in the afternoon, which is good.
Oh the banes of working/writing at home.
Side note: Here’s the fountain behind the Markthalle where my daughters also used to play when they were little like the kid in the picture here. It’s also proof that Germany does not have a germ-phobic culture like the US (the water is skanky, skanky, skanky), although don’t get them started on drafts...
As for Bergmannstrasse itself, sure it’s full of shops and restaurants and cafes, but they’re all just a little off, a little fake, a little useless. They’re not made for us, the locals.
They’re made for the Italians and Spaniards who book cheap flights on EasyJet and want a taste of left-wing-but-laid-back-and-yuppie Kreuzberg 61, oh so less gritty than it’s punky step sister, Kreuzberg 36. It’s for retirees from Rhode Island who spent a summer in Berlin when the Wall was still up and fell in love, for couples with kids from Düsseldorf spending a week in the capital, for love birds from the suburbs who want to get a feel for city life but are still too afraid of Neukölln.
People flock to Bergrmannstrasse from around the world, but there are months I barely walk there, hell, maybe even years when I get no further than Bergmannstrasse Ecke Solmsstrasse. My neighborhood is on the side streets and down towards Südstern. In this, I know I’m not alone.
But today I did take a stroll down Bergmannstrasse, in my fabulous new sugar skulls skirt from Marianna Deri nonetheless.
In Berlin, fall and winter are inevitable while spring and summer are optional, and it’s been a cold May so far. Two days ago I was still wearing my damn winter coat, and yes the Californian in me is pissed about it even after all this time. I suffered through winter, I barely complained, now give me my spring, goddammit!
A lot of Germany have told me they wouldn’t want to live in a place without seasons but I say, Seasons, who needs them? Give me sunshine and lots of it! Scarves? Those suckers are better off as fashion accessories, like in Cali, than life savers like they are in Berlin.
Winter is so cold and so dark and so long. But when the sunshine and warmth does finally come, people take to the street and buy…
ice cream!
So very much ice cream.
Look how happy these people (and dog) are! (And this is the Markthalle, so probably some of them are locals).
Spring is here at last! At least until it’s gone again. When I first moved to Berlin in 1999 it was in an unseasonably warm April. But, unlike every other person in Berlin, I didn’t spend hours outside, basking in the sun because, duh, the sun is just, like, in the sky right? Poor Californian me learned the hard way that this is not the case when the ice rain cometh a ten days later.
Side note: Did you know those BSR orange trash cans in Berlin are oh so witty? This one says, Trash is my vegetables…
And this one says what the controllers say when they check our tickets on the U-Bahn (Die Fahrscheine, bitte! i.e. Tickets, please!).
Underneath it says, Toss your little trash in here too. Got to love a city trash company whose trademark color is traffic cone orange that also cracks jokes as corny as your alcoholic uncle.
Yes, I enjoyed my impromptu bummel down Bergmannstrasse, where I listened to some upbeat tunes,
then I headed back home…
and did a little reading in the sun.
Three cheers for sunshine, good books and the color red!
XOXO
Rebeccah