It was drizzling when we seized Sunday morning, but that didn’t stop us from heading over to Mauerpark to see the popular flea market. It was exactly that… a reasonably large flea market with a whole bunch of bric-a-brac, “vintage” clothes, and some crafts. A nice way to kill an hour (but no more than an hour).
From there we caught the tram down to the DDR Museum.
It’s a small, dense museum that covers everyday life under socialism… think ration cards, fashion, schoolbooks, leisure activities, that kind of thing. It’s maybe less about politics and history than about how people actually lived.
The darker sides aren’t ignored… surveillance, censorship, indoctrination. I leafed through Stasi files, sat through a mock interrogation, and got a small sense of what that control felt like.
The museum is presented in an extremely interactive way (not always a good thing). You don’t just stare at things behind glass… you open drawers, pick up telephones, fiddle with radios, sit on sofas. There’s even a fully reconstructed East German flat you can wander through (alongside many other visitors avoiding the drizzle).
By the time we left, the rain had given way to sun and a different Berlin had woken up.. everyone outside for food or coffee. We had a gluten-free snack (alongside my first bad coffee in Berlin) before heading home for a quick pit stop.
Dinner was early, and gluten free Italian! Afterwards we crossed town (past the Reichstag again) to the TIPI am Kanzleramt theater for a German-language production of Cabaret. Performed in a cabaret setting, because of course.
I also completed my Berlin trifecta (pretzel, currywurst, Berliner Weisse) with the last one… “mit Waldmeister.” Essentially a wheat beer with a couple of fingers of neon-green woodruff (cough) syrup. Tasted like something I might have drunk at university. Perfectly fine.
Cabaret in German was pretty great! A strong cast, great band, but a production that felt more cruise-ship than high art, but in a way that suits the show. And in Berlin, of all places, it just kinda works.
Afterwards we schlepped back across town and collapsed in a heap.
The Obligatory Blog 