Archives for July 3rd, 2007

A dancing club in East Berlin, of the old-school variety.

Welly, welly, welly, well. Some thoughts about my week in Berlin:

* I’ve been to the city twice before but the last time was back in 2000. The big surprise for me this time around was Potsdamer Platz, which is quite simply grotesque. When the wall came down, Berlin had this really unique situation: a gigantic open space right in its ripped-open gizzards. Out of this great and tremendous opportunity came… corporate offices. Plus some cafes, a McDonald’s, some shops, tourist traps, and of course…

Die Hard would be a great slogan for Viagra.

…a monsterplex or two, so that Berliners can go watch Bruce Willis grunt through his latest adventure for 8 euros a pop.

Sometimes it feels like cities are actively collaborating together to become indistinguishable.

* But even if cities are all becoming the same, thankfully people are not. And I realized during this trip that I really like Slovenes. Really. There were all kinds of European journalists there and I chatted with practically all of them, but I felt myself naturally drawn to the Slovenes. I’m still trying to sum up their national character, but some of the key ingredients are irreverence, humility, bawdy humor and (unfortunately, at times) aloofness. They’re kind of like lobsters: once you crack open their shells, you can feast on all kinds of good stuff inside of them. And it’s almost always good in there. Especially with butter.

Lately I’ve been wondering if I chose to live in Slovenia or if Slovenia chose me. I think it’s one of those countries that seems to balance chaos and order in a nearly perfect way. Germany, where they pass ordinances on the length of dog leashes and where authorities in Berlin count and label every tree, is a bit too ordered for my tastes. Serbia, on the other hand, is a bit too “Ah, fuck it” for me. (Although I would live in both)

This diagram pretty much sums things up for me:

There is absolutely no science behind this — much like the Die Hard films.

* During my trip, two strangers (one Slovene and one American) recognized me as the author of this blog. I also apparently just missed running into this charming lady in Brač. I find these encounters wonderful. But they’re also a painful reminder of how blogging (unlike most other activities) provides no material rewards for any measure of success. The previous post was #800, and all this effort has earned me about enough money to go see Die Hard 4 once or twice. (Depending on if I want popcorn or not)

* Speaking of money: The pissoirs in the new chancellery are made by Villeroy & Boch. I found this to be both funny and a great metaphor for the German government’s talent at pissing public money away.

* Die Hard 4 is currently among the top 250 movies in human history, according to IMDb’s rankings. It’s scheduled for Slovenian release on August 2.