Back in the days of techno, there were some rather strong connections between the two cities Detroit and Berlin*. Bands from both cities influenced each other, and every now and then techno DJs from Detroit visited Berlin to perfom in one Berlin’s techno clubs – and Berlin DJs visited Detorit to spin some vinyl in Detroit’s night life.
That was back in the 90ies.
Since then both cities changed a lot. In sort: Detroit’s inustry went down, Berlin’s tourism industry went up. Now Berlin’s “techno legend” Dimitri Hegemann was recently visiting Detroit, suggesting to “use the power of abandoned spaces”to re-vive the city – just as Berlin did.
*PS2: There’s even at least one sampler called “Berlin-Detroit Techno Alliance”
PS3: More about Techno, Detroit, Berlin and all that Jazz: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno
This friday (20th March) the Berlin chamber of architects (Architektenkammer) will open an exhibition of Berlin architecture at Stilwerk in Berlin-Charlottenburg. On display are 65 architecture projects from Berlin – and by Berlin architects.
Currently the north-south S-Bahn tunnel between Gesundbrunnen and both Yorckstrasse stations (S1, S2, S25) is closed – and will stay closed until 1:30am on 4 May 2015 (Monday).
One of Berlin’s S-Bahn official recommendations is to use ‘Ringbahn’ instead – which might be a good idea if you really want to travel from Gesundbrunnen to Yorckstrasse – or of course the other direction. Alternatively you may jump on one of the “Schienenersatzverkehr” (SEV – S-Bahn replacement shuttle buses) Buses serving the closed S-Bahn stations – more or less.
The SEV-Buses go quite frequently – every 3–4–5 minutes. There is a north branch and a south branch, meeting at S-Bahn station Friedrichstrasse.
Find more information on this information page about the construction work – and here you can download a fly with detailed information, time tables, positions of the bus stations etc.
One curiosity: the bus drivers neither sell tickets nor check tickets – just as S-Bahn drivers would.
The regional public transport authority VBB (Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg) recently released a ‘live view’ map of Berlin and Brandenburg region. The interactive online tool is basically showing all the live positions of all the different public transport vehicles: buses, trams, S-Bahn- and U-Bahn-Trains and even ferry boats – live – in real time.
While this map may not be the best tool to find your next vehicle, it is quite a hypnotic waste of time staring at the little symbols crawling and creeping across the map. I just love watching that map for example during lunch break from time to time.
The Berlin International Film Festival Berlinale 2015 took off already last wednesday. Maybe you already went – and saw the one or the other movie? Maybe you still don’t know if you want to go – and maybe you even think you won’t have a chance to get tickets anyways.
Berlinale-Logo and Disco Ball (2014)
While it is true that it may be difficult to actually get tickets there are various ways to try – and maybe you won’t find tickets for the movie you originally intended to see, but maybe you’ll see some other movie and be surprised to find something you didn’t expect.
Anyhow – the Berlin International Film Festival is the largest public film festival – so naturally there are many different options where and how to find tickets.
You can purchase tickets at these four Central Ticket Sales up to three days before the screening: Potsdamer Platz Arkaden, Kino International, Haus der Berliner Festspiele (Schaperstraße 24, 10719 Berlin), Audi City Berlin (Kurfürstendamm 195, 10707 Berlin)
On the day of the actual screening you can purchase tickets at the related box office – check well in advance where / which theater the movie will be shown and when the box office will open
Online Advance Sales: you can also buy tickets through the festival’s website
Berlin – the town I was born, the place I live, the city I love – is only one of over 100 cities, villages and places world wide called ‘Berlin’. Throughout history people have again and again called places ‘Berlin’ for various reasons – be it german missioners or colonists calling a spot ‘Berlin’ where they could build a harbour or be it german immigrants, calling their new found home after the german capital when they finally settled down in the United States of America.
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In the US alone there are dozens of places called Berlin – even though many towns changed their name after the first and again after the second world war. But also in Russia and in many other countries people decided to call their city Berlin – and in most if not all cases they named it after the german capital Berlin.
Just recently a couple of german TV broadcasting stations and media institutions teamed up and produced a comprehensive documentary report which is available in different formats: as a one-piece video stream, as an interactive web-documentary and ‘in pieces’ on youtube. I highly recommend watching it since it’s really quite some entertainment – and a totally different view on “a place called Berlin”
Here you’ll find the english version of the interactive web-documentary, featuring additional clips from the world’s various Berlins: www.worldwideberlin.com/en/
It’s cold, it’s wet, and thesky is gey – back to the ‘Berlin cloud’. Sometimes something wet comes falling from above.. but is it rain? ..or is it snow? Nobody knows. But there are some traces of last night here and there: and it looks like “snow”. So it must be winter.
Temperatures are currently between –1°C and +1°C – no wind.
After some weeks of Berlin’s typical mostly grey-grey-cloudy winter weather today the day began with a surprise: Good Morning Sunshine! Blue skies, a few fluffy clouds, mostly sunny. The temperatures are between 5°C and 10°C – in the sun it feels a bit warmer. Feels like perfect weather conditions for a coffee or a drink on the terrace of your favourite café / bar.
Berlin winter weather: sunshine – Photo: T.Bortels
And the weather forecast says that we might expect sunshine, blue skies and temperatures between 5°C to 15°C all through until next weekend. Yay!
Update: Maybe I misunderstood some details of the weather “forecast”, but the early spring lasted for only two days. Currently it seems we’re back in the grey-cold-windy-and-wet phase of Berlin winter. Yay!
