March 11, 2008 at 1:27 pm · Filed under Czech Republic, Germany, Public Transit and tagged: berlin, photos, skiing, spring

A long silence. First, I was skiing in the Czech Republic with my tenth graders, then upon my return to the grey, gloomy streets of my beloved Berlin, I discovered that my internet connection was at the point of death, the faint throbbing of bits and bytes the only indication that it hadn’t completely left me. I’ve been getting better acquainted with Berlin’s internet cafes, seeking out the ones where it’s comfortable to linger, where the food is good enough that I’m buying a sandwich or a cup of coffee not just because it rents me a table for an hour or so, but I’m still fairly shameless; all of the cafes in Zitty‘s “Essen und Trinken” issue that mention W-LAN have been highlighted, and I’m dropping by anything within reasonable distance from my house, one by one.

My skiing companions: Leni & Holger

At the moment I’m eating a mango chutney chicken foccacia at St. Oberholz at Rosenthaler Platz. “Essen & Trinken” calls it “a communal office for Mitte’s (underemployed?) freelance creatives. That, it may be; nearly everyone here has a laptop open, and the place is bustling. If these people are underemployed, however, it could be because they’re not actually working; both of my immediate neighbours have been on Facebook for the past 15 minutes or so.

He’s probably not actually “working”

Getting here was a puzzle; the cafe sits right on an U-bahn station, but ver.di, the BVG’s union, is on strike. Rather hubristically, a few weeks ago, I wondered aloud why the U-bahn stations have doors, if they never close. They do close, when the union is on strike, and we have to rely on S-bahn to get around. Thank goodness the weather is getting warmer; my bike carries me where the trains don’t, and I’m actually getting to know the city better.

BVG, I miss you!

Comments (2)