Nowtopian

Wow! What can I say about two dawns in 48 hours, a ridiculous amount of drinking, walking, bicycling, and making great connections with new Hungarian friends? Great, simply great! These are the kinds of serendipitous and enthralling moments we travel to find. Big thanks to Reka and Krista for their amazing hospitality. Here they are with Rob on day two at one of the numerous drinking spots they took us to:

Reka answered my plaintive email (via Justin Hyatt: Thanks Justin!) and met us at the station as we arrived. She took us on a bus ride to an outer neighborhood of the Pest part of Budapest (we stayed mostly on the Pest side, flatter, more popular, lots to do) where we were given an empty apartment on the 14th floor of an old housing tower, from which I took this photo:

Not super glamorous for sure, but a great gift. We arrived at 11 pm and by the time we’d dropped out stuff and enthusiastically went back to the city for drinks, it was about 1:30. Reka took us to the top of the old socialist department store, now converted to regular supermarket and on the roof is a brand new open air bar, with dancing and other hang-out spaces scattered around on the top floor just beneath it.

Continue reading 48 Hours in Budapest!

As we’ve noted for some time in San Francisco, without cheap rent it’s hard to sustain a thriving art (or dance, or music, or political) scene… Berlin, full of ghosts, is also full of amazing amounts of space, both in terms of its lovely parklands, its still empty swaths of former Wall zones, and the apartments all over the city that are just huge, airy, sunny, warm, cozy…

“If you will suck my sticky soul, I will lick your funky emotions”… words to live by!

When I was here 17 years ago the eastern part of Berlin was full of squatted buildings and there were early efforts to create cafes and bars in the bleak, decrepit East. Some of what we’ve been doing is revisiting those same buildings, now refurbished and prosperous, which is ironic of course, but the neighborhoods are really fantastic (it doesn’t hurt that it’s glorious summer!) and extremely livable. Yesterday we went to this place, KA86, to the cafe just below and to the right of this photo, where they have a really great Sunday morning all you can eat brunch with great northern European cheeses, jams, spreads, and especially the BREADS! Yum!

Today we hung out with our host Jess C., and he took us by Ka77, one of the many squatted buildings on Kastianenalle just a few blocks away. Jess was around back in the early 1990s when the building was first squatted (it’s also the oldest building in the area, and actually consists of 4 separate structures going back in a row from the street front, separated by lovely courtyards). Hundreds of people helped make it an amazing place, and it’s still home to 25 adults and about 10 children, who still live collectively, have shared meals 6 nights a week, and are encouraged to bathe together in a big bathroom with two bathtubs and two showers all adjacent… The culture of collective living is considerably healthier here than in the U.S. as far as I can tell after a very cursory visit. Collective spaces still exist and actually seem to be thriving. They contribute a lot to what’s left of the radical political culture, though it’s far from what it was during the street-fighting times before the Wall fell. Rather, following the “natural” life-cycle of urban environments, Berlin was animated by the squatter scene and its attendant radical politics two and three decades ago. Following the fall of the Wall and German reunification, the next phase of city life ensues when the artists pour in and find lots of cheap space and easy living without huge incomes.

Here’s me and Jess enjoying a leisurely Monday afternoon in summertime Berlin:

As we’ve enjoyed staying at Jess’s place on Brunnenstrasse just in the eastern sector near where the Wall was, we’re close to Mitte (the center) and the place is chock full of art spaces! Galleries and buildings, cafes and bars, outdoors in balmy June Berlin… just fantastic place to be without cares or responsibilities. On Sunday Francesca and I re-found the place I visited in 1990, now known as Tacheles. Here’s some photos of it:

You can see already around Tacheles on Friedrichstrasse and Orianenbergstrasse the booming rise of commercial gentrification. The other neighborhoods nearby, currently home to many art galleries, will likely succumb to boutiquization as things proceed, assuming the pattern holds. Here are some more Tacheles shots:

Continue reading Berlin, art mecca