{"id":815,"date":"2013-06-08T12:21:50","date_gmt":"2013-06-08T16:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=815"},"modified":"2013-06-08T12:21:50","modified_gmt":"2013-06-08T16:21:50","slug":"815","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=815","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Berlin portion of this trip concluded Friday evening at der Monarch in Kreuzberg.\u00a0 The second-floor bar and occasional live music venue on Skalitzerstr is a little tricky to locate.<\/p>\n

In one of a few doofus moves I’ve made on this trip so far, I mistakenly walked into a venue down the block, handed the guy my ticket and hung out in the wrong place for a half hour.<\/p>\n

When I noticed what appeared to be bongos on stage and a steady stream of dance hall and ska sounds coming from the DJ booth, I grew suspicious and a little panicky.\u00a0 I came all the way out here in large part to see The Babies and I didn’t want to miss ’em.<\/p>\n

I went back to the doorman and sought confirmation I was at der Monarch.<\/p>\n

Negative.\u00a0 I had mistakenly entered Festsaal where the night’s bands included Dreadnut Inc. and Ganjaman.<\/p>\n

Since the doorman had already ripped the stub off my ticket, he sought the club’s manager’s advice to help get me out of this pickle.\u00a0 .<\/p>\n

I didn’t get the guy’s name, but he was nice enough to walk me down the street to der Monarch and explain to the people there that I had already had my ticket ripped at Festsaal.<\/p>\n

Now in the right place, I ordered a Staropramen (3.7 euros) and breathed a sigh of relief.<\/p>\n

The Babies were the only band on the card.\u00a0 The cut-to-the-chase aspect of no opening act made the evening feel special.\u00a0 The band ate a heavy meal in the neighborhood prior to hitting the stage.\u00a0 The room was hot and smoky.\u00a0 That didn’t seem to slow any of them down.\u00a0 The performance was exceptional and energetic.\u00a0 The crowd filled the venue and was totally into it.\u00a0 Kevin Morby (above right) worked in a few danke schoens at the ends of tunes.\u00a0 The stage barely had room for a quartet which limited Morby’s prowling and darting.\u00a0 Both Cassie Ramone and Brian Schleyer (from the left- above) were positioned such that they could look out the window to see busy and freaky Skalitzerstr down below.\u00a0 Both could be seen stealing glances as the U-Bahn trains racing in and out of Kottbusser Tor station across the street.\u00a0 Drummer Justin Sullivan (holding the sticks) laid on extra oomph as Moonlight Mile climaxed.\u00a0 The band added drama to Cassie’s “See the Country” with a thunderstorm of sound to conclude the tune.<\/p>\n

What can you say?\u00a0 It was a great show.<\/p>\n

The band will put its rented tour van on a ferry boat Saturday to cross the Baltic Sea en route to Malmo.<\/p>\n

One bit of band news:\u00a0 Look for a Kevin Morby solo record (with production help from Babies friend Rob Barbato) out on Woodsist later this year.<\/p>\n

\"Holocaust<\/a>
\nEarlier Friday, I tried to get around a bit to see some sights.\u00a0 The Holocaust Memorial (pictured above) blew me away.\u00a0 I don’t understand the controversy over its vagueness.\u00a0 Its power is in its symbolism (coffins) and the prominent real estate it sits on.\u00a0 I skipped Checkpoint Charlie but saw the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag.\u00a0 The latter is fronted by a huge parcel of open parkland with full public access.<\/p>\n

\"Reichstag<\/a><\/p>\n

How bout’ that?\u00a0 One of the world’s most powerful countries has the seat of its government next to a giant lawn used by people to picnic and play frisbee on.\u00a0 As it should be.<\/p>\n

I only scratched the surface of this city but I’d have to say I was most taken by the energy and spirit of Kruezberg neighborhood in the immediate vicinity of Kottbusser Tor.<\/p>\n

My hotel in Berlin was four stars.\u00a0 I stayed at the Scandic property near Potsdamer Platz.\u00a0 I chose the place largely because I previously made the Stockholm arrangements off glowing touts of Scandic’s progressive approach to business.\u00a0 I figured if Scandic was so popular in Sweden, they’d be good in Berlin.\u00a0 Scandic has chain-like presence in Scandinavia and they have two hotels in Germany.\u00a0 The one I stayed at has 561 rooms.\u00a0 The rate was 116 Euros a night tax included.\u00a0 They let me check in early.\u00a0 The room was wonderful.\u00a0 The hotel lobby is just steps from the Mendelssohn U-Bahn stop on the U2 line.<\/p>\n

When I woke up Friday, I went down to the restaurant to check out the buffet line.\u00a0 It was the most beautiful breakfast spread I’ve ever seen at a hotel restaurant.\u00a0 Several varieties of pickled herring caught my eye immediately.\u00a0 There was fruit, eggs, a cheese table and about 30 different types of breads and pastries.\u00a0 The coffee was excellent.\u00a0 I ate like a kaiser.\u00a0 The flat 20 euro charge for the buffet was totally worth it given the quality and range of the offerings.<\/p>\n

Berliners aren’t discreet about launching happy hour on their commutes home or on the way out to meet friends.\u00a0 It’s not uncommon to see people carrying large bottles of beer in plain view.\u00a0 Even at the airport early Saturday morning, I saw two older couples sip from bottles of Beck’s before joining the security line.\u00a0 It’s hard to imagine this taking place in the United States given our reliance on the automobile.\u00a0 But in Berlin, it seems like most everybody rides bikes or uses perhaps the finest public transit system in the world.<\/p>\n

\"Bikes<\/a><\/p>\n

Those who root for bike share’s success in New York can look to Berlin as a model for a city’s successful harmony between bikes, trains, buses and cars.\u00a0 Dedicated bike lanes respected as such are a nice starting point.\u00a0 But to mesh heavily-used bike ways with automobile traffic, the bicyclist must be savvy in adhering to sometimes complex requirements at traffic lights and pedestrian walkways.\u00a0 Berlin bike riders seem to have it down to a science.\u00a0 I was in awe.\u00a0 Bikes everywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Berlin portion of this trip concluded Friday evening at der Monarch in Kreuzberg.\u00a0 The second-floor bar and occasional live music venue on Skalitzerstr is a little tricky to locate. In one of a few doofus moves I’ve made on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[153,10],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s28tEv-815","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":816,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions\/816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}