Scenes from a Mall

Day 9 (Mittwoch, 24. Sept. 2008)

Today I ran 5 miles, got a German bank account, and learned what Checkpoint Charlie is (surprise! It has to do with the Cuban missile crisis).

I didn’t mean to run five miles. I was 13 minutes into my run, at the point that is usually my halfway point, when I decided to turn left. What’s the worst that could happen?

What *did* happen is that I had to run much further than I’ve ever run. I don’t actually know how far I ran, but I ran for 54 minutes and 45 seconds before I made it home. I only had to backtrack once. I estimate that, given how slowly I was running at some points, that’s probably about five miles. I usually run 4 miles in 38 minutes, so I’m guessing. Here’s me before I went.




I look so serious!

Anyway, when I got back I had a *huge* breakfast. Included was something called Bockwurst, which I think you’re supposed to boil, but I fried it in a pan with olive oil (that’s basically how I cook everything). The casing was crispy and good. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I’ll craft a whole post on Berlin cuisine eventually. Just don’t mention currywurst to me.

I decided the best place to go to open a bank account was Potsdamer Platz, because it’s the busiest place I’ve yet been to in Berlin. It’s also the place with my new favorite street name.



There’s also a mall there. And let me tell you, a mall is a mall, whether it’s in Toad Hop, Indiana, or Berlin, Germany.



So I’m in there looking for a Deutsche Bank, because it’s a national bank, not just a local Berlin bank, and in their brochure they say you can use a Bank of America ATM even in the US to take out money for free. Which is nice, but pointless since I’m going to close the account before I come home anyway. But whatever. I had my mind made up, for no good reason, to open a Deutsche Bank konto.

I don’t know why I do that—make up my mind for no good reason—but it’s so often a mistake. When I do that, even when I succeed at doing what’s really important, I feel like a failure, because I didn’t do it a la Frank Sinatra.

Anyway, I’m in the mall, and I just ran five miles, and I *saw* the sign that said there was a Deutsche Bank branch *in this mall*, and I can’t find it. It’s not on the Erstegeschoß, or the Erdgeschoß or the Untergeschoß. I know, because I looked. The sign says it’s on something called the ERDGESCHLOß AUSSENBEREICH.

Oh, Liebe Leser, I know what you’re thinking. “Why didn’t you just go outside, Luke, and look on the ground floor *outside* the mall?” I know. It’s so simple to you, isn’t it? So leicht, as the Berliners say. After all, the sign said the Deutsche Bank was on the “ground floor external region” of the mall. How much clearer could they be?

All I have to say is, do you really want to be saying those things to *this guy*?



Oh, AND there was this incident inside the mall with a security guard. I walk toward the “WC”, which is the abbreviation for Wasserklosett, which first of all makes no sense. Anyway, I’m thirsty, because I ran five miles that morning. So I’m looking for a drinking fountain. In the mall. Seems reasonable, right? Well evidently they don’t drink water in Berlin unless it has minerals in it. Because there’s not a single drinking fountain in the whole city.

Anyway, when I follow this WC sign (what is this, England?), there’s a bunch of rent-a-cops standing in front of the bathrooms. As I walk past I look up. This one security guard points to the bathrooms. I’m like, yeah, I know what a bathroom looks like, thanks, my bladder is not your business.

So I walk past him, and it’s a dead end. No drinking fountain. So I turn around and come back. I look up and this guy is pointing again! Pointing at the men’s room!
I look at him and say, in fluent German, mind you, “Wasser?”

“DA!” he says. That’s da, as in: “There, you idiot! Where I’ve been pointing this whole time!”

Now I know technically he was right. There is Wasser in a men’s room. But I don’t know the German word for drinking fountain, so it’s the best I could do. But I was still annoyed. I mean, I may be wearing a navy blazer, but I’ve used a public restroom before. I don’t need a man in a blue uniform (Blue. Ha! That’s how you know he’s not legit. Everyone knows real cops wear GREEN.) to tell me that there’s water in a men’s room.

So I walk in and there’s no water fountain. So, of course, I immediately walk out. Right past him. And my walk said it all. My walk shouted the following. “Listen here, you German guy, you can’t tell me there’s water in a men’s room and get away with it! I’m an American! From NORTH America! And I am *not* drinking the water in there no matter how often you point at it!”

So anyway then I went to the Deutsche Bank on the external region of the mall.



And that’s where I met Alexander, the guy who opened my account for me. He talked to me all about how he lives (with his parents!) just above Checkpoint Charlie. I told him I wanted to speak German, and we did for a while, but pretty soon he got sick of how much I sucked at German and started telling me all about Berlin in English.

According to Alexander, during the Cuban missile crisis American tanks lined up on the western side of the Berlin Wall, at Checkpoint Charlie, and the Russians lined up on the eastern side of the wall, at Checkpoint Charlie, both waiting for the signal to, I don’t know, burst through the wall and destroy the world. So in a way, this one block in Berlin is a microcosm of the Cold War, and it could have been ground zero for the apocalypse.



That’s way cooler than I thought. I had no idea what Checkpoint Charlie was when I went a few days ago, so I went back today. Also, on my way, I went to Niederkirchstrasse, like Alexander told me to, and I found the Berlin Wall!



It’s cool to be there, on the east side, and to imagine the acts of daring, espionage, sacrifice, and murder that people were driven to in order to surmount this 10-foot-tall piece of concrete. Maybe it’s the half-bottle of German wine I’ve got in me right now, but I think we should build bridges and not walls, you know? I mean, I just think when you build a wall, the world is small, but a bridge, especially a bridge of love, it just conquers all. But that’s just my philosophy.

Anyway, Alexander was extremely freundlich, and he gave me his email address and phone number told me to contact him if I wanted to know more about Berlin. Of course, that info was already there on his Deutsche Bank business card, so it’s not like he offered to let sleep on his couch or something. But he is just another example of a Berliner whom I’ve been surprised by.

On the one hand, in public Berliners are completely cold and indifferent. They don’t make eye contact. They don’t smile at people on the street. But so far every time I’ve scratched the surface in any way, I’ve found people to be very helpful, congenial, and welcoming. That, and anyone who has any sort of an education is troublingly fluent in English.