Getting to the end of my trip and one thing struck me today as I strolled behind a British couple down a typical Kreuzberg street between Oranienplatz & Görlitzer Bahnoff and they were remaking how dirty it was,but here’s the thing,it’s not dirty at all,yes there’s graffiti almost everywhere & most other spaces have some sort of billboard or stickers on them but that’s not dirt…the streets & pavements are remarkably clean of waste paper,food wrappers & discarded bottles/cans ( because of the Pfand I discussed previously) Where I am sitting outside a run of the mill cafe I can see four rubbish bins that are emptied at least once a day,usually more,all with compartments for smokers butt ends too,go down most streets in the UK and you might see one bin that’s usually overflowing cos‘ it’s never emptied,it’s embarrassing…
Where I stayed in St Pauli every property,that’s no exaggeration either,was plastered with graffiti,now that might look unsightly to many but once again the streets were clean of normal rubbish.Sometimes in my road in the UK it looks like someone has taken a paperboy‘s full bag and thrown all the newspapers in the air allowing the wind to take care of it.Really if these so called rough & dirty & very busy areas of German cities can stay clean so can ours…maybe we don’t have the same civic pride and also don’t take as much responsibility for our own actions…
There’s also any green spaces in the urban parts that are allowed to grow unhindered.I don’t know if this is deliberate for environmental reasons of lack of funding but once again to our UK eyes if we see an uncut verge in the street it causes offence but here it’s just a patch of grass so where’s the harm?
One last thing, a bit more personal based.The bars & cafes I tend to use all look unkept,a bit rough & ready and not the type of place to take your grannie( honestly your grannie was probably a free love hippie in the 60‘s,she‘d love it) but for one they’re usually the friendliest places you’ll visit,two they look dirty but are far from it especially the toilets.Normally they‘re covered in graffiti & stickers and a bit dark & dingy looking but crucially they always smell fine and they always have everything you need in a public toilets…in every sense with these areas of these cities looks can be very deceiving.Trust your senses not your perceptions…
Of course these places are far from perfect and I would advise against eating off the floor anywhere I have described but no matter how dirty they do get,especially on a market day they’re always spotless 7am next day…anyway change of subject,just popped to Schlesische Tor ( nope,still can’t say it) to visit another favourite bar Zur Fetten Eck and it’s closed till September and not even my Patience goes that far…
Chatting to the barman here from Chile.The third Chilean have met inside a week.Sewer rat Farage never warned us of the European invasion from a long country in South America bringing their Chilean things like…er, well you know…nice lad,learning German to become a citizen but as he said working here it’s all bloody tourists and he’s not learning anything.Mind you he is working in a Spanish bar! Now I have met yet another Chilean albeit working in the same bar.This time a bright eyed barmaid…they come over here being intelligent,interesting,attractive & hard working.Bastards…
In a while crocodile…
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