Welcome to Berlin!
October 28, 2011
Some friends came from Australia to see what they had been told was the coolest city in Europe.
We started off with some sightseeing before moving on to "real" life in the capital and headed to the famous Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, with the damaged spire.
I played the tour guide: "The church was bombed in 1943 during the war, it looks quite…" And just when I was about to elaborate on the city's multifaceted architecture, I was left bouche bée by my own object of discussion.
The church has been completely covered by white sheets, which reminded me immediately of the communist blocks of flats that used to line East Berlin. The church is being renovated and, of course, German efficiency requires that the restoration be completed as soon as possible and the workers stick to their schedule: despite rain, wind, sun, sleet or snow.
So, until the end of 2012, there is no church to see, my friends, but a lot of room left to your imagination on how it might look.
Welcome to Berlin!
Even when the church is finally finished, loads of other sites will still be off limits to the eyes of curious visitors - like the Altes Museum on the Museum Island, which is set to undergo restoration in 2012.
A visit to Berlin often seems to be more of a tour of scaffolds and banners covering up what's actually meant to be seen, rather than a series of postcard-perfect views.
Even though we've already seen all the buildings in their naked glory, we Berliners get annoyed by all the scaffolding, too, but accept it, because we have a master plan: transforming our city into the Mecca of Coolness. (That is, if it isn't that already. Note bene: Arrogance is a trademark of Berlin, but we'll talk about that some other time.)
Anyway, for over 20 years since the German reunification, millions of euros have gone into the refurbishment of residential buildings on the eastern side of the city: repairing roads, renovating historical sites, bridges, museums, hospitals and schools, building new railways and stations.
Between 2003 and 2008 alone, public funds totaling more than 1.8 billion euros ($2.5 billion) were invested in the renovation of infrastructure, according to Berlin's Senate Department for Urban Development.
Basically, since reunification, new construction sites have been continually popping up where you'd least expect them. This spring, I had to show some other visiting friends the Victory Column on a postcard. "I hope you'll be able to see it next time you're here," I consoled them. The statue had been under renovation for 15 months, until May 2011, at a cost of 4.3 million euros.
Schienenersatz-blah-blah
Despite their arrogance, Berliners have a few good qualities: One of them is patience. The local journalists apparently have it as well. "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, let's see which roads and stations are closed today," has become common radio news here.
And the list of infrastructure projects for the near future is not getting smaller. Several new hotels around the main train station are on deck, as is the enlargement of a few government buildings in the city center, the new U5 underground line, the modernization of the historic Bikini Haus - and that's hardly 10 percent of what's going on at the moment.
Subsidies of over 250 million euros go to the renewal of streets and public transport in Berlin annually. And even though the city currently has 1,900 kilometers (1,180 miles) of metro lines - that is, about the distance between Germany's capital city and its Russian counterpart - you should be overjoyed if your commute is not affected by construction work.
Schienenersatzverkehr (literally, alternative means of rail transport) is likely to give you headaches for the next 599 years. If you're a tourist, you can't complain, but imagine what it does to the average Berliner who spends about 70 minutes in traffic every day, according to the Statistical Institute Berlin-Brandenburg.
Fishing for compliments
But what goes around comes around, they say. And so is our patience rewarded, now and then, with some decadent opening, the echoes of which are being heard all over the world.
In 2009, 16,000 people queued in the rain on the Museum Island, one of the UNESCO heritage sites, for the long- awaited reopening of the Neues Museum. The building had been under renovation for decades, after it was destroyed during World War II. The restoration costs of all five museums on the island reached 1 billion Euros, by 2009.
Berlin's Central Station (the most modern train station in Europe, by the way) created hype when it was officially opened by Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2006. Its birthday is still celebrated every year with huge parties. Wait until the new Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport is inaugurated in June 2012. Naturally, it will be the most modern airport in Europe.
Berlin, it seems, is obsessed with superlatives - and is willing to pay for them with dust and detours and by being woken up by sledge hammers at 7 am.
Sorry to the tourists who planned on seeing a particular museum and all they get is a publicity banner covering the building. Still, the number of foreign visitors in Berlin increases every year. No, we can't offer it all in terms of tourist magnets, but who cares? Our charm sells even better.
Author: Lavinia Pitu
Editor: Kate Bowen