Gummies and Orange Soda

Saturday, November 23-Tuesday, November 26, 2019: Berlin, Germany

Late November 2019 found me in Berlin: Fresh off of a backbreaking week at Dreamforce in San Francisco followed by two consecutive nights on a plane and sporting a murderous upper respiratory infection. Every description of Berlin seems to feature a word starting with “gr”: Grimy, gritty, grungy. You can even eat gruel. The lively street art and cultural vibrancy, at least, make up for whatever accuracy those descriptions may hold.

Highlights of a short four-ish day visit – joining a leg of my friends Hunter and Anderson’s post-Soviet Thanksgiving tour – included:

• A music-and-empanadas fundraiser for Bolivian victims of racial violence in the basement of the nebulously anti-American Coop Anti-War Cafe
• An aptly depressing Depeche Mode party at the top of the Fernsehturm Tower 
• Lots of smoky clubs with varying amounts and styles of dancing, including the tamer-than-it-sounds Crack Bellmer swing dancing club, at which a middle-aged German woman said that she could not show me the steps while her partner danced with a younger woman (who clearly did not know the steps) until I had taken months of classes (she did follow up later with two fliers for local instruction) and a Russian woman pantomimed her impression of a famous French movie director by exaggeratedly looping her winter scarf around her neck and pretending to smoke a pretzel from the cup of pretzels her friend had stolen from us while knocking over one of our drinks
• General non-amusement with requests for: a free coffee refill at a delicious Rocket + Basil brunch (unamused: actually, the server laughed in my face, so maybe she was amused), to be seated for an existing dinner reservation at 8:45pm (Restaurant Schneeweiß, unamused: the chef/owner); to provide novel recommendations at a “theory and art” only bookstore (Pro qm, unamused: clerk); to take our group photo at the end of a visit to a “textile-free” spa (Vabali, unamused: clerk); and (this non-amusement on my part) with the woman next to me on the Berlin-Frankfurt flight asking in German if the cough, which I was doing my absolute damnedest to stifle and about which at this point I could do nothing more about, was due to “allergies or sickness” (unamused: me)
• Bumping into my two pals at around 6:00am on the street outside our AirBnb: Me, searching for a cab to the airport; them, thinking they were coming home from the little bar next door, which apparently closes “once everyone has left.” Before we’d finished our goodbyes, the bartender, Katja, summoned them back inside to take another shot. I peeked my head in: The police, who had visited earlier to quell some conflict on the sidewalk as a sex worker scurried away, had left; the power, which had gone out earlier that night for no apparent reason, had returned, and along with it the eccentric lightning scheme; and my two friends, Katja, and a mother-son duo with whom they had been gradually glazing over their collective eyes all night joined their glasses for yet another toast. According to Anderson: “They don’t have regulars here. It’s just whatever weirdos wander in.”

You can’t go far in Berlin without encountering Nazi and/or Soviet history, or polite attempts to not speak about them, or the physical absence of prewar history due to the destruction wrought during those years. We visited the informative but inconsistently argued Hitler: How Could it Happen exhibit at the Berlin Story Bunker, Checkpoint Charlie, an old stretch of the Berlin Wall, the Stasi Museum, and the Die Tagung KGB bar during our stay.

Even Fanta, apparently, has its origins in resource-scarce Coca-Cola bottling operations in wartime Nazi Germany. Atlas Obscura presents the bizarre, troubling history here. While both the drink and the drinkmaker have, obviously, changed significantly in the intervening years, this dark past makes tasting Fanta a more historical experience in Berlin than anywhere else. I tried German Fanta on four occasions in four different styles.

• Small clear glass bottle: I first tried German orange Fanta, full name Erfrischungsgetränk mit Orangengeschmack Zutaten (Refreshing Drink with Orange-flavored Ingredients, in English), from a small glass bottle at BerlinAirportClub Lounge, which is insanely difficult to find and doesn’t have a bathroom but once you are there is a good enough place to wait for your flight or travel companions in the tiny, hexagonal Tegel airport. The drink itself is light and sweet, and looks to contain 4% juice if my German has succeeded. It was served in a tiny, digestible serving size. (Note: I did NOT intend the picture below to turn out the way it did.)
• Large green glass bottle: Purchased from a pizza shop to justify our use of the restroom. This iteration was not as fizzy as the first one I tried and seemed sweeter.
• Medium clear glass bottle: Enjoyed a delectable currywurst-and-fries lunch at Curry Mitte. Germans are obsessive and exceptionally categorized about their recycling, and this small shop collects your glass bottles at the end.
• Large clear plastic bottle: Halloween-themed and from an airport shop. I drank it on the plane after walking past a twenty-four seat first class section with a grand total of one passenger in it. The drink flattened very quickly after opening.

Two other fruity beverages I tried in Berlin:

• Rhubarb spritzer at the Michelberger Hotel bar: A very refreshing drink, it really tasted like rhubarb, which was a new experience for me in a beverage. The bar had a very nice vibe, and the service was great. Not only did the British bartender offer some good tips for not-too-smoky places to go out, but he favorably compared us to the boisterous groups of tourists who frequent the bar!
• Ingwer Tea at Com A: This sushi spot that my friend Julia brought us to had kumquats (actual kumquats!), honey, lime juice, and mint leaves. It was very soothing to my ailing throat.