Ryanair lets me celebrate 40th birthday in unforgettable Berlin Give me 10 good reasons why winter here in Ireland is something to enjoy
MY FORTIETH birthday celebration weekend in Berlin went off with a bang in a city which more than lives up to its reputation for nightlife, cutting edge culture and incredible history.
Ryanair didn’t manage to screw it up so by Friday afternoon we were taking in the sights in the mighty German capital.
The itinerary was sketchy and ever changing. As one in a group of six Kerrymen, the potential for comedy, rows, chaos and buffoonery was always in the air, and so it came to pass over 60 hours in a city where people pay into nightclubs at 4.30 a.m.
Our hotel was located near the S and U bahn subway lines. With very little knowledge as to how to negotiate subways, or maps for that matter, and armed with only three German words, I ended up walking over 50km over the weekend and dancing another 10km at least on Saturday night, or so my trusty Fitbit watch informs me.
The portents had been good with sunny weather forecast and we enjoyed great weather and even took to a city beach. There were plans to see several museums, but only one was visited, the Topography of Terror, which certainly lived up to its name. The outdoor and indoor German history museum charted the rise of the Nazi party, the establishment of the the Secret State Police, the SS and the Reich Security Main Office, which were located at the city’s ‘Ground Zero’ where the museum is framed by remains of the Berlin Wall, which was famously knocked in 1989.
The outdoor museum charts the social and political changes in the country between 1933 and 1945, at a time when a political party offered a nationalistic vision to a wounded country’s people.
The indoor museum featured the rise of Nazism through photographs and videos from the period, along with documents, newspaper cuttings and audio recordings.
The manipulation of the people by the Nazi party was frightening to behold, how they bent the will of the nation to the will of a maniacal leader. This involved creating citizens who should not feel empathy, who should kill and procreate all for one cause, the establishment of the ‘perfect race’.
As a student of history I was alarmed at how little I really knew about this seminal 12-year period, about the scale of the killings and the hatred displayed for the Sinti and Roma gypsies, homosexuals and asocial ‘useless eaters’ as Hitler and his henchmen called people with mental illness.
The horror visited by the Nazis everywhere they went was reflected in black and white photographs of hanging corpses from trees and almost as sinister images of extermination centres where untold torture and terror was inflicted. The strongest impact the Topography of Terror had on me was seeing the same coldness, the same evil in the faces, in the eyes of the perpertrators of this genocide. Throughout the city there are reminders of its terrifying past, but as if to counterbalance or write a new history, thousands of buildings are covered in colourful street art and graffiti.
The people are independent minded and friendly and were helpful to me and my friends on several occasions, even reuniting one hungover friend with his lost passport.
Berlin and its history made for an unforgettable backdrop to my 40th birthday, while also reminding me of what can happen when governments are intolerant, irresponsible and corrupt.
I returned to the horror of the Madalay Bay shooting, the worst in America’s history and the Spanish Government’s response to an election. Both gave me shivers.
TO LIGHT the fire, or not light the fire, that was the question. Our companionable weekend meal enjoyed and eaten, we moved from table to hearth fondling the last of the evening’s wine in our glasses, a box of mints open on the coffee table. The room was certainly not cold but the unlit logs somehow begged for the striking of a match, if only to provide a comfortable glowing focal point for our after-dinner chatter. In the end, without the matter being put to a formal vote, all present decided that to light up would be a glum signal that summer is conclusively, comprehensively and completely over.
We were in denial of the imminence of winter, Hermione convinced that the grass on our lawn is still growing as briskly as it did mid-August. And surely the final flush of tomatoes blushing red in the greenhouse also indicates lingering summer warmth?
On our way here to visit friends Molly and Mike, I swear I saw some swallows chasing insects on the wing with undiminished vigour, with no thought just yet of exchanging the cool of Ireland for the heat of Africa. But in truth it was hard to be absolutely sure that they really were swallows as the nights seem to be drawing in damnedly fast and visibility is tricky by the dodgy light of dusk.
There are practical limits to the human capacity for self-delusion. Our hosts struck the correct note when they served a hearty casserole from the oven rather than the steak barbecued on glowing charcoal in the open air we might have expected a few weeks back. No frivolous summertime rosé was on offer this time either, but rather ample supplies of solemn rich red.
So, dinner dispatched, we were nibbling our mints contentedly when the windows suddenly rattled in their frames and rain could be heard drumming on the panes in the pitch darkness outside. Molly cocked her ear to the passing squall and visibly shuddered.
‘I have decided that in future, I shall spend my winters by the Mediterranean,’ she said quietly. The serious tone of her unheralded announcement suggested that this was no idle joke, no wishful thinking, no passing vagary.
Our hostess explained how she had been reading about seasonally affected disorder and affirmed her stern intention to take all steps required to avoid falling prey to this depressing condition. No other logical course of action presented itself – she simply must adjourn to the Cote d’Azur or thereabouts for those downbeat months when daylight is in short supply across Northern Europe.
Molly waxed weary of grey, grey, grey and damp, damp, damp, not to mention cold, cold, cold: ‘And we don’t even do cold properly here – no chestnuts roasting on open fires. No cute white Christmases.’
I rushed blindly to make a case in favour of the Irish winter, declaring that there must be at least ten good reasons for remaining at home.
‘ Ten good reasons?’ huffed Molly. with two.’
The gauntlet had been thrown down and, though I had not mugged up on the subject in advance, it was time to rally to the national cause.
‘ There’s the Gaiety panto,’ I suggested desperately, real top of the head stuff.
‘When did you last go to the Gaiety for the panto?’ was the scornful response. ‘I’ll bet Jimmy O’Dea was still the star attraction. Well, while you are at the Gaiety, I shall be attending the opera in Verona or maybe Milan. I haven’t quite made up my mind yet.’
Mike – no doubt worried as to how a lengthy sojourn in Sorrento or Sitges might be financed – lumbered in on the side of the defence: ‘ There’s the Irish pub,’ he offered gamely. ‘ The Guinness just isn’t right in those foreign places.’
‘Guinness is not and never has been on my agenda,’ came the reply. ‘Champagne for me from now on please, served from a silver plated ice bucket with a view out over the marina…’
After coffee brought proceedings to a close, Mike ushered his guests out on their way into the black night while Molly remained by the hearth, her lap-top logged on to a web-site from Provence. ‘I bet you can’t come up