Urban Sketcher

The Boros Collection is a private art collection housed in a WWII bunker.

Which one do you think is the entrance to the bunker?

The bunker floor plan seems sort of evil with its relentlessly precise symmetrical design. The walls of this thing are incredibly thick.

Entering the bunker, you are met by logs which seem to tell you where you can and can not go.

Entering the bunker, you are met by logs which seem to tell you where you can and can not go.

No, you steam punks, this is not a Bioshock game prop! It’s a real WWII bunker phone! Geez!

Real bunker doors.

Real bunker door handle.

This is just a reflection of the ceiling neon light on one of the white-lacquered benches in the waiting area for tour groups, but it turned into something that looked like minimalist art.

A lamp glows in the Boros bunker. I think I may have helped this effect by under-exposing, but I am not sure and too busy to check.

Who knows where this lead to, but it looks ominous.

Big brother is still watching you.

I walked by this “Moonlight” lighting store and could not resist playing with the globe lamps mixing with the reflection of the street scene outside.

As I leave the Boros bunker on this rainy Sunday of January 6, there are signs of still-heavy Berlin construction everywhere.

Many buildings in the Berlin government area have this “Bundestag” sign, which I take to mean there are German representatives working around here. I hope they are. All of Europe hopes they are.

Graffiti is alive and well in Berlin and definitely serves a purpose; it’s not always there just to tag, it’s there to express freedom of thought, opinion, make political and personal statements, to educate, decorate, inform. I am all for the graffiti. This particular one is a call to establish a minimum wage, which does not exist in Germany, believe it or not.

Looking over towards where Angela might be and one of her parks.

The British embassy in Berlin is barricaded off by these cylinders, a police car is parked out front, it is a dreary, cold, rainy Sunday in the first week of January, nobody wants to be down here right now except a lone Canadian tourist…

I believe this is an office building near Potsdamer Platz, Berlin with a cool mobile sculpture hanging into its lobby. The woman who is just walking down the stairs is wearing a jacket or dress with a white lapel with black piping that seems to echo the sculpture’s look.

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin.

Sony Center near Potsdamer Platz, Berlin.

A bar or cafe in the Sony Center.

Sony Center, Berlin. This was a day of many impressions, almost too many to process.

Jeff is used to me sketching him. I think I have his features down by now, so I can get on with what really matters: drawing his caricature.

Restocking my urban sketching art supplies so I can get on with some artmaking.

The display in this shop window of many types of “Strick Liesel” (Knitting Liesel) gave me some nostalgia. I remember knitting weird little tubular things on these knitting devices, for which there seemed to be absolutely no earthly use. At least nothing that you would want to admit to.

Miniature scenes in a shop window display.

Antique shop window display.

Olivin sauna courtyard.

Olivin sauna interior with shower.

Olivin sauna lounge area

Olivin sauna

At the Meridian Spa, Spandau, Berlin. The central pool.

The three hot tubs and you can see the doors to some of the six saunas at the Meridian Spa.

One of the large resting areas overlooks the main pool.

Zionskirche, Prenzlauer-Berg Berlin. Until Jeff and I walked by there and read the plaque near the door, I had no idea that Dietrich Bonhoeffer had preached here. This was his church. One of our nephews is named after him.

Boutique window in Prenzlauer-Berg, Berlin. I normally like shoes, but not these ones.

Having an egg in an East German egg cup.

In the DDR Museum, Berlin. Controlled by the communist government which suppressed any initiative and creativity, East German product design was soon falling hopelessly behind, much like its products.

This book cover in the DDR Museum reminded me that I read this book in German class back in grade 9 or 10. It was written by an East German author who followed a book by Goethe, while subtly criticizing the East German system. The book became popular in West Germany for this reason, and was selected by my teacher for our class to read and discuss.

A dusty miniature diorama of a typical (?) East German nude beach, DDR Museum, Berlin. As my sister pointed out when I emailed her some of these photos: “East Germans must have had great genes to have bodies like Ken and Barbie dolls.”

Apparently East Germans were even more enthusiastic nudists than the West Germans. The DDR Museum has a whole diorama of an East German nude beach. The nude beaches were the standard, the clothed beaches the exception. As we learned, after German reunification, the signs were switched, so now most beaches are clothed, and only a few are nudist.

iPhones are great when it comes to macro shots — they take very good close-ups, and the tiny lens can peep through small cracks in fences or keyholes. Not that I would do that.

Is it possible to get in trouble for depicting tiny, dusty, blurry nudist dioramas?

Der Spiegel magazine cover from the weekend of November 10, 1989. “The people win”. That was an incredibly emotional time for all Germans, including myself, but even more so for an older generation who witnessed the wall going up, and never dreamed that they would see it come down in their lifetime. How easily it all suddenly collapsed. The people just weren’t taking it anymore.

The Trabi, of course, is the infamous East German-made car brand Trabant.

For New Year’s Eve, I wanted to go out to a big party for once. We usually celebrate at home with friends, sometimes we just have a small gathering, some years we have a larger party. So I booked us tickets for this big party with five dance floors in a cool building with an inner courtyard. We both enjoyed it very much and were there from 11 pm to 3 am, trying out the different dance floors and the Karaoke bar, which featured mostly German songs that Jeff didn’t know, but I had fun grooving to the Udo Jürgens hit from the late 70s “Aber bitte mit Sahne”.