We had a late start into the day today, since I had (surprisingly) not slept well and we knew it was going to be a hot day with not that much of a plan for long walks. So we took off for our pre-planned museum trip, going to the Neue Nationalgalerie for contemporary art in a Mies van der Rohe building, lovingly restored in the 2000s. Andrea had highly recommended it for the exhibits but also for the space as an art space, and it did not disappoint. Their main collection is (I think) put to use in various thematic contexts for stretches of time rather than always the same, but their main exhibition space was organized around the theme of the contrast and connection between East bloc and West in post-WWII art, with plenty of examples from both sides–abstract expressionism and socialist realism at the extremes and a lot in between. We did not take a lot of photos, but it was interesting to see the examples. In retrospect, I regret not having taken a photo of one piece of Günther Uecker’s nail art–I found out the next day that he just died in June. Many artists represented are still living, but now quite elderly. Also true for the special temporary exhibits we saw: A Yoko Ono exhibit with a lot of elements of visitor participation; an exhibit on Gerhard Richter, a painter I am intrigued by even though I don’t always get his wild swings between complete abstraction and photograph-based, autobiographical paintings; and a fabulous installation by a Japanese concept artist, Fujiko Nakaya, which entailed 7 minutes of fog being pumped into the enclosed sculpture garden.
We also had a snack at the restaurant (cake for lunch yet again). Then we arranged to meet Sophie for ice cream in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood (famous for more of the beautiful apartment buildings from the late 19th century and for being the current “It” place in Berlin, gentrified but still cool. It was relatively easy for us to get there (one long, one short U-Bahn ride) but she had a heck of a time with the S and the U both–there were delays on all of the lines going to Schönhauser Allee, where we were meeting. When we finally found each other, we made our way to her favorite ice cream shop, the Hokey Pokey, and it was in fact excellent. I had hazelnut and blueberry meringue, and Mark had French chocolate and pistachio. Poor Karlsson got nothing, except occasionally have his leash held by me, because Sophie had to answer a few messages. We sat in the shade with our ice cream cones and then walked and chatted for a while, before we veered off to go home on a full and rather sticky and hot subway (even though the windows were open and occasionally cool air came in from the tunnels, the many people made it quite stuffy). It was in the 90s all afternoon, and that is unusually hot for here.
Then we headed home, with no additional obstacles for us, but again, a stuck S-Bahn for Sophie (there had been several fires along the tracks, apparently). We had dinner at home and a bit of a rest, but wanted one more outing as it was cooling down a little bit. Sophie had recommended that we check out the popular meeting place with lots of pubs and restaurants for our neighborhood (Friedrichshain), Boxhagener Platz (Boxi). That was really nice. We were lazy and took the U a couple of stations there and back, but it was really fun and relaxed people watching. One the way back, we caught one more glimpse of the Alex in the setting sun from the enormously wide Karl Marx Allee with its socialist triumphalist stalin-era apartment building that goes all the way through Friedrichshain to the Alex.
