Previously: 40 Years in Beer, Part Twenty: Beer, zakuski, vodka and ice cream.
As August approached, I’d been tourist-grade ambulatory in the East Bloc for almost two months. Now, prior to the commencement of my much anticipated volunteer work gig in East Germany, there’d be a week’s respite in the gloriously capitalist enclave of West Berlin.
It stood to be a welcome diversion with all the restorative amenities for an American abroad, like laundromats to ameliorate the wardrobe grunge, reliable postal facilities for shipping Soviet black market booty back to the States, and plenty of döner kebab outlets to add some much needed pizzazz to the caloric intake. The Irish pubs were like oases.
I’d reserved a sizeable multi-bed room at an old-school pension in Savignyplatz, where a few of my Moscow classmates set up camp as they made travel plans, and I awaited the arrival of my cousin and mentor Donald Barry. He’d be arriving by train from Paris via West Germany.
On our first night in West Berlin, having gotten rooming arrangements squared away and showered (it had been a long, hot, drunken train ride from the USSR), the USSR alumni association went strolling down the Ku’damm, West Berlin’s famed commercial street, toward Zoo Station.
In the slightly seedier area near the public transit hub there appeared a garish, neon-infested outpost of an internationally famous Argentine steakhouse chain, to which our eyes and stomachs were drawn like moths to the Olympic torch. The ensuing splurge on slabs of beef and mounds of French fries is memorable to me primarily because my youthful companions insisted on merrily mispronouncing “Pommes Frites” as the name of a long forgotten Roman emperor.
It was all in good fun. Once Don arrived, we quickly became bar stool devotees of the nearby Dicke Wirtin, a venerable and grandly informal Berlin pub and bistro favored by denizens of the student quarter and budget travelers, with inexpensive Veltins Pils beer and hearty, equally economical goulash.
One by one my Moscow friends peeled off to pursue further roaming, leaving the cousins alone together to catch up on their summer adventures.
One day Don, Wes and I rode the S-Bahn to Friedrichstrasse station, passed through German Democratic Republic (GDR) passport and customs, and greeted East Berlin on a 24-hour visa. After a few hours...Read more