Berlin or bust

Have You Seen This Blogger?

Vanished Blogger Sketch (circa 1983)

DESCRIPTION:
Age: 25 to 28 (couldn't possibly be older than 29)
Sex: Female
Height: 5 foot 10, at least.
Weight: Ha. Like I'm saying.
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Race: Totally white (though possibly Bulgarian)
Complexion: Spotty at best

Please report any sightings of above individual to Berlin's Online Armed Service Divisions. Thank you.

The French Do It Better

Monday. Having slept eleven hours, then lay in bed for another three, I figured, I might muster the energy to leave the apartment. It was a slate-gray day, and wet, but I had my Gortex. And the will of a woman who wants good hair.

You see, no Fön in Chausseestrasse.

Yes, Sasha did squawk at my blow-dry addiction the first time we met. However, it is winter here. Or feels like it. And the hair on my head? It is Italian, i.e., without technological assistance, damp all day. In fact, the second time Sasha and I met, he squawked at his assistant for not drying my hair enough. "What's this, Christoph? Feel here! Here! Here! We can't let Lilan leave like this."

Besides, blow-dried = better. Sasha be damned.

Galeria Kaufhof seemed my safest bet. "So expensive!" Berliners groan of the Alexanderplatz department store. Because in Berlin even salespeople are convinced you need the cheapest version. "Don't get that bike lock," I was told before I'd even complained about the price. "Take this  U-lock plus front-light back-light plastic-fender set instead." Um, but maybe I don't want the one so junky I have to fight to jam the cheap key into the cheap lock and twist it out of its cheap holster every time I ride?

No matter.

Monday afternoon, I mounted my steed (slowly), pedaled (slowly-er), locked up (most slowly of all), then limped through fat sparkly glass doors. Right away I was happy (slowly). Ooh lipstick watches Lancome BOSS handbags Fossil perfumes Esprit...

Because You Must

Look, the pretty villa. Look, the pretty trees. Look, the pretty stone cherubs flanking the pretty path.

Inside are pretty friezes. Pretty hardwood floors. Pretty streams of light through pretty paneled windows. Pretty views onto a pretty lake.

Many things have happened in this pretty place.

In the beginning, 1914, it was built as the residence of factory owner Ernst Marlier. In 1921, it was sold to industrialist Friedrich Minoux. Many years later, from 1952 to 1988, it was a school for the children of Berlin's Neukölln district. Today it is a museum.

On January 20, 1942, it served as something else entirely: the spot at which a "total solution to the Jewish question in the German sphere of influences in Europe" was to be finalized. Given the go-ahead by Göring, SS Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich invited fifteen representatives of various government branches to a 90-minute meeting. Steps toward a standardized process of elimination would be determined. The extension of who counted as "Jew" would be debated. Afterward, breakfast would be served.

I Swear to God (Again)

I did NOT mean to break the big glass bowl with the prefab shells and fake blue sand for a SECOND TIME. I was shaving my legs for the sake of he-who-must-not-be-named when the plastic toothbrush cup bounced up and cannon-balled itself into the beach below. Together, cup and toothbrush carved out yet a larger hole into the severed glass.

And my legs? Bright red dots blossomed on porcelain-smooth shins. Stung like hell. That's what I get for choosing quick-sink shave over long-shower soak. Ah well. As long as you-know-who didn't notice.

You Asked For It

Several requests have been made for photographic evidence of the makeover à la Sasha. Voilá!

Note ever-widening thighs (left) due to standard Berliner exercise regime (i.e., nothing) coupled with standard Berliner restaurant offerings: Sahne Soße Sahne Soße Sahne Soße Sahne Soße. Not to mention: Würstschen Wienerschnitzel Döner.

Light flirty waves intended as top-heavy distraction to below-belt entropy. Success rate of said experiment yet to be established.

Head o' Hallelujah

A tall and peroxided man has descended from the heavens. He has laid the hand of God upon my hair.

He is Sasha, owner of Schnittstelle in Mitte, hairstylist of my cousin, and just the right amount of bossy.

Monday I sat before his mirror. I freed my head o' straw from its ever-present ponytail.

"What's this? Did someone take a razor to your hair?!" The man knew whereof he spoke. I confessed to visiting an unfamiliar Friseur in New York last year. She chunked-up my 'do in January and still I pay the price.

"Next time someone pulls a razor," he ordered, "get out of that chair and run."

"Okay," I said.

A guy with poured-on jeans shampooed me. Conditioned. Damage-treated. Stroked my scalp until it sighed.

I returned to Sasha with the small dead bear upon my head. Small dead wet bear. He fingered the matted fur.

"The water in Berlin is so hard," I complained. "It's uglying my hair."

Head o' Sticky

Oooh, here's the trick:

1. Wash your hair with shampoo and conditioner on Sunday afternoon.

2. Blow-dry with cheap subletter Fön.

3. Add a dab of fancy gel.

3. Ignore. (Do not, I repeat, do NOT look in the mirror. The ugliness may destroy you.)

4. Go to sleep.

5. Awaken Monday with: Ta Da! a sleek, glossy 'do.

Just don't touch it too much. You're fingers will get all clammy. Turns out the very HARD water never managel to rinse off the shampoo or conditioner. Lovely.

Head o' Salad

Today I washed my hair with one of the many conditioners my subletter left behind.

Now I am wearing a small dead flat bear on my head.

Rosemary says I need to rinse with white vinegar.

I miss New York.

Head o' Straw

Berlin is doing weird things to my hair. When I wear it down, it's like a small brown bear clambered onto my head and died.

Kinda matted. Kinda crispy. 

The water is HARD.

Might be time to hit the conditioner, hard. Might also be time for a haircut. Desperately so. Hello, Eli, of the Hiro Haraguchi Hair Salon in the Meatpacking District, will you please hop a flight to Berlin, pronto?

And Ala, of Anastasia Brows at Sephora on 5th...

And Amy, of Jade Nails on 96th...

And any Romanian facialist, of Exhale Salon on Central Park South...

Please. My beauty regime is plummeting. Hard.

This is the problem with (non-celebrity-status) travel. You get ratty fast, you have no beauty crew to fix you, and it is simply too dangerous to march into any old Friseur. You could walk out with the infamous Berliner haircut: lots of layers that look good for a second, then grow out into a mullet-like mass.*

My fashion standards are also slumping: I have not worn shoes other than orthopedic Mephisto sandals for 11 days. Instead of my red leather purse, I carry a black messenger bag. In place of my cropped Juicy jeans jacket, it's a black vinyl anorak.

If I return home a strange amalgamation of Frida Kahlo/Stevie Nicks/April Lavigne, do not be alarmed.

*Source: Time Out Berlin 2007