The listening station

Despite being in Berlin, New Year’s Day began popping grapes into our mouths on the dongs of the bells in a Spanish tradition. On the tv a lady removed a large black sheet to reveal a hilariously skimpy black dress. I was staying at Jacques place in Kreuzberg, East Berlin in the company of Chilean girls from her feminist group and her boyfriend Johannes.

The fireworks were slightly closer to terrifying than exciting, I saw several people getting showered in sparks. A 50ish bald danish man with one eye and protective glasses thought it riotously funny to point fireworks at us. They only let out a noise really but it was loud and scary enough! He laughed a hearty laugh while doing it and I saw too much irony in his own lack of eyeballs to not be nervous !

On to the night out around 2am. We‘d missed the steampunk burlesque show and apart from a few costumed people it was a just a lively bar dancing to electronic music interspersed with Whitney Houston. Home by 5am.

Waking up to blue sky we took a trip to Teufelsberg - ‚Devils Mountain‘. Fascinating derelict place!
Brief history:
- Nazi military college, built well and difficult to destroy after the war.
- Instead they dumped rubbish there. Made it into the tallest hill in Berlin as a result (it’s a flat city).
- 1955: Ski slope
- Cold War time. The allies used it as a listening posts to tune in to Soviet radio.
Interestingly, the reception was always better two weeks of every year. A Ferris wheel from an annual festival was found to be the source, and somehow this concentrated the signal (?). Anyway it was then made to stay there all year round, prompting suspicion that there must be a tunnel underneath or some foul play.
- After the fall of the Berlin Wall, any land was bought in hopes of radical development, but none came and it was abandoned.
- Like all abandoned buildings there, the artists took over. You can pay a fiver to visit on certain days.

We found a gap in the fence and wiggled through to do some urban exploring. Large murals of klimt women eating kebaps, Karl Marx riding a motorbike and some inspired murals made out of CDs, plants, sculpted wood. There were treehouses and meditation spaces. Some people were firing fireworks inside, possibly because they live there and don’t think much of prowlers. I’ll try to add extra photos.

I won’t write such a long spiel every time, but since I found not posting/taking photos is making me forgetful, I will try to get the blip going again. I’m pretty sure 2020 will be eventful and it would be nice to document it somewhere, so it might as well be here :) Happy new year.