Things I forgot about Berlin…

This afternoon, I walked through my old Berlin -Mitte neighbourhood. I had forgotten some things about Berlin.
1) Max Raabe can never be a real superstar in Berlin. His concert announcements in Mitte are not very well placed, one is located in strange corners at Borsigstrasse. Raabe used to shop at “Ackerhalle” in Berlin, nobody would bother him, when he was checking out the salad at “Ackerhalle”, wearing his knickerbockers. In Los Angeles, Max IS a superstar. He sang at Marilyn Manson’s wedding to Dita von Teese, he sold out the Disney Hall and he satisfies LA’s desire for the Twenties in Berlin, the wild and weird pre-Nazi-Times. Max still lives there. You can’t imagine him holding a cell phone gracefully.
2) You walk past signs that say “Beratung für Männer/ Consulting for Men” with a phone number on it and you don’t know what men they are talking about, you just can figure out it is a left wing context, not very precise. The sign says  “Volkssolidarität” and you ask yourself, what left wing men they are talking about and what left wing men need consulting? (And why?)
3) You see dads on bikes in full gear: bicycle helmet, rucksack, skiing pants, it might get cold mid october. From far away they look like world war two soldiers. (I am not making this up.)
4) Two minutes later, you run into the 1980s. Spotted! Robert Görl on the corner of Chausseestraße. (The guy on the right in the picture from DAF. “Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft”, the famous 80s guys.) Robert wears a navy jacket and looks a little tired. He still has the same haircut and he is texting someone. He doesn’t like texting, you can see that on his face. I understand. He belongs to another time. I forgot, that Berlin has all these time layers. You walk through decades. They change on every corner.