Another spring in Berlin, another International Hotel Investment Forum, which was one dominated by talk on tariffs and supply chain headaches but also optimism and growth opportunities in an industry that is lucky to enjoy continued, robust demand.
The sun mostly shined, and I thought I would take the underground/subway into town from the airport, a choice that can be as quick as taking a taxi.
Or so was the case in most years, or so I thought.
I jumped on the S9 train without realizing it was only going four stops, only as far as Altglienicke. From there, there was a rail-replacement bus service (oh, how that reminds me of London and, as was the case in Berlin, always on a weekend day).
That bus followed the S9 route but also only for the next four steps. That put me in a suburb called Baumschulenweg, but at least that was where the metro service restarted.
Well, sort of. For the next three stops the train only went one stop, before returning to the previous stop. So, from Baumschulenweg to Plänterwald, back to Baumschulenweg; from Plänterwald to Treptower Park to Plänterwald; from Treptower Park to Warschauerstrasse, back to Treptower Park.
This was turning comical, highly interesting as I was seeing things I had not seen before and would not have seen snuggled in a taxi. I was making new contacts, fellow travelers nonplussed by the Berliner decision to get us into the city center in such a manner. There was Joseph from Milton Keynes, London, and Regis from Marseille, France, and on we went. Finally, the whole metro map was one of our choosing, and we departed from one another.
I will remember them. I cannot remember a Berlin taxi driver. I only stare at the backs of their heads.
I found myself in a unique space, the Tadshikische Teestube, or Tajikistan Tearoom, on Oranienburgerstrasse. It is a traditional tearoom as would be seen in Dushanbe or Bokhtar or Khujand and perhaps all Tajik cities and towns. It was a present to a German Democratic Republic, that is, East Germany, organization called the Society for German-Soviet Friendship from the former Soviet, Central Asian nation.
It was initially displayed at the Leipzig Exhibition held in 1974, 15 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The food was a mix of the Persian and the Russian.
In the hotel I stayed in, the 180-room Ibis Berlin Kurfürstendamm, the lobby every evening was the meeting place for 20 or so travelers from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I did not know where they were there, but there were very colorful, blue and white headscarves and flowing dresses.
Just a few blocks from the hotel is a favorite restaurant I discovered a few years ago, Betjes-Ethiopia, which serves fiery meat dishes eaten with the country’s famous sour, fermented, soft bread called injera.
What about German cuisine, one asks?
Berlin is famous for currywurst, and I must have some when I visit.
This year, though, marked the first year I took a pilgrimage to the site where currywurst was invented in 1949.
Herta Heuwer received some post-World War II rations of sausage, Worcestershire sauce and chili powder, and not wanting to waste anything, she mixed the three. The result became popular, and she copyrighted the name "chilliup" and made a fortune from the dish.
There's a small plaque, half-hidden amid bushes on the side of a store called Asien Supermarket on the corner of Kantstrasse and Kaiser-Friedrichstrasse.
It was a fitting tribute to ending my culinary journey around Berlin, once the metro had finally permitted me to arrive.
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