Working from Berlin this week. Spending the week in this office of DIN, the German standards institute. The creation of European (harmonised) standards for data spaces are the topic of discussion.
The DIN offices, near Kurfürsten-Damm
S-Bahn station Anhalter Bahnhof near my hotel. Pre-war it used to be a major Berlin railway station. Above ground one facade is still standing.
2025 English translation from the 2022 Italian original (2023 there was a Dutch translation) by Vincenzo Latronico. Picked it up at the Steven Sterk bookshop underneath the Dom tower in Utrecht. Short read, about a Berlin couple, migrated from southern Europe, living social media shaped perfect lives. Nothing is perfect of course, or ever was, it’s all precarious. Especially when your live moves out of your twenties and your peers start families. Good observations, also about the timing of your own path into adulthood along side a specific phase of internet development as well as Berlin as a city. Enjoyable short read (135 pages).
We’re visiting Berlin this week.
Arriving yesterday, heading out for dinner we realised our hotel is one block away from Beta Haus.
Which is where we visited the last time we were here, a decade ago. In between a baby happened and a pandemic. Now Y is at an age she enjoys exploring a city as well. So here we are, back after ten years. First impression is it still feels much the same as last time, with much that attracts me and as much that pushes me away. I’m curious to hear what Y will think about the EU’s largest city.
Walking past Betahaus last night
When I made a visit to East Berlin a few years before the wall came down, my teenage eyes wondered about shopping and customer service.
To visit a bookstore near Alexanderplatz I had to stand in line. There were only a handful of shopping baskets available, and they were mandatory, so you stood in line until someone left the shop and returned the basket. I stood there for a while, and then with a basket could browse the shelves. There were less than ten people in the shop. While many more stood outside waiting.
Visiting a cafe with two others, the tables were all the same size, only the number of chairs at each table differed. We were three. A table with two chairs was free. Next to it was a man on his own, I remember he wore a leather jacket sipping coffee and reading a paper, at a table with three chairs. We asked if we could have a chair, and pull it up to our table. “Na klar”, he said. We looked at the menu. No service came. We waited. No service came. I went up to the waitress and asked if she could take our order. No, she said, “you’re with three people on a table for two so you’re not getting served.” I was stunned. I tried logic, “look the tables are all the same size!”, but failed. In the end we returned a chair to the table with the guy in the leather jacket and asked him to trade tables. He picked up his coffee and newspaper (it was the 80’s remember), and sat at our original table, while we moved to his. Within seconds the waitress was with us to take our lunch orders.
For years I shared these anecdotes as examples of how odd it all was during that visit to East Germany.
Fast forward 33 years, to our pandemic times.
In our neighbhourhood most shops have introduced a system of mandatory baskets. They use it to cap the number of clients in the store to the maximum they can accomodate within the 1.5m distancing guidelines. Outside others wait their turn.
From next week cafes and restaurants can open again, and I see and read how those here in town are arranging same sized tables out on the market square, varying the number of chairs to make it all work, and setting tables inside for specific numbers of people to stay within max allowed capacity.
After 33 years I need to retire my anecdotes from 1980’s East Berlin it seems. It wasn’t odd, it was avant garde!
Walking down Friedrichstrasse in East Berlin, in 1987
This weekend the IndieWeb Camp Berlin is taking place. I attended the Nuremberg edition two weeks ago. Remotely following the livestream for a bit this morning, while I work on a few website related things in the spirit of IndieWeb.
Putting the livestream up on the wall, to easier follow what is demo’d on screen, and keeping my standing desk screen(s) focused on the work in front of me.
Some links I thought worth reading the past few days