The Strandbad Wannsee, Berlin’s famous inland lido located on the eastern shore of the Wannsee, opens every year around Easter, even this year. But while the beach is usually filled with people, this year, only some lonely Strandkorbs are decorating the beach, waiting for the summer to come.
Tag - Summer
Polo is back in Berlin. The Finals of the German Polo High Goal Championship were held last weekend (11./12. August) on Berlin’s historical Maifeld (Mayfield) with national and international world-class players.
The Maifeld is a huge 112,000 square meters (28 acres) lawn and was created back in 1936 for gymnastic demonstrations, specifically annual May Day celebrations by Hitler’s government. During the 1936 summer Olympics, the field was used for the very first Olympic Polo event in Germany.
Since then, Polo is a famous sport in Germany and this year, eight teams sponsored by well-known companies like Tom Tailor, Land Rover or Samsung fought for the golden cup and the title “Best Polo Team in Germany”.
Every month throughout the summer, Water-Fight-Flash-Mobs are being organized through Facebook. Those Water Fights, where only water is allowed, have nothing to do with the Oberbaum Water Fight where other harmless objects can be used.
The water fight today was located in the Viktoriapark, an urban park in the locality of Kreuzberg, on the top of an artificial waterfall at the foot of the Schinkel’s National Monument.
About 50 People gathered with Super Soakers, buckets and everything that can hold water to splash it in other people’s faces. Just a normal Sunday afternoon in Kreuzberg.
Today, Berlin’s Spinner-Brücke (eng. idiots bridge) celebrated the start of the season and every biker in Berlin and Brandenburg was present. The bridge and the same-named restaurant, located near the AVUS, a former inner city car racing track, is a famous meeting place for everyone and everything on two wheels and every year on May 1st, about 30.000 biker come together to talk about bikes, beer and babes.
But not only on May 1st, throughout the whole summer, on every weekend, the bridge is filled with people and an interesting location for everyone who is interested in motorbikes and a hefty meal.
Oberbaum-Bridge 2011, a war between two districts, a war between Kreuzberg (Xberg) and Friedrichshain (Fhain), a war with everything you can throw but won’t hurt people. Since 1998, each summer, people of all kinds and all ages meet up at Oberbaum-Bridge Berlin to fight an anarchic battle with rotten fruits, water-bombs and similar harmless objects.
This year’s winner and therefore the new champion of the bridge is Kreuzberg.
It seems like the sun doesn’t want to come out this summer and what to do on all these grey windy days? Get your kite and off to Tempelhof Airport.
The Tempelhof Airport has been used since closing to host numerous fairs and events. The first major events included the BREAD & BUTTER fashion tradeshow in July and the Berlin Festival 2009 concert in August.
Since 2010 the vast outside area is being used as a city park and therefore a perfect place for activities like kiting, skating, biking, running and even RC cars can be seen from time to time.
Since 1992 every summer the Gendarmenmarkt in the heart of Berlin turns into a great concert arena and yesterday was the last day of this years event. This summer was the 20th anniversary of the Classic Open Air Festival and it ended with a special concert, the soundtracks of the James Bond Series performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London.
Dominique Horwitz will accompany you on a musical voyage though almost half a century of Bond movie history, under direction of the American conductor Carl Davis, London’s world-renowned Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the British singer Mary Carawe.
The whole place was filled with music and people enjoyed the concert sitting in the warm evening sun, drinking a beer, eating an ice cream, even without buying a ticket.
Oh and I tried to record it with my DSLR, check it out:
The Summer has finally arrived in Berlin with temperatures around 32°C and people enjoying the sun on a relaxing boat trip on Berlin’s famous river, the Spree.
I watched the second Anime during this years Berlinale, the world premiere of Welcome to the Space Show or Uchuu Show e Youkoso / 宇宙ショーへようこ if you are more familiar with the Japanese title.
A tiny mountain village in a remote woodland region. Five primary school kids have come together in this idyllic spot in order to spend their summer holidays at a camp. At first the children enjoy carefree days amidst unspoiled nature far away from adult supervision. But their life changes dramatically when they come across what they believe to be a small dog, badly in need of help.
The creature turns out not to be a dog at all but an alien on an important mission. It seems there is a mysterious substance on earth that is coveted throughout the universe.
The movie was produced by the same guys who brought you R.O.D -Read or Die-, Ishihama Masashi Masunari Kouji, Hideyuki Kurata and Tomonori Ochikoshi, all of them were parts of the audience.
There was only one thing I found a bit disturbing, I watched the movie in three languages, Japanese language, English subtitle and… a German translator for every single sentence and also totally emotionless.
But overall It was a really great movie with an interesting science-fiction story and cute characters.
So I watched Summer Wars today at an official cinema of the Berlinale 2010. It’s the DVD premiere in Germany and the movie was shown two weeks earlier, of course in Japanese language with English subs.
The movie was about a boy called Kenji, a computer technician for a virtual world called Oz (a massive social network in which everything is connected with the real world) who was invited by the most popular girl at his high school to her expansive family’s home for a summer job.
During their trip, the world of Oz became infected by a virus, Kenji’s Account got hacked and so the chaos begun.
Hosoda Mamoru, the producer himself, was one of today’s guests and at the end, he answered a couple of questions about the movie which I can’t tell you without spoiling you the story. The only thing I can tell you is that he got his inspiration from his own family… oh yes and that he loves Germany.