Final day. Punk foraging, vegan currywurst and heading home.
We are not flying till 10pm tonight, so we have a full day to explore the city. It never feels like that though, it just feels like you’re killing time. *note to self – in future fly out early, and fly home early, so your ‘half day’ finishes in the hotel rather than the airport – flight prices allowing of course.
After lazing about and a late checkout, we get the train down to Görlitzer Bahnhof station and Cortex Records. Megan plots up in a local coffee shop drinking cappuccino and watching half a dozen wasps gorging themselves on sugar, trapped in a sugar shaker.
I finally head over to the world famous Cortex Records to see what the fuss is about. The walls are filled with racks of t-shirts, the floor is filled with racks of vinyl and CDs and the air is filled with the sound of shouty hard-core crust. It reminds me of the sort of thing that prisoners in Abu Ghraibe were subjected to as part of the enhanced interrogation techniques.
I try to imagine them coming into work in the morning.
“Morning Fritz, how’s the family?”
“Not too bad Karl, but the cat’s not very well. Fancy a cup of coffee?”
“Ah, that’s a shame. Two sugars please. I think I’ll stick some Cannibal Corpse on to start the day. Fancy a bagel?”.
Fifty years on I still consider myself to be a punk rocker, even though my musical tastes are continually broadening. The definition of punk rock has also broadened over the years, going in many different directions, but some bands seem to go off down aggressive angry cul-de-sacs.
The shelves are not stocked exclusively with hard-core though, and I find a wide variety whilst browsing. I finally opt to grab the latest (2025) album by Sondaschule, an upbeat German Ska-punk band.
I have a quick look through their selection of books and zines but whilst I’m quite happy to listen to a punk band singing in German, reading a zine written in German is a cultural exchange too far for me – I’m afraid to say.
Despite the angry choice of shop soundtrack, the staff are anything but angry and I get a friendly smile as I hand over my Euros.
Back over at the wasp circus, Megan raises a valid question. “If you don’t understand the language, how do you know they’re not singing something you disagree with?” It’s a question I regularly ask myself, but I’m not too worried in this case. There are so many t-shirts on sale they are hung sideways, so you have to rifle through them to see what is on them. There are a few turned so you can see them though. They bare slogans such as ‘Anti-Fascist Running Club’, ‘Destroy Fascism’ and ‘No Home for Fascism’. I’m confident these guys are sound and wouldn’t stock anything dodgy.
Two stops down the line is Warschauer Straße station, which is the perfect stop for us. For several reasons. It’s a major station with both U-bahn and S-Bahn trains running through it, as well as national mainline trains. From here you can jump on the S9 straight to the airport with no changes necessary. That journey costs 5 Euros, but we still have a valid 24-hour ‘rover ticket’ which includes the train out to the airport.
The other reason is it is only a few minutes stroll to RAW-gelande (bombed out railway station – see parts two and three). We plan to go back to the Asian Street Food restaurant out of some sort of ironic tradition comedy, but as we walk through the station we spot something we have both been craving, but not found, since day one. *Vegan Currywurst (*see Munich Blog)
From the station we wander down to RAW-gelande. Whilst the old station has been battling to fight off development, there’s plenty of evidence of the beast of capitalism hovering around the edges, with several international chain stores around the current station. Walking over the bridge over the railway we spot several people down on their luck asking passers-by for support and there’s a little gang of punks and skaters enjoying some refreshments on the steps leading to a long-abandoned premises.
A young man pulls back the curtain and hops into a Photoautomat. It’s strange, we live in an age of everyone having a camera in their pocket to take selfies, but old fashioned photobooths have made a comeback in parts of Berlin. They are everywhere. We are not talking about a digital update of the old passport photo machine, these are refurbished originals using old technology. Apparently they started to become popular with over-served customers after midnight, so Berlin’s nighttime districts appear to be where you find most of them.
We are soon climbing down the steps to RAW-gelandie, but only get as far as Urban Spree. The area reminds me a little of Camden Town during its transition from super cool bohemia to today’s plastic imitation of what it once was since the fire that burned out the old stables area. There are trendy venues that have obviously had a lot of money invested, such as Maya, which features a 240 m² heated outdoor swimming pool surrounded by a sun deck, lounge chairs, and Mediterranean plants. The doorman at the entrance to the courtyard puts us off bothering to find out what it’s like inside. There’s a huge ‘media centre’ that doesn’t really appear to be open to the public and the climbing centre, which has an indoor section as well as the outdoor wall. You can’t do that on the cheap, otherwise you’ll end up with broken necks and lawsuits. Casseope, which we visited the other night, seems quite cool. There’s not much to it, a courtyard with a bar and apparently they have live music on weekends.
We haven’t yet explored the whole area. There are lots of little alleyways we haven’t been down. One of them has the House of Music at the end. The neon signage and the unimaginative name suggests a Hard Rock Cafe vibe about the place.
They have a flea market through the main drag on weekends, so that’s something to look forward to on future visits.
Today we only get as far as Urban Spree. If this is a corporate endeavour, they hide it well. It has a grassroots vibe about it and is clearly very supportive of urban street art, of the DIY variety. It falls somewhere between Newport’s Le Pub, Cardiff’s Chapter Arts and Lewisham’s Fox and Firkin (If you’re not familiar with these references, you should check them out too.) The gig we went to here on Monday was definitely the nocturnal highlight of this short trip and we will have one eye on their diary with a view to possibly booking a trip around visiting again.
We sit in the trackside beach bar drinking a German brand of ethical cola. I can’t resist nipping back into the bookshop, promising Megan I will not buy anything, but return with an Urban Spree colouring book for the youngest members of the Iguana tribe.
As we approach twenty-four hours since we bought our twenty-four hour rail pass, we head back up to the station and make our way to the airport. There was a bit of faffing about due to one passenger not having the correct visa but we didn’t mind. We had chosen to not pay EasyJet to book a seat, so they allocated one for us – and hey it turned out to be next to an escape hatch and extra legroom. We shoud have paid twenty squids each for this, but we had the upgrade for free. #LittleVictories.
A few hours later we are unlocking the door of Iguana HQ, full of ideas for our next Berlin trip. And ordering currywurst sauce online.