Post-Cup Berlin

It was odd to visit Berlin just after it hosted the international spectacle that is the World Cup. While I missed all the excitement, there were reminders of it everywhere, adding an interesting gloss to the sights of the city.

The Ampelmann - the vaguely jolly East Berlin "walk" symbol (you know: the fellow on the signal post who, when green, tells you to proceed across the street and when red tells you not to walk) - has become an iconic symbol of nostalgia for the East (particularly after the city began a short-lived effort to replace Ampelmann with his staid West Berlin counterpart).


As such, his cheery profile can now be found on everything from t-shirts to tote bags. But these days his image can also be found kicking a football on a t-shirt.


Meanwhile, at the Pergamon, a museum famous for its (largely stolen) antiquities, there is a massive exhibit (romantically titled The Ball is Round: Circle Sphere, Cosmos) on the role of the ball in society. The importance of the circle in everything from mathematical equations to religious imagery is on display, though everyone knows that the only ball that really mattered as the shiny one in the opening gallery (a FIFA ball that Jeff Koons creatively bronzed).


In addition to these more obvious reflections of the Cup's recent presence in Berlin, there was the World Cup dry cleaning deal, the footballs above public phones (does anyone ever still use these phones in mobile phone Europe?), and the photo exhibit "Planet Football" at the Goethe Institute (where Wabes took language classes). And in the sky, the Fersehturm ("TV tower"), a 1960s symbol of East Germany's engineering prowess, was reimagined. I arrived in Berlin just as the city began removing the gigantic pink panels that temporarily turned the otherwise boring metallic sphere into a giant football (click here for a photo of the everyday Fersehturm).