Follow @benbrynmor
FUßGÄNGER:
"pedestrian"; "flâneur"; a "gentleman stroller of city streets"; "lounger"; "saunterer"; "loafer"; a "person who walks the city in order to experience it"; an "idle man-about-town"; a "complete philosophical way of living and thinking".
The walls are the desk against which he presses his notebooks; newsstands are his libraries and the terraces of cafés are the balconies from which he looks down on his household after his work is done. -Walter Benjamin,"The Flâneur"

BEN BRYNMOR FOWLER
Currently living in Ebisu, Tokyo. A lover of city living & city walking, cinema, music, fiction, currently writing a PhD on contemporary theatre in Britain and Germany, and developing an intense relationship with apple gadgets.

OTHER HOMES:
http://www.scoop.it/t/british-and-german-theatre-today
Instagram username: IBKHOV
The DIE WELT-Balloon, one of the biggest helium balloons in the world, can often be seen hovering above the city, floating tourists up above the office and apartment high-rises to marvel at the aerial views. It’s stationed on a barren square of land right between Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse and the Topography of Terror - a = brilliant exhibition about the Nazi institutions of terror in the Third Reich, on the site of what used to be the SS and the Reich Security Office HQ. Like a good tourist, I’ve been to both the checkpoint and topography exhibitions many times. They’re free, open, accessible, and offer visceral documentation of the extraordinary history that has played out across this city over the twentieth century. Walking between them the other day, a group of American tourists were behind us having animated discussion. On seeing the DIE WELT balloon (Die Welt is a German daily newspaper), the girl (I say girl, probably early 20s) in the middle exclaimed: Oh my God. Oh. My. God. Why would the Germans do that? Friend: What? Girl: I mean, we’re in the middle of Nazi Nazi Nazi and they’ve got a huge balloon saying DIE WORLD standing over there? Friend: You do know it’s in German, right? Girl: Yeah. Friend: Die means The.  Girl: Yeah I know but they all speak English too, surely they know that they’re also writing Die World.  It’s incidents like these that make me dread being tarred with the ‘tourist’ brush.

The DIE WELT-Balloon, one of the biggest helium balloons in the world, can often be seen hovering above the city, floating tourists up above the office and apartment high-rises to marvel at the aerial views. It’s stationed on a barren square of land right between Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse and the Topography of Terror - a = brilliant exhibition about the Nazi institutions of terror in the Third Reich, on the site of what used to be the SS and the Reich Security Office HQ.

Like a good tourist, I’ve been to both the checkpoint and topography exhibitions many times. They’re free, open, accessible, and offer visceral documentation of the extraordinary history that has played out across this city over the twentieth century. Walking between them the other day, a group of American tourists were behind us having animated discussion. On seeing the DIE WELT balloon (Die Welt is a German daily newspaper), the girl (I say girl, probably early 20s) in the middle exclaimed:

Oh my God. Oh. My. God. Why would the Germans do that?

Friend: What?

Girl: I mean, we’re in the middle of Nazi Nazi Nazi and they’ve got a huge balloon saying DIE WORLD standing over there?

Friend: You do know it’s in German, right?

Girl: Yeah.

Friend: Die means The. 

Girl: Yeah I know but they all speak English too, surely they know that they’re also writing Die World. 

It’s incidents like these that make me dread being tarred with the ‘tourist’ brush.

dumb shit [some] americans say Berlin Germany
blog comments powered by Disqus
  1. byronic said: *facepalm*
  2. fragmentraum reblogged this from selysias-treasures and added:
    *laughing so hard*
  3. selysias-treasures reblogged this from fussgaenger
  4. fussgaenger posted this