Daisy's Blog

Alexanderplatz is all brand new with famous chain departmental stores and all the usual luxury goods. Outside the store I bought a sausage in a roll from a disabled young woman in a wheelchair, who had her little ‘shop’ attached to her chair, including a grill, which cooked the sausages! There was also a man carrying around his little shop like a walkabout cameraman, also selling grilled sausages.

Unified Berlin is certainly a place of great contrasts from the colourful Buddy Bears representing tolerance and peace, scattered all over the city, to the labyrinth of concrete plinths which is a monument to the murdered Jews of Europe.

I also went to Potsdam (former East Germany, 30 kilometers south of Berlin) which has been rebuilt but seemed lifeless. There are endless buildings of flats but I could see very few people around and they made very little noise.

Now to the PopKomm, a music exhibition only for professionals. As I received my badge to hang round my neck as an exhibitor, a hard plastic bracelet was locked tightly around my wrist and I was told I had to wear it for the duration of the fair, which was three days, day and night!

I protested and said I would cut it off at the end of the day when I left the fair, but was warned that they wouldn’t give me another one the following day by an astonished young woman who couldn’t believe I was contemplating not obeying her order. I solved the problem for the next day, Italian style, by cutting the menacing plastic bracelet and attaching sticky tape to it and more or less hiding it under a long-sleeved jumper!