#453: Free food, stolen art, wolves?
Christmas trees on the sidewalk
Hey 20 Percent!
Welcome to the Second Day of Christmas, as the Germans call it. Or Boxing Day in other regions or, as it’s called in the US, Friday.
Next comes a season that has my most favorite name in German: Zwischen den Jahren (between the years) because nothing really gets done in the days between Dec. 26 and New Years. They’re a special kind of limbo. I’ve always appreciated the German language for giving a name to that feeling.
Enjoy the rest of the holidays (and your weekend)!
Andrew
Free Christmas food for the needy
While I’m annoyed at the success of the Hofbräuhaus at Alexanderplatz, workers at the has-nothing-to-do-with-Berlin restaurant volunteered on Christmas to help distribute Christmas dinner to more than 1,000 needy children alongside Christian charity Die Arche, according to RBB24. The event included live music and the chubby, bearded man in red. And a number of burger and Döner shops teamed up to dole out gulasch, bean soup and cinnamon rolls on Leopoldplatz. 400 people were able to eat a free meal at Ground Zero of Berlin’s crack epidemic. The action was inspired by a traditional free Christmas meal that has been handed out for decades by Frank Zander, an aging Berlin pop singer — Zander gave away 2,500 meals, as well as presents, Monday.
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This year, hundreds found their new flat — thanks to a little help.
Get The Flat has helped people all over Berlin land long-term apartments without the stress. They search for listings and message landlords — all while you focus on life.
If you’ve been thinking about getting help, now’s a great time. And if you were part of this year’s success stories — thank you for trusting us.
No lions but wolves
The re-introduction of wolves into neighboring Brandenburg has been so successful that a handful of Berliners have now seen the apex predators in Berlin — and the sightings will likely grow, according to Tagesspiegel. Although most sightings early in this decade were false alarms (someone even reported a fox as a wolf), a wolfpack in the Döberitzer Heath nature preserve west of Spandau increases the chances of seeing one in Berlin, which is far too populated for the shy meat eaters. But the chance of seeing one is now never zero.
Art thieves!
Considering art is such a central part of Berlin life, it’s no wonder our thieves also occasionally take a piece that doesn’t belong to them. The cops are looking for perpetrators who stole two classic paintings from the French school in September (though the police won’t say from whom or where they were stolen) as well as someone who made off with antique cash from Baden-Württemberg that had been stylized with smileys and were being shown in a Gesundbrunnen gallery, according to T-Online. And, someone left a Charlottenburg gallery opening in January with a painting by Lunita July Dorn (of a woman with a paintbrush). Thieves also pilfered a historic metal dragon claw (from 1890) from a construction site in Mitte.
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Factoid
BSR, the state-owned garbage company, collects just over 300,000 used Christmas trees from Berlin streets every January, according to the Morgenpost. Last year that amounted to 2,100 tonnes of conifers. Two-thirds of the trees are shreded and fed into regional composting plants while one-third help fuel garbage incineration plants. You can just leave your old plant on the street and BSR will pick it up some time between Jan. 12 and 24.
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