All stories about "Susanna Forrest"

Godzilla has made it as far as the Netherlands, but the monster hasn't stomped all the way to Berlin yet, probably because the sushi here's not so great. When he does show up, I reckon he'll probably take out the TV Tower first, if he can shake King Kong off the observation deck. If you want to make your own monster movie during your stay in Berlin, here's an eccentric selection of miniature and virtual cityscapes you can use as a backdrop. Pack your own giant lizard costume and polish your dorsal plates.

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The Grunewald is an enormous, 32 square kilometer patch of forest between the rich Western suburbs of Berlin and the Havel River. Originally deer and boar hunting territory for the royal family, it has pretty much recovered from the years after World War II, when desperate Berliners raided more than two thirds of its trees for firewood. The well-maintained tracks that crisscross through the trees are teeming with healthy locals striding out with their Nordic walking sticks or fiddling with the gears on their 20-speed mountain bikes, on their way to tuck into piles of hearty German food in gemütlich tourist restaurants. German forests always have a sinister side to them though -- they're the places where Hansel and Gretel are lost, and the fairy tale wolves lurk -- and the Grunewald is no exception.

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Berlin gets dark in the winter. We're down to about an one hour of sunlight a day right now, but if you gripe about it you're not with the program. Wintertime Berlin has its own charms, a glamour that's all about staying out all night in dim cafes with red-shaded lamps and gold-painted ceilings, clubbing till the morning, walking home in the dark, sleeping, and then waking in time for nightfall at 4p.m. Don't fight the night, embrace it. Here's a handful of cozy, or gemütlich, ways to love the season you're in.

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What, you want more? You're still hungry for lebkuchen and hot, spiced wine? If you've mastered the Weihnachtsmarkt basics of gingerbread, "ethnic" jewelry stalls, felt hats, and carousels, you may want to sample some holiday fairs that are either off the beaten track or taking another track altogether. How about a Hanukkahmarkt (radical!), or one-offs with DJs and designer goods or world music by live performers? Or a bunch of actors promising to give you the entire Berlin winter experience in under 20 minutes? All things Weihnachten, wicked, cool, and -- well, challenging ahead.

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You want pancetta, but you can only find speck. You can't afford the Michelin-starred eateries, but you'd love some decent noodles. You want to cook ghevar, but you don't think Spar stocks ghee. Who do you turn to? The Hungry in Berlin site is run by a quartet of bloggers who act as agony aunts to local foodies and aim to root out the city's "well hidden culinary secrets." -- the pick of the specialist shops, the warehouses full of bok choi, and the restaurants the Rough Guide never found. After the jump, your guides and their top tips for eating and cooking creatively in the hauptstadt.

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Ja, ja, there's kaffee und kuchen, but what this city really runs on is tea of dazzling variety: first-flush Darjeeling, smoky lapsang, rose hips, jasmine blooms, chai, rooibosh, gunpowder, Pekoe, and curls of orange peel. Custom-made herbal brews are prescribed at the Apotheke, or you can buy packages of "bladder and kidney tea" or "lung tea" to cleanse your system. Every neighborhood has a tee laden (tea shop) with shiny tins of black teas and cellophane packets of dried flower buds, roots, and berries, plus a basket of Rose of Jericho flowers by the door, waiting for revival. Here's a little celebration of the art of pouring boiling water on plant matter, Berlin style.

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How many artists do you know who've been crucified? As in nailed to a cross? British underworld dandy Sebastian Horsley did the whole Christ thing, had it filmed by Sarah Lucas to a soundtrack by Gavin Rossdale, and then fell off, ripping his hands open on the way. He's been a junkie, a whore, and a gangster's bit of rough, and he spent the GDP of a small African country on hookers and H. Harper Perennial publishes his Dandy in the Underworld: An Unauthorized Autobiography next March -- one misery memoir that won't make it into Oprah's Book Club.

We're going to imprison you in the city of your choice for the rest of your natural life. You can do anything you want there, but you must stay in that city forever. Where would you choose?
I'm already imprisoned in the city of my choice for the rest of my unnatural life. I will stay here forever. Soho. London. I never travel. I hate travel. My preferred form of travel is to lie on a divan and have the scenery carried past me.

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Berlin's a city where operagoers take their seats in jeans and t-shirts. And if you're out strolling on a summer night, you might round the corner and come across a giant screen relaying La Traviata live to a crowd of thousands outside one of the three (count 'em -- no other city has this many) major opera houses. Thanks to a long history of patronage, Cold War subsidies, and East-West one-upmanship, there are no fewer than seven symphony orchestras kicking around and a lively classical schedule that would exhaust the most dedicated music lover, though not the pair of octogenarians I once saw hanging over the balcony at the Komische Oper, cheering on the orgy scene in Don Giovanni. Here's a quick roundup of the scene, although it's by no means exhaustive.

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Neue Deutsche Küche is Germany's take on nouvelle cuisine, putting a fresh spin on classic dishes -- think Brandenburg duck garnished with pineapple chutney rather than pig trotter sashimi. Berlin has a handful of high-end outlets with a Michelin-starred prodigy in the kitchen who dreams of reformulating the boulette for the palate of the gourmands, slebs, and bigwigs out front. Here's a quick run-through for those with the wallets, pocketbooks, and livers fat enough to indulge.

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Feeling peaky? Plattenbau and gray Berlin winter skies got you down? Maybe you're suffering from kreislaufkollapse, that mysterious German malady that is never diagnosed in any other country (equivalent to the French crise de foie) but entitles the sufferer to wilt on the sofa all day like Camille. Or perhaps you just need a pick-me-up. The pursuit of "wellness" is a national obsession, and Berlin offers hundreds of therapists of every stripe and (in some districts) a whole foods shop on every corner. If you want to feel good inside and out, here's a hand-picked selection of health injections around the hauptstadt to cure what ails ye.

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This year, a mysterious new addition to Berlin's graffiti gallery has appeared. An invisible horse is leaving trails of white hoof prints all over the east side of the city. They cross roads, gallop over junctions, circle lamp posts, wait patiently at pedestrian crossings, and even scale the fronts of buildings. Sometimes they walk, sometimes they hop like a deer. There are plenty of other horsey stencils and wheatpastings cropping up too: a blue horse head, a My Little Pony, an anti-car message scrawled on a billboard. What does it mean? Where are they going? Why Berlin? Who can say? Nice to know there are some dedicated horse fans out there patrolling the streets at night, though. Here's a little tribute to all things equine by a pony fan in the hauptstadt, from race horses to pizza toppings, after the (show) jump.

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Outside of Berlin, Sanssouci Park, playground of the old Hohenzollern dynasty (Frederick the Great through to Kaiser Bill), is going to shut up for the winter soon, so the time to go is now. The vast, landscaped grounds can fill up with busloads of tourists and guides, but at the end of October after a disappointing summer, you can reckon on having a little peace and quiet to contemplate the fall colors of trees garnered from all over the world and browse the palaces and follies. Besides the main schlosses (Sanssouci itself, the New Palace, and Schloss Charlottenhof), there are treasures hidden in every fold of the estate and lining the main drives: Dragonhouse, anyone? Picturesque ruins custom-made for kings? Not everything will close for the winter (some parts of the park remain open for limited hours), but if you want to dedicate a day to giving Sanssouci a thorough going-over, it's best to do it by the end of October. Here are some of the high points and must-sees.

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Most guidebooks recommend that you don't go to the eastern suburb of Marzahn at night, if you go at all. High unemployment and the presence of neo-Nazi gangs are usually cited; if you look "foreign," you're not welcome (and by "foreign" I mean non-Aryan, natch). Marzahn has become a byword for the nastiest aspects of "prolo" culture, mocked by TV comedian Ilka Bessin's Cindy aus Marzahn character -- a vision in pink leopard print and frosted lipstick who's busy milking the welfare system and practicing with her girlband, "The Plattenpussies." Seems like everyone's laughing at Marzahn. It's an odd, intriguing place though; the original old village complete with windmill and cobbled streets is surrounded by Le Corbusian housing projects and acres of parkland. After the jump, a guide to Marzahn alt und neu.

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There must be a café for every day of the year (and then some) in this city, all of them offering a variation on the same classic Berlin menu: kaffee und kuchen, hot milk with honey, tea served in a glass, herbal brews, Ovaltine, hot chocolate, beer, booze, platters of cold cuts, and soft-boiled eggs in cups. The quality, the decor, and the customers may vary, but the template is established. Small wonder that a handful of establishments are striking out and offering something new alongside the brötchen and snitty service. After the cut, some cafés with a difference.

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"My God! Berliners and their yoga! Yoga this, yoga that. It's like their lives are nothing without it," ranted an exasperated but astute visitor after a mere week in the hauptstadt. In some districts (Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg, guilty as charged), you learn to give cyclists an extra wide berth because however slim and wiry the bike and the rider, the rolled-up yoga mat strapped to the back will whomp you in the solar plexus if you don't take a quick sidestep. This is a city where locals talk about yoga varieties like oenophiles comparing vintages or rival church sects disputing doctrine. Most schools are happy to let you take one-off lessons if you're overwhelmed by the need to do tree pose in company during your stay, but pick your yoga cult wisely, grasshopper, as there are many.

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Director Tom Tykwer was only 33 when he wrapped Run Lola Run in 1998 and saw it beat Das Boot's box office take to become the biggest grossing German film in history (though it's since been outdone by The Lives of Others). Its low-budget, grungy aesthetics and snappy energy made it the Trainspotting of post-reunification Germany, a signature film that (for once) featured a Berlin where the Wall and the Nazis were irrelevant -- i.e., the sort of film that doesn't usually get an audience outside Germany. Well here's our recap, a few of the film's locations, and some resources for aspiring Lolas.

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Friedrichshain is supposed to be the epitome of "poor but sexy" Berlin, but a quick trip down the district's Kopernikuss and Wühlischstrasses makes you wonder just how impoverished the hipper Berliners are. You can't lob a stuffed toy Domo-kun for fear of hitting some white-painted boutique full of designer urban casual wear or a hairdresser's salon decked out in sub-Tord Boontje floral wall stencils. We went on a trip to window shop and scope out the territory for September 15, when 12 Kopernikusstrasse shops will be open till 2 a.m. for a late night consumer binge. The long and the short of Wühli-Kop after the jump.

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Berlin doesn't spring to mind as a girly sort of place. Paris wears that particular sparkly pink tiara -- Amelie wasn't set in Moabit, after all, and I ain't come across a single chick-lit novel in which the heroine runs away to the hauptstadt and finds herself surrounded by fascinating, sophisticated, and enigmatic German gentlemen, learns the correct way to eat Bratwurst on the street, and savors a foaming stein of yellow beer in a charming kneipe full of unemployed East German men. There is a German word for girly girls though -- tussen -- and the brilliant Basteltüte have designed cut-out paper dolls to represent five Berliner clichés: Mandy the romantic, Krümel the punk, Monika the hipster, Katharina the artist, and Nora the eco warrior. Krümel will find all she needs here, but after the jump, we present a few hangouts, shops, and services selected according to stereotype that might appeal to the others.

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