Day 7

Got up early and headed for Berlin. It seems to be harder and harder to get Heather out of bed. The trip to Berlin took about 2 hours and we checked in at the Baxpax Hostel around 1 pm. Our first order of business was to get our things upstairs and the laptop secured in a locker. Baxpax is a very large complex with a huge array of people and ages; a very hip and trendy atmosphere.
One of our roommates had just flown in from Canada and was sleeping in the middle of the afternoon. We needed something to eat and decided it would be better to do a bit of exploring. Our hostel is very close to the Jewish Quarter of Berlin and we can see the New Synagogue from our window. Ironically most of the restaurants in the area our Indian cuisine. We chose a restaurant with a cheap lunch menu. I had made plans for the evening (which I kept secret from Heather for a couple of weeks) and tried to eat as light as possible.

I’ve to Berlin a couple of times, once for a gig, once for an audition, etc, and was able to navigate us over to Pariserplatz after lunch. Pariserplatz is the home of the French and US Consulates in Berlin and directly in front of the Brandenbergische Tor. We took our pictures and marched on to the Memorial of the Murdered Jews. This is where Heather’s thousands of dollars of architectural education came in handy. The outdoor memorial monument was designed by Peter Eisenman and remains to this day open to interpretation. Some people think it looks like a graveyard, others see the trains deporting Jews to concentration camps. There are 2,711 rectangular concrete blocks of all different heights, ranging from ground level to over 4 meters (that would be about 6 liters, Dad). We took our time in the sea of extruding blocks and then headed for the memorial info center located beneath the actual monument. The info center focuses on the life’s of the victims and their families rather than the statistics (which were around 5-6 million individuals from Europe and some parts of Africa). We both left feeling quite depressed and awestruck.

We headed back to the hostel, the surprise growing nearer. Heather made a couple of guesses throughout the day, but none of them were even in the ballpark. “Will we be eating off of people? Are we cooking our own food? Will there be physical contact?” I wasn’t quite sure how to answer the last question. We were 30 minutes early to the restaurant, Nocti Vagus, and she still hadn’t figured it out J Even with the four menu options, one being a “surprise” menu, she had no clue! Eventually I couldn’t keep it in any longer.

“We’re eating in the dark.”

“What!?”

“You won’t be able to see your food, or the waiter, or anybody else. It’s pitch black!”

“Oh….(long pause)….cool.”

One of the waitresses took our orders (I had the vegetarian menu and Heather ordered the “surprise”) and briefed us. Our waiters name was Benjamin and we were sitting at Table 12, were the two most important pieces of information for the evening. If we needed anything we were to call out Benjamin’s name and our table number. We were shown into a room with a dimmed light and as soon as the second door opened all the lights went out! Our waiter escorted Heather by the hand through the restaurant and I held on to her shoulders as directed. The theme of the evening was “Wellness Special” and a masseuse was available for neck and head massages.

-Debbie

It was interesting experience eating in the dark. All of our other senses were enhanced. When the guitarist began to play, I would see hues of purple and Debbie felt there was an enhancement of visual memory. Both of were visualizing what and where everything was on the table. A brick wall was on Debbie’s right. A group of about 5 or 6 people was to my left as well as 4 to 5 tables behind us. At first it felt claustrophobic in the room, but then, as the other senses kicked in, the space began to feel larger.

A picture of Heather and I at the dark restaurant!

The food was amazing! I imagined the soup to be the most difficult to eat, but actually the main course proved to be most challenging. I eventually picked up my veal because it was too difficult to cut with a fork and knife. It didn’t really matter how I looked eating because no one could see me. Debbie continually lost her food and was finding new flavors she didn’t know she had. Mid-way through the meal, the masseuse became available and we both got massages. It’s nice to get pampered once in awhile. We later found out that the masseuse was blind as well as most of the waiters and waitresses. If you think about it, this would be a great place for a blind person to work! The waiters would make different clicking noises so they wouldn’t bump into each other.
The entire evening was quite the adventure. I would have never guessed we would be eating in the dark. When we emerged from the dark, our depth perception was off (everything felt closer than it really was) and dim light in the room in which we enter seemed like a 120W light bulb!

-Heather