Summer's almost over, drama in the neighborhood, comedy online
Another week in Berlin come and gone
My son goes back to school a week from Monday and I am not ready for the summer to be over. (Mostly because it feels like it never really got started!)
I know that schools starting on Sept. 8 is rather late for most of you. And many other German states, including Brandenburg, have already started.
But Berlin state schools didn’t break for summer until July 24th. Not sure why it was so late this year. They usually go into July, just not this late, and this next school year ends on July 9. (But then they start back again on August 22.)
Not that he was missing much sitting in the classroom. This summer’s weather has been unseasonably cool and wet—with temps throughout July and early August hovering in the low-to-mid teens Celsius (that’s low to mid 60s Fahrenheit).
I can count on one hand the number of days it was warm (and dry) enough to think about going to the lake. And we’ve hardly had to use the window shutters at all1 to keep it comfortable indoors.
(Knock on wood. Now that I wrote this, we’ll probably get a heat wave in October.)
A100 extension opens, police raid Rigaer94
Unfortunately, not everything was cool in our little bezirk of Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain.
On Wednesday, the long-delayed extension of the A100 motorway—the so-named “16th construction section” extending the highway from Neukölln to just the other side of Treptower Park—finally opened.
The 3.2 kilometers of road construction took 12 years and €721 million to complete, making it Germany’s most expensive road.
City leaders say it’s supposed to relieve traffic congestion on residential streets, but many residents are not happy about it.
Around 150 people protested the opening of the extension, as well as the ongoing plans for the further 17th construction phase that would extend it across the Spree and through a key commercial district in Friedrichshain.
“For the 16th phase, 450 trees were felled, 99 apartments demolished, and an area the size of 14 football fields sealed, said demonstrator Briti Beneke. "The expansion also means 12,000 more cars on the Elsenbrücke every day ."
—Berliner Morgenpost. August 27, 2025. Article translated by Google.
The Berliner Morgenpost further reports that Kreuzberg Mayor Oliver Igel (SPD) was not invited to the opening ceremony at the Estrel Hotel in Neukölln, though most of the segment runs through his district.
Police action against occupied house
And, yesterday, in what was described as an execution of court-ordered search warrants, the Berlin Police sent 200 officers to raid the apartment house at Rigaerstrasse 94, one of the last occupied houses in Berlin.
“Police spokesman Florian Nath said 100 officers stormed the building early in the morning, according to a report in the Tagesspiegel. “A total of 200 officers were on site. Police justified the deployment by citing the danger posed by the building, which is home to the left-wing extremist scene.”
The search warrants were to comply with a request for information from the building’s owner, who wanted to know the identities of the people still living in the building.
The police also said a total of 700 officers were deployed throughout the city while the raid was conducted, due to fears of protests and reprisals from residents and supporters.
“A total of 26 people and a dog were found in 13 apartments within the building, Nath said. Officers took down the people's identities.”
The residents of Rigaer94 have been fighting eviction by the property owner for several years. Recently, a number of tenants with valid rental contracts have moved out of the building, while some of the remaining there are not under contract at all.
In a statement published to the social media platform Instagram, leaders of the group of residents occupying the house said the police committed actss of vandalism during the raid and confiscated several items that were not included in the warrants.
“As usual the cops used the opportunity to cause as much chaos and destruction as possible,” the statement read. “Multiple doors were destroyed completely or deconstructed, furniture, handrails and Windows were demolished, parts oft the fence to our neighbors yard were ripped of, cops peed on toilet seats and so on. Even though they did not have a warrant for it, they, among other things, stole documents and technical devices.”
If you’re interested, I wrote a bit about the history of Rigaer94 in this earlier post.
On a lighter note …
I’ve been following different German-language content creators to improve my vocabulary—particularly informal spoken German.
One account, Bahn Ansagen (you can follow on BlueSky, Instagram, Threads, Tiktok, Facebook, and X), features funny train announcements sent in by readers. It not only helps with language-learning but provides some cultural insights into German humor.
A recent example:
Translation: “On the right, you can see the reason for the more than one-hour delay: The smoke cloud from the brush fire between Leipzig and Magdeburg. You can put your tickets away! I am just here to entertain you.”
And this one, explaining the reason for another delay, with that special little dash of attitude I’ve come to know and (sometimes) love:
“We’re standing here, because the train in front of us is standing at the platform, because the train in front of him is standing in the tunnel and has a small technical problem. I’m not a psychic and don’t know how long it will last.”
Similarly, I’ve also been watching these videos on TikTok from Daniel Luis Comedy, in which he asks audience members to answer questions while using an microphone with an autotune effect.
I know, it sounds weird, but is somehow funny—especially the enthusiastic audience participation.
And now I know that, ‘Was für würzeln hast du?’ (literally: “What kind of roots do you have?) is a colloquialism for “What is your background/ancestry?”
Take this example of his exchange with ‘Sven from Aschaffenburg.’
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And that’s a Friday Wrap! I hope next week’s update finds us all relaxing by the water.
Lacking air conditioning, we keep the apartment cool(er) by opening the windows fully in the morning to let in cool air, then closing them completely, plus closing our exterior shutters to block the light, through the heat of the afternoon. It makes the living room feel like a war bunker, sometimes, but it does keep it cooler.
Wow, you have such an extraordinary penmanship.
Comedy as language learning--great idea, and I admire your tolerance for confusion!!