Text-Number: 0040
Available: 6/1/1996
Category: Culture
Number of characters: 3177
Author: David Ingrim
Written: 5/20/1996
Abbreviation: DI
Title: Berlin für Touristen (1): Berlin ist eine Reise wert...
Pending publication by/on: 
Previous publication by/on:
Copyright: David Ingrim
Translation title: Berlin for Tourists (1): Berlin is worth the trip...
Translator:  Kim Rose
Translation Copyright: 
Discussion/Letters to the Editor:

David Ingrim 

Berlin for Tourists (1): Berlin is worth the trip...

What does a traveler look for in a foreign land? Foreigners. We shouldn’t be fooled by the rumors that tourists are drawn to places they know from home, which are liberally spread by the German media and opinion makers.
Americans don’t eat at McDonald’s in Berlin. The French don’t stroll down La Fayette and Turks don't rush to the Oranienstrasse in Kreuzberg as soon as they arrive. 
Rumors like the one above are spread to keep tourists where they don’t want to be: among themselves. The sole purpose for such rumors is to give Berliners the chance to stay holed up among themselves. Therefore, Berliners enthusiastically send tourists to those renovation sites that plug up that long-standing hole in the heart of Berlin. Berliners are amused by this exodus. 
But tourists shouldn’t be offended, though, because what do tourists look for in a foreign metropolis? Foreigness.  And what could be more foreign, more alienating than the arrogant suggestion: Don't take in our sites, look at our desolate construction sites. 
But because we know what tourists are after (foreignness), we will offer tips from time to time. (In doing this we risk making ourselves enemies of certain Berliners — those who would like to keep themselves holed up in their metropolitan caves so as not to become what they already are: foreign.)