“You’re packing that?” It wasn’t heat, but it might as well have been for the look my mother gave me. I looked down at the Brandeis hoodie I was holding. Mother didn’t think a sweatshirt with the name of America’s Jewish-sponsored school emblazoned on it would go over well in Germany. “Oh please,” I responded. “They’ll have no idea what Brandeis is over there.” It turns out that I was the one as dumb as bricks when it comes to appropriate street apparel in my residential neighborhood in Berlin. Did I say residential? I meant to say street walking. At the intersection of Potsdamerstrasse and Kufurstenstrasse – across the street from the Turkish grocer and right next door to the bakery – is the neighborhood sex shop. It goes by the name “LSD” – not the drug, silly, but an acronym for the trifecta of “Love, Sex, Dreams.” This is not just any purveyor of sex toys. A billboard rivaling the size of any in Times Square features a blonde in a white thong lying on her side. It’s so glaring and enormous that I feel embarrassed whenever I stand next to old German ladies as we wait for the light to change. Clearly, they could care less. At any given point in the day, but at night for sure, women decked out in above-the-knee stiletto boots motion to passing cars. They work the busy intersection but I see them more often eating pastries in the next-door bakery than sliding into strangers’ cars. Yes, prostitution is legal here. In America I’m considered pretty much a prude. So in Germany I might as well be a nun. Oh wait, here comes one right now. As I emerge from the U-bahn station I find myself colliding with a crowd of prostitutes and a nun who is trying to go about her business. Oh, and here comes the token transvestite wearing sequined jeans, a brunette wig and too much blush. I wasn’t wearing my Brandeis sweatshirt but I can assure you – or my mother, rather – that nary a soul would or could care less what I’m wearing. There’s much more interesting things to gape at on the street. Welcome to Berlin.
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The Berlin Diaries: Sex Sex Sex
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