We definitely have a few favorite spots to visit around the world, but Swedish woman Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer has really put the attraction back in "tourist attraction." Her surname, of course, means "Berlin Wall" and she's taken this surname because she is, in fact, married to the Berlin Wall.

Confused? So were we. But Mrs. Berliner-Mauer has a condition known as Objectum-Sexuality--which means she's attracted to non-living objects, in her case, walls and fences. She had a small ceremony to marry the Berlin Wall back in 1979, and was fairly devastated when most of it came down ten years later.

Now she runs the Model and Guillotine Museum in Sweden which has models of various constructions, including her husband, the Berlin Wall. Her museum's open every afternoon during the summer season from June to August. Just don't expect to be able to buy any of those tacky chunks of Berlin Wall souvenirs--that's like taking a piece of her husband home.

Related Stories:
· Woman Married Berlin Wall [Ananova]
· Berlin Wall: A Love Story [Official Site]
· Berlin Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: gavinandrewstewart] ]]> amandak 2008-05-29T09:30:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/10/24/223042/01

The circus has come to town for not-so-newlyweds Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who have been dividing their time between their L.A. home and the Berlin set of Tom's new movie. The show at hand is Robert Redford's film "Lions for Lambs," opening November 9, in which Cruise plays a Republican senator (no, really!) being interrogated by a reporter played by Meryl Streep about an offensive in Afghanistan. (Redford himself co-stars in the film as an inspirational college professor.)

TomKat gamely walked the red carpet and he told reporters how he's looking forward to flying planes and racing cars with pal David Beckham, who recently ended his first season with the L.A. Galaxy.

Hard to believe the couple no one said would make it has already been legally attached for a year. In other news, your grandma wants to know when you're going to move back home and find a nice young man.

Related Stories:
· Tom and Katie Better Start Shopping for those Paper Gifts [POPSugar]
· TomKat in the Maldives [Jaunted]
· TomKat's Long Berlin Film Kiss [Jaunted]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: POPSugar]]]> egw 2007-10-25T08:45:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/11/13/10223/327
Chowhound-worthy street food is all the rage in Berlin, and the Times will treat you to a tour. Berlin's imbisse make up a "fast-food scene gone foodie," serving up cheap eats in a casual environment. Not that the food is always so fast: high quality and high demand mean some made-to-order dishes require a wait that's worth it.

Times reporter Gisela Williams likes the W Imbiss, and we sure do love the sound of it. At this "tiki-inspired joint" on the border of Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, you can get a nan-bread pizza for €4. Scarf it down, farm fresh toppings included, under the restaurant's logo (basically an inverted McDonald's arch), and be thankful that you can grab such a meal for the price.

You can buy organic cheese and German wine at WKD Lebensmittel, a grocery-restaurant hybrid that serves cooked dishes made from locally sourced ingredients. Elsewhere in cheapoville, you can also get burritos, rice balls, and numerous other delicacies for around €3.50-€7. It's just enough money to account for quality while still fitting under the "inexpensive" umbrella. That means that after a typical imbiss meal, you'll have enough dough and energy left to keep enjoying Berlin.

Related Stories:
· Street Food With Ambition in Berlin [NYT]]]> djk 2006-11-13T11:51:16-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/9/12/93833/0400

Fresh off their huge new railway terminal in central Berlin, the city's planners have something even bigger in mind: a new airport. As it stands now, air traffic into Berlin is divided between three airports (Schönefeld, Tempelhof, and Tegel) but by 2011, it is to be centralized in a new complex on the site of the current Schönefeld airport.

Tempelhof, which was built by the Nazis to be the biggest building in the world at the time, now only serves 40 flights a day despite the huge size. Tegel, Berlin's current hub, will also close when the new airport (called Berlin-Brandenburg, or BBI) opens.

LCC's like EasyJet, which currently flies to Schönefeld, worry that they'll get the worst gates when the new airport opens, and conservationists wonder why Tempelof, which is only 10 minutes from downtown Berlin--compared to 45 for Schönefeld--needs to go the way of the dodo while it's still underutilized and convenient. As for us, we wodnder if the Germans couldn't build something a little smaller, for once?

[Image via Night Owl City/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   Battle over Berlin airport [Guardian]
·   Gonan Make It On Time [Jaunted]]]> AVB 2006-09-12T10:25:03-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/5/15/22558/0505

It's always important to have a correspondent on the scene, and for Berlin, we pick Shortcuts' Berlin blog. It's a big enough, and quirky enough, city to make for plenty of ripe blogging material, and the upcoming World Cup and influx of tourists makes it even more entertaining these days.

This being coverage of Germay, we'll focus on the important things: processed meats and tacky decorations. Of the former, it appears that a taste for American-style hot dogs is sweeping Berlin; classic frank-in-bun establishments are cropping up citywide. It's the circle of life, only with nitrates. As for kitsch--the TV tower in Alexanderplatz is being decorated like a giant pink and silver soccer ball. A gigantic mottled pink tower--what's not to love?

[Image via bastian.g/Flickr]

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·   Berlin [Shortcut]]]> AVB 2006-05-16T10:20:02-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/4/18/16524/2094
The May issue of Wallpaper* is the most inspiring issue of the magazine in quite some time, with the mag's Newspaper section leading the way.

Case in point: David Kaufman's article on the proliferation of Israeli café chains, several of which are eyeing international markets. The accompanying sidebar pegs 12 coffee bar chains around the world, including Vienna's iconic Aida, Jordan's Blue Fig, California's Peet's, and Cape Town's Vida e Caffé. The Cape Town chain gets the highest aesthetic praise.

Also covered in the section is the happy return of Ostalgie. Berlin's former East German State Council building, circa 1964, has morphed into the European School of Management and Technology. (It's hard to keep the excitement out of a place like that, we guess) The honors go to HG Merz, an architecture firm focusing on museums and renovations, with offices in Stuttgart and Berlin.

Also noteworthy in the May issue: Macau travel, Portuguese canned fish packaging, Paris' Stalingrad 'hood, and new Swedish furniture designers. Note that South Africa joins the Wallpaper pricing elite, with the price of the magazine now listed in rand. We know just the coffee shop for reading the mag.

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·   Spanish Fly [Jaunted]]]> artextor 2006-04-19T11:55:04-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/4/14/115723/382 Ignorant us, we didn't think the Easter bunny even made it to Germany. If he does come this year he better stay away from Karl-Friedrich Lentze.

The artist claims that by encouraging the consumption of chocolates, Mr. Easter Bunny also encourages the prevalence of heart attacks, strokes, and fat people. "The Easter Bunny is a sadistic and unscrupulous offender who preys on people's sweet tooth," he wrote in a complaint for local prosecutors. "Find this evil bunny, handcuff his paws and remove him from shops in time for Easter."

Lentze, by the way, seems to have a knack for the silly: in recent years he has tried to start a brothel for dogs, turn dog poop into a building material, and patent a machine to straighten bananas.

Related Stories:
·    Furious German files against Easter Bunny [One Minute Update]]]> johnrambow 2006-04-14T11:57:23-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/