Another day of doing battle with recalcitrant pigments and paint that has seeped under the tapes, but with a confidently light heart, knowing that eventually I would make them come right and the process would be inbuilt into these paintings. I left the struggle and went out into a storm to a gallery opening before going on to the wonders of the Gemädegalerie. Leaving the opening reception, I hopped on a tram M6 to get to Rosa Luxembourg Platz where I could get the U-bahn to Potsdamer Platz. After a while looking out the window, nothing looked familiar and oh no I realised it should have been an M8. This M6 took me to the middle of nowhere, a little dark vacant back street where the tram driver has his break. Can you believe that? Knocking on his window and repeating U-Bahn several times to this kindly avuncular, non-English speaking man got me some directions that I could follow for several blocks before Lo and behold I saw another tram which did take me to the U-Bahn. Of course my troubles, this blowing, frosty, stormy evening were not yet over. Potsdamer Platz is vast with arterial wide streets, vehicle traffic but not much if any pedestrians. Looking for signs, there were none that said Gemädegalerie as one might expect, but only to the Sony Centre. I for the life of me couldn't remember which of these six roads to take nor in which direction. Would that be the way to a museum or maybe that way? It seemed hopeless. Then across the street I saw two young schoolgirls in conversation oblivious to the raging wind. Excuse me do you speak English? Drawing herself up to stiff full height, the skinny, bespectacled girl who looked like a touching, bookish Olive Oyl looked at me very severely "but of course," she sternly replied. What a relief. They consulted and told me to go past the ‘houses', (not deigning to name the crass commercial thousand or more metres high Sony Centre), to the Kultural Forum. I would certainly have gone in any other direction but that one and be still wandering today. They made a few tactical errors of prepositions and directions so that I went past rather before, down rather than up, but anyway I got a chance to visit the Mies Van der Rohe Neu Galerie again. That is also free entrance from 6 to 10 pm on Thursdays. Did I mention that was why I was so persistent in my determination to get to the Gemädegalerie this evening and not just throw up my hands saying Bother! I'll go tomorrow. No, no, dogged determined, eking out my museum entrances' money to pay for yellows and blues of incorrect tints I plodded on like a mad art lover with dripping hair to reach the sanctity of Rembrandt, Rubens, Watteau, Cranach, Velasquez, Gainsborough, the most beautiful Vermeer I've ever seen, and you know how beautiful they all are. For the Gemädegalerie that holds one of the most important collections of European art, usually closes at 6pm, but on Thursday evenings it is 10 pm closing and from 6 to 10 pm free entrance. That is a good time to go. Also that is not widely known. It was very sparsely attended, and extraordinary, like drifting through a huge private house containing unbelievable marvels. Except that it also has in a modern glass and brick extension all that the modern museum must have of café, shop, other exhibitions and so on, hence the Kultural Forum part. The collection is remarkable, the ambience tranquil asking for nothing, though I might have spoken out for a sign somewhere.
