The Haribos Rack

by Isabella Hellig (Australia)

Making a local connection Germany

When I stayed in Berlin for a short while as an exchange student, I often sought comfort in the rack of Haribo-branded sweets in the local Spätkauf. A Spätkauf, known by the locals as a Späti for short, is a ubiquitous kind of late night shop in Berlin selling alcohol and sweets (and, as I would come to find out, other sundries was well, like cartons of eggs and toothbrushes, but mostly alcohol and sweets). Their small differences notwithstanding, all convenience stores in Berlin contain a few common staples: there is always a fridge stocked with Club-Mate, a bitter and savory caffeinated drink adored by all of us staunch enough to acquire this taste – and then, consequently, of course, by all those of us too weak to give it up. Then there is always a shelf selling discounted bottles of wine caked in dust at room temperature; a selection of cigarette packets behind the counter. A bottle opener for popping open bottles of beer bought on the spot. Existing alongside to these, I came to think fondly of the Haribo rack as that solace of solaces of mine, so to speak, after a day in or a night out. Apt to neglect my university coursework, a bag of sour Haribo sweets was the perfect nightcap, heading back to my apartment at the end of a long day of malingering. Although there was a shortlist of other Haribo varieties for which I could and would settle, my hands-down favorites were the sour cola bottles. When I walked into the Späti downstairs, an automated doorbell rang and the cashier looked up from his newspaper, somehow stern-faced yet gracious and the same time. I found a similar ambience at the currywurst stands around the city, where stony-faced people stand up to eat fried sausages on little sticks. It bears mentioning that these small debaucheries are often a solitary pursuit in Berlin, whose urgency and importance for the human condition are implicitly appreciated. My roommate in Berlin, for instance, was a middle-aged, overweight Turkish man who sewed plush toys out of recycled muslin rags to sell on Etsy. He happened to never rise before 11am. When he left his bedroom door open, his unmade bed would be surrounded by a sea of empty cigarette packets and Haribo bags. His favorite flavors were licorice and peach. In addition, many adult Berliners, including tight-lipped salaried workers past the ages of thirty and forty, frequent nightclubs alone to listen to their soul-shattering techno. Curiously, Berlin is a serious place at its heart, which goes hand-in-hand with its earnest tolerance for all facets of humanity. (Although not just a city for artists and exchange students, artists and exchange students are also wont to make their home in Berlin for this very aforementioned reason.) People come to Berlin to escape, not from themselves, but further into themselves, in a wonderfully humane manner that is not permitted in other parts of the world. For every packet of Haribos that I consumed in my bed in one sitting, I could count a comparable experience from my days in Berlin. These all involved the proclivities of other human beings, let loose in one way or another. For how is a bag of candy at 3 or 4am that different, really, from the old recycled football at the Tempelhofer Feld community gardens, in which someone has fancifully tried to grow basil? Or from the gagged gentleman on all fours at the end of a leash, whom I encountered once in the basement of a techno club? Or from whatever ingenious fever dream that resulted in that ghastly mural being painted near an old section of the Berlin Wall, which depicts a glistening piece of meat as it is sliced open with a carving knife? For there is a certain freedom for all of us to be ourselves in Berlin, to be optimistic that nothing we do is really that awful. And with my every ever-so-slightly guilty trip to the nearest Spätkauf to buy cola-flavored sweets, I felt a refreshing kind of permission to be human: to be myself, just like everybody else.