Singing Berlin's Praises

When David Barkhymer suggested to his wife Holly that they submit a song for the Deutsche Welle contest he'd recently seen announced on the Web site, she was more than a little skeptical.

"I thought, they're going to hate this idea, they don't want a song" she said with a grimace. "And then when we did end up submitting a song whose first lines talked about the grey Berlin sky, I didn't think we had a chance."

The two New York City residents are telling this story from the Deutsche Welle offices in Berlin, where they've come as the contest's grand-prize winners. Their song, which relates some of Holly's fond memories of her year spent in the German capital, beat hundreds of other entries sent in from around the globe.

Both Holly, 33, and David, 34, consider themselves Germanophiles, something Holly said in her case developed long before she knew there was a name for it. Her best childhood friend had German parents, and as she grew older, she found she was attracted to German music, poetry and literature. As she got to know contemporary Germany better, she began to appreciate many aspects of life here.

"I like Germans' concern for the environment and the country's social safety net," she said. "And while you can't paint with too broad a brush, I think Germans are a people who generally think things through. It's a pretty good place."

In a way, she has Germany to thank for meeting her husband David, who also has a soft-spot for German movies, bands and soccer. The two first met in a nightclub because David was wearing a shirt with the word Polizei (Police) on it. That sparked Holly's interest and she struck up a conversation. The two were married last October.

City tour, sung

To David, a special education teacher who plays guitar and bass, writing a song for the Deutsche Welle contest seemed like a natural for the couple. Holly, who does PR for the Michael J. Fox Foundation, is a classically trained singer, and the two had been recording music in their apartment, mostly jazz standards, for several years.

After Holly agreed to the song idea, David wrote the guitar part and asked Holly to write about Berlin, where she'd lived in the Prenzlauer Berg district from the summer of 1999 to the fall of 2000.

"I fell in love with the energy of the place and I felt it was a time rich with possibilities," she said. "I was far from home and wanted to try things out."

Their song is akin to a walk Holly might have taken around the city then, listing off her favorite places: Kreuzberg, the Babylon cinema, the Tiergarten park or iconic Fernsehturm (TV tower).

While she does mention Berlin's heavy grey skies in her lyrics, she left out some other aspects that were difficult for her here, such as the notorious brusque manner of many native Berliners. "There were a few times back then when I was in tears," she said.

Sites to see

She and David said they were were thrilled to learn that Deutsche Welle was flying them to Berlin for a week and plan to pack as much into their trip as possible. They stayed with David's brother, who teaches in Wiesbaden, for a few days, where they were crushed by Germany's defeat by the Italians in the World Cup semi-finals. Now, they appear to have mostly bounced back, and want to hit as many sites in the capital as they can before flying home on Sunday.

One thing on the schedule is time spent in the beer gardens, where they plan on drinking their fair share of German beer.. While they say New York City has everything, there are some things even the Big Apple can't guarantee 100 percent of the time.

"When I was here, I could just go to any place around the corner and ask for a beer," said Holly. "I wouldn't even know what I was getting, but I knew it'd be delicious."