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Germany, you make me wonder #2 – Yaam

Today I was asked to spend the sunny Sunday afternoon in a place called Yaam in Berlin-Friedrichshain. And what else to say than it was totally awesome. So following is a good advice to everyone, who visits Berlin during summer times and wants to enjoy a relaxed, multicultural and tasty afternoon.

So first, where to go? Check the map. The place is located at the Spree-river in the area of the Ostbahnhof.

Second, what is the Yaam? A short description copied from their website:

African and Caribbean food stands offering specialties provoke an international atmosphere and make the "YAAM" an attractive place to relax, create and improve ideas...Live gigs, exhibitions, sporting events... X an ideal meeting point for living together multi-culturally in Berlin.  There is a wide choice of food specialties from Africa, Jamaica and Asia as well as jewellery and body art, records and much more...
Almost everybody can get the permission to sell goods or food and therefore expand the variety of our market.

So this is the theory...what is it for real? After paying a little entry fee of 3,- (this is only for Sundays, you get nice live music or DJ´s for this in exchange) you enter a place of holiday for one afternoon. The place is vacant building area, where an initiative has built a resort from the urban life for almost everyone. Yaam stands for Youth and African market, and this kind of describes the whole place. You can find all kinds of persons here, ranging from the rastafari, who enjoys a cold drink in the shadows, over businessmen who enjoy their lunch at one of the many African food places to families who come here with their young children, drop them off at the 'Kidzarea' and also take a short time out from their daily life.

So, the Yaam consists of three areas, the market area which you see when you enter the area. Check on the citation from the website for details on this. Here you can also find an open air stage, a skate ramp and a basketball court. If you follow the trail of people and move away from the great smell of the food stands that offer a wide variety of African foods, you will enter the beach area. The first thing you may realize is the lot of sand over here. It looks and feels like there is an actual beach in the middle of Berlin. You can find some bars here, the 'Kidzarea', a beach soccer court and many possibilities to sit, lay down and relax. There are also some benches and chairs at the waterfront, you can sit down here and watch the vessels on the Spree. After some hours in the sun, you might become hungry and so you return to the market area and choose a dish from the wide variety of freshly prepared food.  At some time, the DJ might turn up the volume of the records and in the late evening, the hall opens, where you can party to African and Caribbean vibes, often presented life.  My holiday day ended a bit earlier, but I was told that you can also party there quite nicely.

So to sum up: I really enjoyed my time in the Yaam area, I liked the mix of all kind of people, I liked the street art design of the whole thing, I liked the food and drinks and I liked the general chilled out mood. As you might realize, I really loved my time there and would recommend a visit there to almost everyone, who has the possibility to go there (And if the weather is nice!).

To see pictures of the Yaam, check flickr.

The Yaam is also in the danger of being closed down because of the media spree project, check more on this on the Yaam homepage