Maedels With A Microphone

Romy was born in the small town of Görlitz on the Polish-German border eight years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Sweet treats, such as chocolate were a rarity, but Romy’s experiences with food from the West before and after the fall of the wall, left her with a life-long sweet tooth, as the Mädels discovered. This podcast was initially made for the Third Coast Audio Festival ShortDocs Challenge, sponsored this year by the James Beard Foundation -- an organisation that celebrates, nurtures, and preserves diverse culinary heritages through awards, education, and outreach. The theme of the competition was appetite. The music for this podcast is Incompleteness by the Soundcloud user Novi https://soundcloud.com/novi (thanks again Novi!!) To donate to LiNK, head over to Tam's fundraising page: http://fundraise.libertyinnorthkorea.org/fundraise?fcid=243715

In 1987, Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate and demanded that the Berlin Wall be torn down. Twenty-three years later, Berliners demanded that it stay put. When word got out on social networking sites that part of the East Side Gallery, one of the last remaining segments of the barrier that once divided East and West Berlin for 28 years before it was torn down, would be dismantled, Berliners took to the streets to prevent the destruction. Following a weekend of protest and public fury, the East Side Gallery, which is adorned with murals painted by more than 100 artists from around the world in the spring of 1990, was saved -- for now. We've tried our best to document the confusing course of events and to dissect what the East Side Gallery means to people. Let us know if we've missed anything! The music used in this podcast is from the Soundcloud user Novi https://soundcloud.com/novi

Germany's favourite "whodunnit" TV show Tatort (crime scene) has had viewers hooked for over 30 years. Every Sunday evening at 8:15 pm, Germans and foreigners alike love nothing better than to gather in their local bar to watch various fictional dectectives solve fictional crimes in a different German, Swiss or Austrian city each week. The show can often be cheesy (that theme music!) but it's always entertaining. The Mädels head down to a local bar to find out what makes people want to watch this hugely popular TV show with a bunch of strangers and wonder whether it's a uniquely German phenomenon.

We are excited to announce our first podcast made in collaboration with Berlin Stories for NPR. Thanks so much to Berlin Stories founders, Anna Winger and Gisela Williams. For more, go to http://www.berlinstories.org In this podcast, we checked out the Dutch expat scene in Berlin. We wanted to know why they came to Berlin, because, let's be honest, there are some pretty cool cities in the Netherlands! We discovered that they came for many of the same reasons we did: affordable rents, the intriguing history, the promise of jobs, and of course, that certain Berlin vibe. We talked to Tim De Witt a freelance radio journalist, Janine de Haan a nurse in a senior's home, Edial Dekker the founder of online start-up Gidsy, and Mathieu Sneep head of EMEA Sales at SponsorPay. They talked to us about why they live in Berlin, how it differs from back home, and a little bit about bikes and cheese...

Darkness and cold has descended upon Berlin. The city is blanketed in snow and fairy lights adorn the trees. Yes, it's winter again. But one of the lovely things about the Berlin and German winter is the season of Christmas markets. This year the Mädels bring you the sights, sounds and history of the Old Rixdorf Christmas Market. For just one weekend during the advent season, the Rixdorf Christmas market draws people from all over the city with its mixture of traditional crafts, entertainment and, of course, glühwein (German mulled wine).

On a rainy summer evening in Berlin, crowds gathered outside the Platoon Kunsthalle in Prenzlauerberg to find out who would become Germany’s smartest tough guy at the Fourth Berlin Chess Boxing Championship. But what is chess boxing? What are its origins and what draws people to the niche sport? The Mädels interview chess-boxing founder Iepe Rubingh and chess-boxing addict Tim Woolgar and bring you sounds from the fight night in their latest podcast dedicated to the thinking person’s sport. To see images of the event, head over to our Facebook photo album: http://on.fb.me/Ro4oI2 Heartbeat courtesy of soundbyterfreesounds on Soundcloud.

If you've taken a stroll down Unter den Linden towards the Brandenburg Gate lately, you may have noticed a large group of protesters, and an even larger group of police on Pariser Platz. Many of the protesters are asylum seekers who marched 600 km from Würzburg to fight for their dignity, better living conditions, and faster processing of their asylum applications. Currently, most of them are just waiting to hear back from the authorities about their asylum claims, a process that can leave many in an uncomfortable state of limbo for years. Some of the protesters are on hunger strike and have been braving winter temperatures and rain to have their voices heard by politicians in the nearby German parliament. The police have removed sleeping bags, blankets and a first aid tent, saying that the protesters have a permit to demonstrate but not to camp. The Mädels headed down to Pariser Platz to see what was going on and talk to those involved.

Spreepark is the place to go in Berlin for urban explorers. Once a popular GDR amusement park, then a privatized post-GDR fledgling amusement park and now an abandoned and creepy amusement park covered in overgrown foliage and trees, it's the perfect place to explore. Located in Plänterwald just beside Treptower Park, toppled dinosaurs, a 45-metre high ferris wheel that blows eerily in the wind, and ghostly abandoned fun park villages greet those who dare to hop over the fence. As it turns out that the story behind the park, its collapse into bankruptcy, and the destruction of the family who owned it, is much sadder than the remnants of this once beloved place. Music for this podcast provided by the SoundCloud user http://soundcloud.com/novi

Against a backdrop of political unrest, hyperinflation, and extreme poverty; artists, writers, scientists and intellectuals flocked to Berlin to take in its decadent nightlife. The cabaret bar was where it all took place, and English novelist Christopher Isherwood was the perfect observer. The mädels went on a walking tour around Nollendorfplatz with Cabaret Berlin's Brendan Nash and learned all about Isherwood's neighbourhood and the roaring twenties in Berlin.

While team Great Britain was winning Olympic gold at the London Olympics, Berlin was hosting its own athletic event, the Slowlympics. 18 teams battled it out against each other to be crowned slowest of the slow, and silliest of the silliest. The mädels spoke to organizer and Slow Travel Berlin founder Paul Sullivan, as well as a number of participating, slovenly teams.

Club Mate is probably Berlin's most famous soft drink. Its distinctive taste and extremely high caffeine content makes it the drink of choice for everyone from hipsters to techies to all-night partiers. You either love it, or you hate it, but either way, you haven't been to Berlin if you haven't tried Club Mate. And of course, there are those of us who grow to love it. The mädels talk to a variety of people about what makes Club Mate so special. Music courtesy of: http://soundcloud.com/niklas

For this mini mädel, we headed to Prague, and took a little day trip to Sedlec, a suburb of the town Kutná Hora. Sedlec is famous for a very strange and morbid reason: it's home to the bone church, an ossuary decorated with the bones of approximately 40,000 human skeletons. They're arranged in columns, pyramids, as chandeliers, and as a coat of arms. It truly was a bizarre trip. Listen to the podcast to find out more about the history of the church, an our experiences there.