Goodbye to and from Mannheim January 11, 2007
Posted by jlsd in Germany, Travel.add a comment
well can you believe it but M and I leave this little humble industrial heartland today and head home after 5 months in Germany. It is very strange to be honest. This morning when we were fixing up the last of the ‘finalities’ such as cancelling bank accounts and the like, I commented to M that I knew that we were going home but I kind of couldn’t really accept that we wouldn’t be back here next week and that I wouldn’t be back at uni with the MCL mob whinging about queue hopping Germans and the lack of customer service etc.
It has been interesting to see how quickly one can adapt to a new set of circumstances and changed environment. 4 storey buildings are normal for us now, as is apartment living, dogs on trams, cold weather, and i even don’t get quite so annoyed when no one smiles back or lets you go first in the queue at the supermarket when you have only 1 thing to buy and they have a whole trolley load… Australia will feel like home without a doubt, but the sprawling suburbs, single storey or 2 storey at the most buildings (outside the CBD), the heat and the dryness will be a bit weird at first. I will have to stop assuming that no one except M speaks English as a first language (or other MCL people) and start ordering food and doing the shopping without saying ‘Ja Ja’ and pointing at things behind the glass.
We were looking at our photos last night and i realised that we really have seen a great deal and learned a lot about the world, about ourselves as individuals and about us as a couple. we didn’t make it to Russia or Spain but there will be other trips I’m sure. And we managed to do all of this and only take one week off uni (the Aniversary trip to Latvia and Lithuania). Further more, no credit card is completely maxed out (although they have been given a fairly strenuous workout), but we are down the last $53.00 in the savings account! Thank God M is still getting paid, and I will be again soon. It was the best money I ever spent. Every last cent of it.
M is going to say something now;
I just wanted to add to J’s comments above that i will certainly miss the ‘European’ way of life, the food in general (although the lack of good Asian food was a downside it must be said), the flavours, the sensible work hours (not that i was working myself…) and tons of other things, much of which is intangible, and i won’t bore you with an endless laundry list of what i’ve liked etc.
The whole time has been an amazing experience with all that entails; it has not been just a holiday but really an experience with both good and bad. I feel that i have changed as a person even after this relatively short period as a result.
I will certainly miss this place, Mannheim itself has been a very easy place to live and base ourselves, and Europe in a broader sense as well.
Having said all that we are excitied to be coming home too, to see all the friends and family we have been missing and on whom we have relied for so much support over the last five months and the time leading up to us coming o/s.
We will try very hard not to bore or annoy you with endless stories that start with “It was like that time in…” etc
That’s it for now, signing off from Germany for the last time.
See you all soon,
Michael & Jerusha
the wrap up begins January 6, 2007
Posted by michael in Travel.2 comments
And so all of a sudden (at least it feels sudden but that could be denial on my part…). It is time for us to pack up our room, cram our suitcases and work out what the hell to do with all our excess luggage – not naming names but somebody has accumulated a large stack of CDs and books over the preceeding months – a trip to Deutsche Post is looming on the horizon. And then we are on the plane and back to Oz in a few days time.
So i thought i’d take the opportunity to recap on the places we have seen (either together or independantly) during our time in Europe. Some places we spent more time in than others but for simplicity i will list them alphabetically. Was going to rate in order of preference or something but is too hard given that we liked different places for different reasons, for more info on each have a gander back through the archives.
J may have something more to add as a round up before we leave.
So, what will happen with the blog? It’ll still be here but at some point will probably be renamed. The entries related to our time in Europe will still be here and can be looked at at anytime, just go to the archives for August 2006 to January 2007.
Other than that we will no doubt keep a blog of our next travel adventure when it happens; yes we are already thinking about where and what but will be a little while off yet.
In the interim we may blog here about all manner of things as we feel the urge, so check in occassionaly and see if we’ve had anything to say.
And now the list (i don’t think i have forgotten any):
Antwerp, Belgium.
Bad Durkheim, Germany.
Berlin, Germany.
Birmingham, England. (well, only the airport really).
Brusells, Belgium.
Chartres, France.
Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Frankfurt Hahn, Germany.
Geneva, Switzerland.
Heathrow (London), England. (again, just the airport).
Hiedelberg, Germany.
Krakow, Poland.
Ludwigshafen, Germany.
Mannheim (and surrounds), Germany.
Maulbronn, Germany.
Oswiecim, Poland. (Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau).
Paris, France.
Prague, Czech Republic.
Riga, Latvia.
Salzburg, Austria.
Singapore.
Speyer, Germany.
Trakai, Lithuania.
Versaille, France.
Vienna, Austria.
Vilnius, Lithuania.
Wieliczka, Poland.
Worms, Germany.
ps. – just between you and me, my personal overall favourite was of course Berlin.
Final days in Paris January 3, 2007
Posted by jlsd in Art, Random Observations, Travel.add a comment
As Oscar Wilde said its either him or the wall paper one of them has to go. Unfortunately Oscar died, and M and I will simply be leaving but it will be a pity as there is so much to see and unless you manage to stay for months there is little chance of seeing everything. However we have made a decent attempt to see what we could in the time we had.
Yesterday i went to Versaille having gotten lost for hours underground in the metro and then got drenched like i had gone swimming in my clothes, before arriving at the palace to see the line for tickets was 5 rows deep and long as the train itself. Upon discovering that a lot was under wraps for restorative reasons i decided not to get pneumonia in the rain queing to get a ticket, and just scooted around the palace grounds before going home again. A bit disappointing but i think that i made the right decision. Self taken drowned rat photos will be available for viewing shortly!
Today we went to the catacombs which were spooky and interesting. they contained the bones of several graveyards that were transported there in the mid 19th century to prevent a continuation of disease that was originating from there. The ossuries are located in a series of converted former limestone quarries beneath the streets of Paris, only one is open to the public for viewing.
After that we went back to the Pompidou Centre to see some exhibitions that we had had not been able to get into with our museum card earlier in the week. Yves Klein was very french and slightly wanky. Rauschenberg was interesting but also a bit wanky to be fair.
When I went to Versailles yesterday M went to see the cathederal at Chartres with its medeival stained glass and mismatched towers. 
One gothic, one romanesque. He reports that it was very interesting and he didn’t manage to come home looking like a drowned rat.
The day before we had been out to Monmartre and after nearly expiring climbing the hill had a wander through the big white Bascilica of Sacre Coeur 
follwed by an amble through part of the Monmartre cemetery. We didn’t manage to find any graves of famous residents such as Adolph Sax, Oscar Wilde or Jim Morrison (not that we looked to hard for that last one), but did see some rather ostentatious sepulchres and a collection of cats who looked very much at home. 
On the way back we passed Moulin Rouge but after finding out that the cheapest tickets were 87 euro we decided not to bother going in.
Now we just pack up and go back to Mannheim. and the good news we got from the travel agency/booking people is that they are going to do an investigation into our complaint re the first hotel. Hopefully we are one step closer to getting our money back!
Things i have thought about in Paris January 1, 2007
Posted by jlsd in Random Observations, Travel, Uncategorized.add a comment
As M has outlined we have been rather busy scooting all over the place to see the sights of Paris. There have been a number of interesting things/people that we have noted that are separate to the actual sites. One of the most striking things is the fact that so many of the supposedly AMAZiNG sites are in fact not nearly so amazing and have been turned completely into attractions for tourists and have lost their own character. The most obvious of these, in my opinion, is the Eifel Tower. But more generally, it is clear that the Parisian tourism board has been very effective over the lasrt century in making sure that everyone thinks that if they come to Paris and dont see the eifel tower, the arch triumph, the louis viutton store on champs elysee that they have not seen ‘Paris’. Of course this observation is not new and is common to all countries that market themselves as tourist destinations, but the myth of paris seems especially strong. It has infiltrated art, contemporary culture etc. Needless to say the city is amazing and very cosmopolitan fabulous for walking around and the cathedrals and art are great. But as M has already mentioned there are so many people here queing for hours to go up the eifel tower, or to take a photo of the latest ferrari in the champ elysee store room that i cannot imagine that many of them have thought about why they might like to see those places. We have been doing the same thing but it really struck us last night when we were going home in the metro and doing battle with the hoards of crowds going in the other direction to the arch de triumph in the crappy weather and having their photo taken in the fake Xmas trees, that most tourists want their destination to be what they have imagined it would be and not what the place may actually be like. Are those people who hqd their photo taken in the fake snow going to pretend that it was snowing and reinvent their memory from the photo? Similarly goes for all the couples doing the big staged kiss in public places in a way that seems like it could only be in order to ‘experience’ Romantic Paris.
One cliche that seems to have a real basis is the Parisian waiter, who slams down cutlery, runs around with an overloaded tray perched upon his fingers like an inverted iron claw bath tub leg, who takes the order and then shouts it from about a distance of 1 foot to the guy on the cafe machine. They seem to be territorial within the cafe and tell the others waiters who may encroach upon their patch to move aside. The competition for tips is fierce; In one place we noted that chqnge was given in an unusual combination of coins and notes, presumably to make it all the easier to leave a tip for the performance. This performance appears to be everywhere not just in touristy places, and the service can be very good but just with an accompanying self made soundtrack from the waiters. How any one wrote a great literary or philosophical masterpiece in such a din is completely beyond me.
Other things of note: it won’t surprise you to hear that the French make outrageously good sweets, including a most fabulous caramelised apple tart that i had the other day. Also men over here seem to be rather liberal with the bladder. Why go use a toilet when a lamp post will do. Its everywhere. As yet M has resisted the temptation to follow suit but we still have a few days for him to get his willy out in public! Dog poo is everywhere and no one seems remotely interested in removing it from the footpath no matter how big or centrally located. Finally, after so many years of tourism the Parisians hqve gotten the art of the truely tacky souvenier down pat. I have actually managed to procure an old fashioned plastic half oval daggy snowdome, with snow in the tricolor… does it get any better than that?
Paris part 2 (tourist stuff) January 1, 2007
Posted by michael in Art, Random Observations, Travel.1 comment so far
Accomadation dramas aside we have seen a lot of amazing stuff here. A quick round up includes:
* the Louvre – quite astounding building (the Grand Hall certainly lives up to its name) and the architecture is just one part of the experience of course with so much important art housed here it is a must see. Just be prepared for all the other tourists to annoy the hell out of you (or maybe thats just me). In addition to the art J reports that the Napoleonic apartments were really interesting and completely over the top; giant chandeliers, gold on the walls etc etc (i missed that bit as i was wandering around looking at thousands of French paintings in another wing). We returned on another day to check out some more and saw the Mona Lisa which frankly was not very exciting, so much of the surrounding art was more appealing and didnt have a thousand tourists taking photos with their mobile phones.
* Notre Dame – for some reason i expected this to be much bigger, dont get me wrong it is pretty huge and impressive just that i had visions of something far larger (same goes for the Eiffel Tower but i’ll come back to that). At Notre Dame we also went into the underground archeological site which was impressive in size and presentation chronicalling centuries of history on that site.
* The Arc de Triumph is suitably impressive but the traffic takes away from the spectacle somewhat as do poxy Italian tourists trying to get their wives to pose in areas beyond the barrier to take photos with thier phone (a prevelant trend that i just fail to understand) but still taking ages to get just the right pose and getting in the way of everyone elses view. Champs Elysee just looks like a big shopping mall with very high prices and yet more tourists (yeah i know we are also tourists but at least we dont stand around taking photos of store windows or in the fake snow and xmas trees that were erected on the side of the street).
* my personal highlight so far has been the visit to the Centre Pompidou with its fantastic post modern building 
and incredible collection of contemporary art (i was so excited apparently i kept grinning and making exclamations of amazement according to J). There was a special exhibition on film in art in addition to the likes of Warhol, Du Champ, Raushenberg, Longo etc etc etc etc you get the idea. Am going to go back another day to see bits we didnt get to so far.
* the Eifell Tower looks kind of impressive from a distance on the skyline but up close is rather underwhelming and smaller than i thought it would be.
* went to the Sewers of Paris ‘museum’ which is situated in part of the actual working sewer system (and smells it too, you can see the waste water running past…) this was really interesting and had a quite informative display of the history of the sewerage systems development from the Roman era, definately worth putting up with the odour. Although am glad that didn’t experience the ’1 metre diameter methane bubbles’ of the open sewers of the 1800s…
* Saint Chapelle – stunning stained glass windows in this historic gothic church from the 13th century.
next part – observations re tourists, parisian waiters and sweets, marketing and other miscelania
Paris Part 1 (change of address) January 1, 2007
Posted by jlsd in Travel.add a comment
HAPPY NEW YEAR from the Pantheon!
As has been alluded to we didnt have the best start to our arrival in Paris. We had deliberately chosen to fly from Prague in order to get here most quickly. In theory it should have taken about 4 to 5 hours. Instead we found ourselves arriving at the hotel bout 12 hours after we left the pension in Prague. we went via Heathrow in the UK and sat on the plane on the tarmac for about an hour and a half while British Airways looked for a baggage handling crew to load the luggage. We left Heathrow after the time we were supposed to arrive in Paris, and it was all the more frustrating waiting and waiting knowing that the flight itself was only 40 minutes long. Once we arrived we discovered that it was not possible to get to our hotel with less than 3 different trains. As it transpired we realised that the information lady at the airport had given us incorrect info and if we had not given up getting lost underground in the Metro and decided to catch a taxi instead, we would have ended up at the wrong station.
It might have been a blessing in disguise if we had not made it to the hotel as i have NEVER stayed anywhere more digusting in my life, including travelling in China and staying in pensions in rural Turkey which turned the electricity off in 50 degree heat. I wont bore you recapping the details (see the entry below) but it was outrageously bad. After 2 nights in this hovel M and I made the very wise decision to find another hotel. We have moved right into the city centre in a very nice hotel which is supposedly only one star better than the last (i think that the first hotel had a fake sign up regarding its accreditation from the Paris Tourism Board). the room that we have tiny but clean and very comfortable. From our window we can see the dome of the Pantheon; and we are on blvd St Michel, just up from blvd St Germain, near the Sorbonne. And whilst we might have a future battle on our hands to get our money back from the booking agency re the first hotel, we are so glad that we decided to move and rescue the remainder of our time in Paris. One positive about the area of the first hotel was that it was in a very multicultural area, and had some interesting shop/restaurants, in particular a rather good Vietnamese place just up the road. And i guess we have seen how some people actually live and travel that is not the usual tourist experience. Like all cities there is a undercurrent of undesirable characters and its not all about the eiffel tower and Notre Dame.
Prague (and a Parisian hotel) December 30, 2006
Posted by michael in Food, Random Observations, Travel.add a comment
writing this in an internet cafe in Paris so will be a brief wrap up of the highlights etc… 
to be honest the train trip to prague was boring. the country side was not very interesting, and seeing as we were the only ones in our cabin we locked the door and slept most of the way between krakow and prague. i woke up to look out the window to see so,e gross heavy industrial factories just before we rolled into Prague. and just like Villinius tyhe actual city is spectacular even if the suburbs are gross.
the old town square in Prague is huge and impressive, what you could see through all the xmas market stalls
for xmas eve dinner (trad xmas is celebrated on xmas eve rather than day in eastern europe) we went to a traditional(?) czech pub called U Kalicha (the chalice) – it was fine and fun in a kind of over the top way; over exuberant waiters, tuba and accordian players walking around, a big room jammed full of tourists (the only trad czechs in the place were the staff).
so apart from the BIG beers and strong apertifs what did we have for our xmas dinner far from home (look out he’s talking about food again…) J had smoked ham and homemade poultry pate which she reports was festive and fun if not a great culinary delight. I had a very yummy czech onion soup followed by roast piglet, not gourmet but certainly good enough for a nice xmas dinner.
on xmas day we went and saw a couple of exhibitions and had a general look around the city. the two exhibitions were a ‘best of’ of the photographer Jan Saudek and a collection of works by the artist Alfons Mucha both in the same building. The Saudek was a bit hit and miss but generally good, Mucha was surprising in the diversity of his work, really good to see. We also visited the Sex Machine Museum, slightly bizarre and strangely intruiging. A brief wander through the old Jewish quarter (ask me later to tell you my theory of the origins of the Golem legend if you want, J thinks it is ridiculous (to use a politer version of what she says)); an amble across the Charles Bridge and a look at the Astronomical clock (less interesting than expected).
We also took a brief tour of the old Jesuit astronomical tower and amazing baroque library (yes we are both library nerds – but it was fantastic to see). The 3 foot tall karate chopping guide was amusing inn his own special way, allegedly he was speaking english but was so fast and rabid it was hard to tell.
On our last full day in Prague we went on a 6 hour walking tour highlights of which included: Prague Castle, boat ride on the river, St Vitus Cathederal, St Nicholas church, St Wenceslas chapel, in addition to some other areas we had already covered ourselves but a bit more detail; Prague is preserved very well as during the second world war it was bombed only twice; once by the allies who mistook it for Dresden, Germany??? and once by the retreating Nazis. The walking tour was good but not as good as the one we did in Berlin a couple of years back, more touristy less historical meat.
Speaking of historical meat, we went the next day on the Communism walking tour of Prague, or rather we walked about 20 metres before stopping and listening to a rather dodgy version of history for a bit before telling the guide we were not going to bother contiuing on his tour (yes that average – ‘the jews left voluntarily before the second world war so not an issue for them when the communists started compulsory property acquisitions’). J had a brief argument with the guide before we went our seperate ways.
So instead of the tour we went and saw some more exhibitions in the lavish art nouveau municipal hall – Grete Popper photos from Prague between the two world wars, v. interesting and a collection of paintings and sculpture under the banner of Dekadance which was ok.
that will do for now – later we will blog about the dramas we have had upon arrival in Paris but see the excerpt of j’s lawyerish email to hotel booking agency to get a bit of a feel for the situation…
Dear Customer Service;
we are extremely unhappy with the hotel we booked through you. we registered a complaint yesterday and you contacted the hotel because our room had
- intolerable smell of mould
- mould growing down the walls
- initially no running water which we realised when we could not flush the toilet
- hole in ceiling
- water coming through the wall to such an extent that my bag was wet in the morning, not damp but wet
- water droplets running down the wall and sitting on skirting board in amongst yet more green mould
- when asked to move us, the hotel needed to go to rooms to ascertain if the rooms were in use. This suggests to me that they do not even know who is in their hotel
- we could not be moved that night and so we stayed in this fetid room for a night
- yesterday we got new room but it did not have a working heater (its winter in Paris); the carpet was wet in places; and there was dried vomit stain that i could still smell on the carpet right beside the bed
- the blankets were stained and more than that with visible food or god knows what on them. Consequently we had a cold night.
- Additionally the ceiling is being held together with tape
- in the breakfast room there are multiple holes in the ceiling with exposed wires
- staff was quite rude this morning when we again spoke with them about it.
I have taken photos of these problems above when I have been able, and will forward them to you when i have returned home.
We are aware that we booked a 2 star cheaper end hotel however i am sure that you will agree that this is intolerable no matter the relative cheapness. we have stayed in better youth hostels than this.
it’s not all bad, don’t panic. will fill in later re the good stuff we are seeing here in Paris.
Krakow, Poland December 23, 2006
Posted by jlsd in Travel.add a comment
Briefly – this may be expanded upon later as we have 15 minutes in an internet cafe in Krakow at present – we have been doing a few other things apart from visting Auschwitz (see post below). we have visited the famous salt mines just out of Krakow and saw just af ew of the 40 underground chapels, including an enormous one that was made by 3 miners after work over 60 years. it has resulted in the site being included on the UNESCO world heriatge list for protection. The air underground is very clear and salt is allegedly good for one’s health, so they have a sanitorium down there for asthma sufferers too (should have M there as he has a terrible cold at the moment and has taken to sneezing upways of half a dozen times per fit). Also underground lakes and a pretty amazing water extraction technique. All very well lit and made safe and visitable for tourist with wooden paths and stairs etc.
We have availed ourselves of the Xmas Market in the enormous Krakow town square and it will surprise no one from my family that M has overdone it on the pierogi and other Polish tastinesses available from vendors. There are fabulous Ukranian accordian players, and horse and carts, which when heard in combination make one feel as though they have been transported back in time, or into a movie set in 19th century Russia.
Our accomodation is ok – not terrible not great pension close to everything. The only memorable thing about it was coming home and finding a naked man in our bathroom! I saw him before I went into the room becasue as soon as I opened the door to the aprtment he was visible. He left pretty quickly after I told him to get out – grabbing his towel and finding somewhere else to clean himself! All a bit shocking really. Have also wondered about the old Jewish quarter today but seeing as it is the Sabbath, all was closed. Also visited the Wawel Castle which is big and very dominant in the landscape. Climbed a bell tower and looked at some crypts.
Oh, and its bloody cold over here too!
Auschwitz- Birkenau December 23, 2006
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Yesterday we went and visited the freezing cold Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. It is the infamous concentration camp site now open to visitors. There were 3 campsites under the title of Auschwitz 1,2, or 3 – and then there were approximately 40 satellite camps in the area. Birkenau is Auschwitz 2, and the biggest extermination camp by far. It was 20 times the size of the converted army barracks where Hesse lived and reigned like a maniac. It is not known how many people exactly died there but estimates have it between 1.5 and 2 million people. It is the biggest Jewish, Roma and Polish cemetary in the world. 80% of all people who came there were sent straight from the cattle car to the gas chambers with no further processing or record of who they were. the remaining 20% lived in the stables (originally built for 52 Polish army horses per barrack.) They housed 600 prisoners on triple bunk beds. Freezing cold and disease ridden, and if you weren’t sent to the gas chambers in the first instance, you had about 12 weeks on average before you died from some other atrocity inflicted upon you.
Auschwitz 1 was smaller than I thought it would be. I had an image of the wooden barracks that were at Birkenau but A1 had solid brick army barracks that were built for housing people. These buildings now house some exhibitions. we saw the hair of 60 ooo murdered women (2 tonnes in all), 40 000 pairs of shoes, mountains of enamel bowls, hairbrushes, spectacles – and suitcases all with the names of the owner and their address – ostensibly so that they could be claimed later. In the manner similar to that of telling the imminently dead that they were having a shower instead of telling them that they were to be killed, the SS lied so as to keep the calm among the inmates and to make it easier to kill them. The Sonderkommando, who were prisoners working in the gas chambers and the crematoria, were housed seperately and were killed after 16 weeks so that they couldn’t confirm for the prisoners what they already suspected. I was struck by the personality of the pile of shoes – that varied from wooden clogs, to sandals and work shoes and to the delicate handmade coloured leather and ribbon shoes. It spoke directly of the people that had died and also reminded me that there is no one ‘Jewishness’ – that the people and cultures are wide and varied.
Apparently the Nazis planned to extend the final solution beyond the Jews and eliminate the rest of the Slavic cultures so that they could have the ‘living space’ required for the Aryan race. This is why Birkenau was in fact only 50% developed when evacuated in January 1945 and was intended to run up until the 1960s as an extermination camp. Now, it has some barracks still in existence. But, apart from a few barracks, mainly there are fields of ruins, with chimneys and a few foundation bricks remaining, surrounded by the light poles and the fence posts that no longer have wire. In their own way they looked skeletal and contributed to the bleakness of the site.
I cannot imagine that that place is anything but cold – as soon as you walk through the gate and see the 3 railway tracks and the precise outlay of the camp, it brings to mind the swarms of people who arrived and travelled through that camp – whether onto death or another attempt at life after the war. There was a low cloudlike fog when we were there and it seemed appropriate somehow. We didn’t have much of a chance to look at anything other than a latrine block and a barrack or bunks. We did get to climb up the observation tower and see the immensity of the camp, and where the gas chambers and crematoria were before being destroyed by fleeing Nazis. I would have liked to have a little more time to wander among the ruins and contemplate things a little more, but unfortunately we couldn’t stay. It’s not fun – but certainly a must for anyone who travels through this way.
back from Berlin December 10, 2006
Posted by michael in Art, Germany, Live Music, Random Observations, Travel.add a comment
Have i mentioned lately how much i love Berlin.
i’m not sure exactly what it is about the place but this trip (i’m just back from a week there), short as it was, has confirmed Berlin as my favourite city in the world (that i’ve set foot in so far).
So, a brief roundup of selected highlights of my trip in no particular order:
- looking at more contemporary art than you can poke a stick at. (and i’ll pre-empt any inevitable joke in the comments with ‘some of it may have indeed been made by poking sticks at things’, right, now that’s out of the way moving right along). seriously, so much interesting art my eyeballs were getting fatigued.
- going up into the dome at the top of the Reichstag building.
- looking around the Memorial To The Murdered Jews of Europe. the memorial itself is interesting to walk around and look at but abstract enough that you can forget what it represents if not careful. i guess it’s tricky finding a balance between presenting a memorial and going too over the top and ramming it down people’s throats. The underground interpretation centre is more formal, well presented and effective.
- buying a bucketload of CDs including (but not limited to) a couple of Iggy Pop bootlegs, Mingus, a 2CD Berlin punk anthology ’77-’89 and a 2nd hand find that may possibly feature the words Cyndi and Lauper and Christmas on the cover.
- watching live jazz at A TRANE. a very small but very cool jazz joint. there were maybe 40 people in the whole place including the band and the staff and it was almost full. i reckon just walking through the door automatically raised my coolness quota by several points. as an added bonus it was only a 10 minute walk from my hotel (30 – 40 minutes if you are a bit tipsy and take a wrong turn on the way back to the hotel a few hours later). the band were pretty good too and the bass players name was Pepe.
- ROCK! Jugend und Musik in Deutschland. an exhibition of music and youth in Germany with everything from a lock of Elvis‘ hair to the current clubbing/techno scene and tons in between – the mixing desk and ephemera from CAN‘s studio, metal ‘drum kit’ used by Einsturzende Neubeauten (i always spell that wrong but can’t be bothered checking it right now), a dress worn by Nina Hagen, guitars signed by Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Ray Davies, Chrissie Hyndes etc etc etc and heaps more. the info was all in German of course but with all the videos, posters, photos, music equipment and assorted other gear it didn’t matter and i had a great time checking it all out along with a few barely suppressed oooohs and ‘f*ck me that’s the[insert whatever piece of rock memorabilia i happen to be gawking at at the time]…‘slipping out occasionaly.
- generaly gawping at architecture in a way that suggests i have half a clue. i don’t. i just like looking at cool/interesting buildings and stuff.
- Matthew Barney and Joseph Beuys at the Deutsche Guggenheim. a small space and some strange installation pieces featuring lots of molded plastic, marble, and huge volumes of petroleum jelly. Barney is the guy who did the Cremaster Cycle or you may know him better as ‘the guy who is currently boinking Bjork’.
- 3 exhibitions at the Museum fur Fotografie.
Private Property – a collection of Helmut Newton miscellanea; photos, letters, cameras, car, mock up of his study etc etc.
Window – Reiner Leist. – hundreds of photos of the same scene taken over years out of his New York apartment window, more interesting than it sounds.
Men, War & Peace – Helmut Newton, James Nachtwey and David LaChapelle. The Newton component was a collection of his portraits of famous men and was of the calibre you’d expect. LaChapelle’s work is amusing in his own special hyper-reality way. Easily the standout though was the amazing, albeit disturbing and graphic, photos by Nachtwey, especially his Balkan war series.
- Hamburger Bahnhof. a HUGE old train station that has been converted into a museum for contemporary art. If names like Robert Raushenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Damien Hirst etc ring any bells you get the idea of the kind of work that is on display here. In addition to works by the aforementioned and many others this museum also had a few special exhibitions (they have different special exhibitions every few months in addition to the permanent display). Two of the special exhibitions were a collection of work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres and a large exhibition under the banner of ‘The Art of Projection’ exploring film, video and installations involving projection of varying types and media from the Christian Flick Collection. i spent a good chunk of a day wandering around the giant halls and highly recommend this place to anyone passing through Berlin that has an interest in modern art.
as an aside i did raise a chuckle earlier in the day passing the antiquities museum on museum insel which had a large neon sign out the front that states ‘All Art Has Been Contemporary’.
- Sowjetisches Ehrenmal(Soviet Memorial, 1949). for sheer over the top-ness. the memorial has two large marble walls with statues of kneeling soldiers in front which open on to a big plaza. the plaza is lined with great big blocks covered in relief designs depicting war scenes and gilt quotations by the likes of Stalin. all of this leading to a big mound, topped by a big plinth, topped by a 13m high statue of a soldier with a child in one hand and a dirty great big sword in the other, standing on top of a broken swastika. subtle.
- Berlin Story. a multimedia (and i don’t just mean a few dodgy videos) exhibition over several levels detailing the history of the city of Berlin from the 13th Century to the present. Extremely well presented and informative. and the entrance price also included a brief tour of a functional atomic fallout shelter. cool. (i will blog about the fallout shelter separatley).
Food Highlights
- one word. currywurst.
- that dark stuff i was drinking at A TRANE. i hesitate to simply call it beer. i started calling it “i’ll have another one of those please.”
Not-Quite-So-High-lights:
- Berlin Zoo. was good but not great. i think i had set my expectations too high before going. they claim to have more different species of animals than any other zoo in the world. i did see some interesting stuff there. amongst other things the several varieties of Madagaskan mongoose were kind of cool. overall the zoo was ok but most of the enclosures looked a bit dated (they are currently renovating some).
- getting soaked to the skin while perambulating up Ku’damm on my first night in town.
- having a muscle spasm and as a result destroying half a tray of glassware at the hotel breakfast buffet with my spastic flailing arm.
- discovering that the hotel was indeed named after the song by the Eagles (shoulda seen that one coming – it was way too obvious) but it was a fine place to stay, especially seeing the cheap deal i got.
- thinking i was about to be mugged by the two very dodgy looking characters on the U-Bahn. one had a shaved head, the other had a mohawk, both had multiple piercings, heavy boots, grotty looking clothes, none of which i took any notice of or gave a second thought until i noticed they were furtively looking about the carriage before making subtle signals to each other and moving to either end of the carriage and blocking off the exits. at this point i started to wonder what was about to happen… turns out they were undercover ticket inspectors.
Berlin. i love it. i saw a bunch of other stuff too but that will suffice as a wrapup for now.
oh, before i sign off a quick aside on workplace health and safety standards in Germany – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
example – sitting in a cafe in Berlin (drinking mighty fine coffee i might add) i was watching through the window two guys dismantling some scaffolding out the front of the building next door. one guy was standing on the scaffolding, two stories up, pulling it apart and half dropping/half throwing the parts (planks of wood, steel tubing, brackets etc etc) over the footpath onto the back of a flatbed truck. the other guy, who was standing on the truck, would then step over stack that piece then step back out of the way before the next piece was chucked down. this sort of thing is not an isolated incident, during our time here in Europe i have seen quite a number of dodgy work practices of varying types and degrees of scariness. for one thing i certainly will no longer walk under ladders without looking up anymore.
Conclusion: yes. I. am. a. nerd. (but a nerd who has been to Berlin. twice.)
