Aug. 6
I saw in TimeOut (the weekly entertainment magazine) that Architecture In Helsinki was going to be playing a show at Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen - a very small venue - for only £5 (no advance tickets). I had wanted to to go to their show later in the month, but it was already sold-out. Stephanie decided that we would show up early to ensure tickets. Doors were at 7:30 - we got there around 6:30, and secured a spot, first in line. Of course doors did not open til 9:00, but we were first ones in and grabbed a seat at the front of the stage, where we waited another hour for the band to start. Regardless, it was a GREAT show.
August 9 - 12 BERLIN!!!!!
Our trip started at 2:30am Thursday morning. We had to walk to the night bus, so we could get to Victoria Station, so we could catch the airport coach, and make it to our 7am flight. Other than being tired, it was pretty easy.
We arrived in Berlin - they have a great metro and I'd printed off maps and directions to all of our destinations. I entertained Stephanie by reading aloud from a German newspaper - no idea what I was saying, but at least I knew the pronunciations - Thanks Frau Barnes.
Stephanie has a thing for taking self-portraits in differents bathrooms. Here we are in the bathroom at Berlin Schonefield Airport.
This is the hostel we stayed in Thursday night. East Berlin, where it is located, it full of Plattenbauten - huge apt. buildings made of pre-fabricated concrete slabs. It was a quick and cheap way for the GDR to solve their houseing shortage, and was attempt to create communities that were self-contained (includng schools, shops, etc.) - a good thing, when you want to keep and eye on the people. Our hostel was great - clean, quiet, private room, with a bathroom, & free breakfast. No perks, but perfect nonetheless.
After settling into the hostel, we deciding to walk to the East Side Gallery - it is 1200 yard long piece of the Berlin Wall, that has been painted by 118 artists - the world longest art gallery. Most of the graffitti was done after the wall came down. On the east side of the wall, you would have been shot if you were close enough to do graffitti. Berlin is covered in spray-paint, normally it would bother me, but in Berlin, it looked right. I even added some of my own graffiti.
The wall was reinforced with a steel skeleton, so that people wouldn't be able to drive cars through it, or bomb holes in it. It also had a pipe, that ironically was purchased from West Germany, on top, so that people trying to escape wouldn't be abe to get a good grip to climb over. It's ironic, that this piece of the wall that was once intended to "protect" the people of East Berlin fro the outside world, now has a fence around it, to protect it from the people.
Germans are known for their stinginess, and thriftiness - While walking around Stephanie and I discovered a huge 5 story thrift store. Unfortunatly, Germans are also known for their bad taste in clothing -so after spending an hour in the store, we came away empty-handed, although next time I need an 80's party dress, I know where to go. The heat and our lack of sleep started to get to us, so we went back to the hostel for a nap, and then had an all-you-can-eat Bavarian feast at the hostel restaurant. We attempted to go out that night but didn't have much luck - had a drink at an extravigantly decorated Indian restaurant, walked around the city in the dark. Here's me trying to decide on a cocktail, and a wall that was decorated with 100s of little silver tags.
The next morning, we got up early, had a quick breakfast at the hostel, and went to meet a tour group. There is a company that does free tours in several European cities. Their philosophy is - do a free general tour, make it really entertaining, and people will come back for a more specific paid tour.... of course the guides that do the free tours accept tips at the end. We didn't think we would stay for the entire thing - it lasted about 4 hours, and we walked all over east Berlin - but our tourguide was great - a young Aussie girl, obsessed with German history.
This is The Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It is a field of 2,700 concrete slabs - kind of weird to walk thru - people disappear and reappear as you walk around. Even with tons of people around you, for a few seconds you can be totally alone. An interesting piece of trivia, which is also pretty controversial - the same company that provide the anti-graffiti agent to the memorial, also made poison gas that was used in the Nazi death camps.
The is a random cobblestone path that runs throughout Berlin - we found out that it's actually not so random -it's where the Berlin Wall once stood. One foot on the east, one foot on the west.
Other things we saw were The Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, an Indian guy playing native american flutes in the middle of Pariser Platz and lots of other stuff.
This giant mural is supposed to show what an ideal Socialist society is supposed to be like. It's painted on tiles, and stuck on the wall of a massive building that HItler built. Most of the remnants of East Berlin have been removed, but the city decided to keep this mural. They balanced it out, by putting a huge sculpture in front of the mural, that has a photograph on it of a march of the east berliners in the late 60s (I think). The police were told to shoot people, and there wasn't another uprising until 1989.
I also found a Reutlinger Strasse on the map, and Stephanie and I found it, walked down it, and took a picture. It was a street full of gardens - seemed appropriate.
After the tour, we returned to the hostel to get our bags and tent, and went to The Rebel Jam. We didn't arrive until around 5pm, set up our tent, and spent the rest of the evening just hanging out. There were quite a few BMXer's there that I know from the USA. so it was good to see everyone. There was an art show at the venue that night, and hot dogs being sold by Big Pimpin' Tony, an ex-US military guy that opened a Big Pimpin Hot Dogs in Berlin.
Our night in the tiny tent was fine, until about 9am Saturday morning when it started pouring rain. Trapped in the leaking tent, we decided the best course of action was to go back to sleep. I awoke 40 minutes with a completely soaked ass - my skirt had been touching the side of the rain soaked tent, and had absorbed water like a sponge. The rain started to let up, so we piled all our stuff in the center of the tent, covered with my poncho, and ran for the breakfast tent, figuring we'd deal with our stuff when the rain stopped. (In the end, our stuff was fairly dry, but the tent floor was a huge puddle, so we ended up staying that night in a friend's hotel room.) The entire day was spent waiting for the rain to stop, watching BMX, and eating - we had both athlete wristbands and press passes so we got free food -YAH! That night everyone was pretty tired, so we just hung at the hotel and listened to BMX politics - ie BMXers talking shit on other BMXers.... I was disapointed that we never really got the chance to check out Berlin nightlife - I guess it give me a reason to go back. :)
On Sunday we went back to Berlin city centre and walked around some more - we saw Potsdammer Platz, found postcards and then went back to Rebel Jam to try and catch the dirt jumping contest. Of course the rain had delayed everything, so we ended up having to leave in the middle of it. I did get to use my small German vocab while getting a cab to the airport. Back to London and home around 2:30 Monday morning. The End.
