Germany - Berlin - A Smorgasbord of Interesting Everything

Margaux and I hopped on our plane to Berlin on Sunday morning, eager to flee from the thieving streets of Barcelona to the land of ze Germans. Margaux had been to Berlin already, but it so enthralled her that she was more than willing to return. Having now been there myslef, I can certainly see why. Berlin has over 150 museums, a thriving arts and cultural scene and great nightlife and food. Why doesnt everyone live here? It has everything.

We scored big time through Mehron, who hooked us up with her friend Mael in Berlin. Mael offered to put us up at his apartment in Kreuzberg, just south of the main tourist sites. Which was incredibly generous and hospitable, especially in light of the fact that he was out of town the entire time we were there. In fact, another of his roommates was also out of town, and the remaining dweller of the apartment we saw all of twice in four days, so in fact, we scored essentially a private apartment in Berlin!

That being said, it was a sequence of incredibly random events that ended with our successful arrival to the apartment. First off, we had to get from Schoenefeld airport to Kreuzberg, which appeared fairly simple on the metro maps. However, when we got to the metro station, we could not figure out for the life of us how to find our train. We knew our train number and we knew we were at the right station, however, there was no board posting which train would go from which platform. Margaux somehow deciphered a secondary train code from a yellow piece of paper of fine print on platform four, which somehow informed her we should go to platform seven, where indeed our train appeared.

Arriving to Kottbusser Tor station in Kreuzberg a good while later, and having not been fed on our easyjet flight, we could help but notice our energy was dwindling and we had yet to search for the actual apartment. It was nearly instantly agreed upon that we would stop for kebabs at the recommended Hasir restaurant on Adalbertstrasse, and true to reviews, it was ridiculously delicious! Feeling refueled and ready to set out, we prowled Adalbertstrasse for the retrieval location of the apartment key: the corner store. Yes, really. Apparently when our hosts are out of town, they sometimes leave their keys with the convenience store for others to pick up. Passing by three drunk Germans on the picnic table outside the store (picnic tables and benches line the streets outside of shops here for the public drinkers looking for a place to people watch) who either tried to hit on us or panhandle for money, I entered the shop and announced I was Holly and was there a key for me. The cashier started looking around with little success, and we were getting nervous, but then her mother appeared from the back of the store and they exchanged some hurried German and a key was produced. Check.

We had no trouble then finding the apartment building, however, we belatedly realized that Mael had not mentioned the apartment number or floor. The directory listing was under his roommate, who last name I didnt know, so that was no help. Guess who got to go door to door trying the key in each lock until they found one that opened? One man heard us trying to get in and hurried out to eye us suspiciously. Thankfully, he didnt call the police on us.

In case you are curious, it turns out Mael lives on the sixth floor.



Our first priority for sightseeing was to do the free New Berlin walking tour, which was as excellent as people said it would be. Sights seen included Brandenburg Gate (whose Victory statue sits over Pariserplatz/Paris Place and stares ominously in the direction of the French embassy in the courtyard), the Adlon Hotel (better known as the baby dangling hotel of MJ infamy where the presidential suite costs 12,000€ per night), Tiergarten and the Reichstag (the government buildings in Germany now all include a lot of glass sections of architecture to emphasize their renewed focus on government transparency), the memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe also known as the Holocaust memorial, the site of Hitlers suicide bunker, the tax office (a former Nazi building, then used by the Soviets, now by the revenue service), the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Bebelplatz (site of the Nazi burning of 20,000 books), the Kathe Kollwitz victims of war memorial, and Museums Island (home of the Pergamon museum, Berliner Dom, and many others).



Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and struck a great balance between communicating the history of Berlin and Germany and the struggle to come to terms with its past, while still providing humour and pop trivia about this place and people as well.



We also went inside the Pergamon museum to see the Pergamon Altar and massive frieze depicting the war between the ancient Greek gods and the Giants, a famous market gate whose name escapes my memory at the moment, and the reconstruction of Babylons Ishtar Gate. We saw other things in the museum as well, such as Assyrian and Islamic artefacts, like the towers from Mshatta, but the big three were the standout items for sure. We then picnicked in Tiergarten (we self-catered a lot in Berlin knowing Munich and Oktoberfest was going to kill our bank accounts shortly), wandered through the Holocaust memorial at our leisure once more, and then walked over to the Kulturforum to check out an art gallery, only to realize we were WAY behind schedule.

The tricky thing about Berlin is that it is very spacious. The blocks go for half a kilometer or longer sometimes, so what looks like a 10 minute, 4 block walk on the map in fact is a 2km 30 minute journey. We kept forgetting this, so our schedule had to be amended constantly. Plus our priority on this particular day was to go on a pub crawl.



We made it to the first bar just ten minutes before the free beer was done, so just in the nick of time! The crawl took us to four bars and a nightclub, and I was suitably impressed with the variety and quality of atmosphere in the bar scene here. The first bar was a backyard beach junkyard, if you can imagine that. The second was the worlds tiniest hole in the wall with great music, the third was arrayed with a cheesy disco ball and winding black leather couches, while the fourth was all white and red. The club was pretty average and took almost half an hour to get to, so I was less impressed there. Didnt help that two guys looking to rumble knocked my beer out of my hand and it smashed on the floor. Margaux and I also spent a good deal of time avoiding an undaunted very short Irish man who continued to chase us around despite being repeatedly told we would under no circumstances be going home with him. Sigh. This is why Im getting too old for clubs. But the dancing was spot on, so we overcame and stayed out late dancing our brains out.

The other thing that greatly impressed both of us was the Jewish Museum, which I had as a mandatory outing since studying it in my Masters program, when we were looking at the different ways the world has tried to commemorate and educate people about genocide. We spent almost four hours in this museum, which had two massive floors portraying the history of Jewish people in Europe from medieval times until after WWII. But for me the most engaging and affecting part of the museum was the underground level which was an intersection of hallways named the Axis of Exile and the Axis of the Holocaust. The architecture was the most outstanding feature of the museum and I was truly overwhelmed at how successfully the architect had made voids and empty spaces refer to the absence of the missing victims of the Holocaust. Standing inside the base of the Holocaust Tower, the voided void, was unforgettable. And the Garden of Exile, a series of 25 blocks with the ground tilting at an angle causing dislocation and a real loss of equilibrium, was equally thought provoking. I had to wonder when it was built in relation to the Holocaust Memorial (which allows you to see what you see and works on a lot of levels of understanding), since there were similarities between the two.



Were also greatly enjoying the German language, which inevitably sounds incredibly serious or incredibly silly. Our favourite game lately is to random read sentences we find aloud to each other with an exclamation point. Weve mastered the following essential phrases:

Wilkommen - welcome
Gutentag - good day
Bitte - please or youre welcome
Danke - thanks
Bier - beer
Nein Deutsch - No German
Ausgang - exit
Ampelmann - traffic light man (who is revered by Berliners and is totally adorable with his hat and strut. They have whole stores of Ampelmann gear here)

Will try to expand vocabulary more for Munich and Oktoberfest, where we are meeting up with Margaux's friends Chad, Bronwyn, Trevor, Taylor, Greg and Ryan to revel in the beer halls. Wish us luck!

Spain - Barcelona - Take Three: The Margaux Meet-Up

After a chilled out last night in Madrid drinking 1.50€ boxes of sangria while playing Crazy Eights with some fellow Canadians, I hurriedly set out for my last round of BCN on a Saturday morning, on time thanks to a borrowed alarm from a roommate (still havent replaced my cheap watch alarm that was nicked on the bus). Turns out I had once again grossly misjudged the amount of time it would take me to transit from Madrid to Girona to Barcelona to meet up with Josh and Margaux, my friends who were wrapping up their romantic post engagement Spanish vacation before Margaux set out with me to Germany. Worse, I picked the worlds dumbest meeting point. Read on.



My flight landed at 230pm, and my shuttle from Girona airport which I boarded at 3pm took 1.5 hours to get me to the main bus station in the city. From there I still had to make my way to my hostel on Passeig de Gracia, check in, shower (which so did NOT happen) and plow over to Placa Catalunya to meet my friends. I had appointed the time of meeting as 5pm. At 530pm Im stumbling out the door of my hostel (where the worlds slowest elevator had cost me many precious minutes getting me to the ground floor!) still pulling on my sandals and trying to hustle the ten minute walk to the plaza.

Of course, a spontaneous book fair had sprung up on Gracia so hordes of ambling siestaing Spaniards were blocking my path. I elbowed my way through and emerged to find an even more gigantic horde of afternoon amblers in the plaza. Such a terrible meeting point. Thankfully I took an educated guess that they would be sitting somewhere at this point because I was almost an hour late, and scouted the statues until lo and behold, from behind a newspaper, I espied them at the top of Las Ramblas!

Unfortunately I had also designated this place as a meeting point for a girl Id met on the plane, but finding her and being so late, it was a lost cause. We headed out to Caelum in the Gothic Quarter, a very cool place with a sweets shop on the ground level and a cavernous desserts restaurant in the basement. Imagine going out for a candlelit dessert in Lord of the Rings, most likely in the neighbourhood of the dwarves or the hobbits and you will have some impression of what this place was like. Additionally, fantastic hot chocolate on offer. Look into it if you ever find yourself in these parts.







After a brief stop in the hostel for a drink and some tapas, we went to dinner at Ra, a well recommended restaurant behind La Boqueria off Las Ramblas. Dinner was delicious, the wine was good, but the service was lousy. Josh literally had to chase down the waiter to pay the bill. Worse, we later discovered that Margauxs wallet was lifted there at some point, though we were hard pressed to figure out when. There is a high likelihood that it was our waiter, since he was the only one near our table.

Sigh. Oh, Barcelona. You would be such a great city were it not for your relentless pickpockets! They really do spoil it.

Spain - Segovia - Possibly the Prettiest City

Having exhausted the main sights of Madrid, including a stop by the Temple of Debod, an Egyptian temple moved here stone by stone from Aswan in the 1970s, and a second tour of the Reina Sofia (which turns to have an entire annex building I didn't see the first time around!), it was time to freshen things up and take a day tour.

Number one on my must do day trips from Madrid was Segovia. It's about an hour by bus, and twice as pretty as Toledo with half the hills and half the tourists. Segovia was absolutely lovely. I convinced fellow hosteller Lynn from Adelaide, Australia to join me for the day and she was more than happy with her choice. The whole of the historic quarter is walkable in two hours and is positively enchanting.



Segovia is perhaps best known for its acueducto, a Roman aqueduct built in the 1st century AD over 14,000m long that used to run water from the source all the way to the Alcazar of Segovia (local palace, greatly resembles fairy tale castles, including shiny turrets, majestic ramparts, deep moat and sweeping vistas of the countryside).



The aqueduct was entrancing - it's massive at over 27m high at some points, with arches galore and it winds through the whole town. Very impressive and thanks to careful restoration work, in perfect shape and condition.



We walked its length through the town right to where it first comes above ground near the bus station. Such a small beginning for what turns into a colossal piece of architecture and engineering.



Other highlights on the must-see list are the requisite massive cathedral in the Plaza Mayor and of course the Alcazar.



We also greatly enjoyed walking the outskirts of the old town where the views of the mountainous countryside and the aqueduct were great. Aside from the official sights, Segovia is lovely just to wander around with lots of lantern-lit alleys and hanging plants on the storeys of balconies overhead. Toledo was cool in its fortress-like atmosphere; Segovia is the fairytale European city everyone is looking for to spend an afternoon strolling around. So glad I made it here!

Spain - Madrid - I Heart This Place

By the time I left Barcelona, I was having an inkling of travel fatigue. And after blitzing over to Toledo from Madrid, the inkling had manifested into a solid sense of weariness. Fortunately, it struck at a very opportune time, namely after I had discovered the greatness that is Madrid. Now Madrid does not have the big river, the big landmark monuments or the renown of other capital cities in Europe, but it has plenty to offer. I have found it an extremely pleasant city to slow the pace and savour the moment.



So instead of doing all the tourist sights in three days as usual, I settled into my fantastic hostel for more than a week. Instead of rising early to pack in my days, I sleep in until whenever I feel like getting up. Instead of reluctantly eating yet another free white bread toast and strawberry jam hostel breakfast, I can cook myself a cheese and tomato omelette with proper toast. Instead of jetsetting about town, I can leisurely peruse one attraction at a time, with siesta breaks and sidestreet ambles abound. Instead of trying to fill myself up on tapas or some fried or cured ham related product, I can defend myself against the onset of scurvy with an all vegetable stirfry. It´s definitely the little things that refresh the travel spirit.

And Madrid has some pretty great things to explore, many of which are free. I went to the Prado museum, a massive labyrinth of masterpiece paintings dating from 1100-1850, with some big names in the bunch. I don´t know a ton about art, but courtesy of my Spanish minor in university, I am familiar with the Spanish Greats, so I was delighted to bump into old friends such as Velasquez, Goya and El Greco. Nerd alert sounded high when I recognized Velasquez´Las Meninas and Goya´s Saturno (a painting of Saturn eating one of his children - so much grosser in real life than in the prints!). I do have to say that while the Prado has a very impressive collection, I wasn´t super keen on it... a lot of portraits, a lot of Jesus dying horribly on the cross, a lot of dark themes.



In contrast, I absolutely loved the Reina Sofia museum, the home of Madrid´s modern art. Again, big names abound... Klee, Miro, Kandinsky, Dali, Picasso, and many more. It´s also home to Picasso´s famous Guernika painting depicting the gassing of the Basque town. Four marvelous floors of all kinds of different art, a little something for everyone. Lovely.




My wanders have also taken me by the Palacio Real which is the official residence of Spain´s monarchy despite never living there, to Plaza Mayor where street musicians have been known to play entire tribute sets to the Beatles inspiring random 50 yr old British tourists to sing along loudly, and into the Mercado de San Miguel for tapas and sangria, along over to Retiro Park where Madrilenos pay to ride a ferry on a pond and upwards of twenty African drummers beat in unison on weekend afternoons, and into the circus that is El Rastro, a massive sprawling flea market that overtakes La Latina´s neighbourhood every Sunday selling 2€ pashminas, antiques, harem pants (still not happy with the popularity of these universally unflattering pants in Europe), bootleg DVDs and CDs, art, fans, and everything in between.

Spain - Toledo - Heat and Hills

The world´s least motivated bus ride got me to Madrid from Barcelona in about nine hours on Saturday. The bus literally stopped every 1.5 hours for a twenty minute break, and for half an hour in Zaragoza to pick up more passengers. Better yet, my watch was stolen right off my wrist while I and my seatmate were napping sometime on the ride, meaning I once again have no means of setting an alarm clock or of knowing the time generally. It wasn´t even worth stealing. I bought it for $5 at a Walmart and it has a crack in the screen face. That was my third watch this trip. Sigh...

After poking around Madrid a bit and discovering it´s much to my liking, I decided to spend a little more time here after my hectic time in Barcelona. It´s a good place to do day trips from such as Avila, Cuenca and Toledo. So off I went to Toledo with Eugenia from Buenos Aires on Monday. A licketysplit train got us there in half an hour and we were suitably impressed with the fortressed city on the mountain.



What we had not anticipated was the hills and heat we would have to contend with to explore said city. The walk from the train station was an ominous start, already 35 degrees and over 1 km straight upward incline. And that got us to the Wall of the old city. Fortunately, Eugenia´s friend Michaelangelo met up with us with his car and as a Toledo local, chauffeured us around the worst of the hills and took us to the Parador hotel on the hill opposite to get the best vista of Toledo.



After he went back to work, we wandered around the churches and old buildings, revelling in the Roman, Spanish and Islamic architecture and despising the intensity of the sun, lack of shade and upward leading streets in all directions. By the end of the day, I was dangerously close to yet another round of heat exhaustion, and narrowly escaped my doom with a well timed yogourt shake break before our train back to Madrid.



Fun fact... did you know Toledo has been a renown region for sword making? Now you know.

Spain - Barcelona - Take Two: Rob and Gaudi

Alright so to sum up round two of my time in Barcelona, I have to say the words ¨fun¨ and "naked" come to mind.



After a tiny caffuffle over which day Rob and his friends were arriving to Barcelona that left me spending a night politely turning down drinkfest invitations from 18yr old Australians and keeping an eye on the slightly dodgy older Bulgarian gentleman eyeing my bag when I could have been already hanging out with my friend Rob, I did eventually successfully meet up with him.

Now Rob is another exchange student from Australia I met in Halifax and he seems to take international gallivanting to a whole new level. Every time I email him, he´s somewhere unexpected. He was in Rome. Then back in Aus. Then doing a pPhD in Norway. Then in China. Then in Spain (where I could most easily catch up with him). And I have to say that after three years, he hasn´t changed too much.



I had some challenges finding the rental apartment he was staying in in the Gothic Quarter, a labyrinth of narrow alleys and signless locked doors. I definitely walked in two giant circles, leaving me very hot and sweaty, then buzzed the wrong apartment twice before success. Success in the form of Rob in his boxers having raced down three flights of stairs to let me in. And of course, since we needed bread for breakfast, we headed straight to the bakery, as is. No shoes, no shirt, no pants and then me with my backpack. A fairly comical picture for passersby to say the least. The bakery lady didn't bat an eyelash. After all, this is the city where the city beach has topless sunbathers at all hours of the day and a naked man rides his bicycle on Las Ramblas in the middle of the afternoon. Considering Barcelona is known to be a stylish city, I hadn't expected so much public nudity.

I passed a very fun three days with Rob and his friends. Highlights include lazing on La Barceloneta beach indulging in 5 Euro massages, taking a fancy cheese, figs and baguette picnic to the Font Magica night light show (just as good the second time!), and general mojito and sangria related merriment por las noches. We also did a Gaudi extravaganza, taking in Casa Battlo, La Pedrera, Sagrada Familia (sorry, I really didn't like it), and Parc Guell (I loved it!). I also enjoyed when the same salesman who tried to get Marie to buy a children's shirt plastered with profanities in Spanish tried to sell me more tourist crap, then recognized me and backed off in shame (I rebuked him more than a little on our last meeting).