02/08/09 09:58PM
a fellow traveler who'd passed through these parts before i did was asked what his favourite city in the world was. his response:
"East Berlin."
me, i've not been all over the world so i'll hold my tongue at this point. still, i found it to be an interesting assertion. certianly, lying in my bunk on the night train to Krakow, Poland, it occurs to me that i spent FAR more time in East Berlin than i did in West, but then i also have a certain fascination with Communism and its artifacts. by the time The Wall went up the population of East Berlin had dropped by a sixth from people getting the hell out of the Soviet-controlled area, which is why it was erected in the first place. on one night in the Red Army rolled barbed wire and soldiers out across , surrounding and encapsulating West Berlin, preventing anyone who was in the East from getting back. people visiting friends and family, or just out for a night on the town, were stuck and unable to return expect for in extreme circumstances. apartment buildings built in Soviet period tended to be the stereotypical concrete monstrosities you envision when you think "Communist architecture", so when The Wall fell the East was left somewhat underpopulated and seriously low-rent. now what sort of people congregate where the rent is cheap but comfortable? criminals! and artists (which some may consider to have a high instance of correlation, although i'm not one to judge). one way or another, East Berlin is Interesting without actually trying to be, and it's where you head to check out the Alternative vibe, or engage in adventurous passtimes like Urban Exploration.
UE is, basically, checking out old, disused parts of a city. in its purest form it's very much a "leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photos" sort of activity which is dangerous only in so much as that you want to make sure you avoid security guards and that your tetanus shots are up to date. Matti's plan for yesterday was to head out to an old abandoned amusement park in the East called Spreepark, then move on to the old abandoned military airfield. we picked up a couple of people at the Expats Drinks evening the night before, met at Alexanderplatz and rocked on. alas, Maia stopped every 5 seconds to take photos which kept us from moving too quickly and the Spreepark had far too many people in it to really get into and explore when we were there, and our lack of pace meant that by the time we'd walked around it, got in, evacuated at great speed and got back to the train station we were out of time to get to the airfield. it was an interesting expedition though - checking out what we could see through the fence, and exploring an old building nearby which seemed structually sound, but long-disused.
it's the sort of thing i'd like to try again in a smaller, better equipped group - specifically where everyone understands the idea of "time limit". hell - i reckon that with a bit of research i could spend a week just checking out old installations and facilities that have been abandoned and lie in wait of some developer with some spare credit to come through and transform them into something new. one way or another, out of time and getting hungry we made a beeline for the shop which allegedly introduced the Berlin-style kebab and stuffed outselves silly for all of 3.50 Euros. Matti went his way and i went mine to meet up with some of the Busabout folks and chill out for the evening. we'd done a lot in two days seeing the WWII artifacts and memorials, checking out the Charlottenberg (like a smaller Versailles) and meandering down the East Side Gallery - a 1.3km stretch of The Wall left intact, covered in a mixture of commissioned artwork and vintage graffiti where, if you know where you're looking you can find bars set up between the wall and the Spree river who truck in tons of white sand and create little beach-bars. we spent an hour or two in one of those drinking dark hefe wiezen and enjoying the sunshine before moving on to vegan food in Freidrichshain.
today i flew solo. most of the people i knew had left on the bus that morning, and with my train at 9:45PM i had the day to myself, so i plotted some points on the map and attacked them. i found the Stazi Museum (which was unfortunately closed), passed through the Trend Mafia Markets which were cool, if small, then screamed down to Potsdamerplatz where the Harley Days motorcycle meetup was parked up and down the road, then headed back to the Topography of Terror Holocaust Memorial to have a better look. it's an interesting memorial - 2711 concrete blocks of various heights built on an undulating piece of ground which you can walk through. it's laid out as a grid, so you go through in straight-lines, but as you go you see people passing through on different lines, only to disappear when they change course. in the middle of the city, it's quiet in there where the blocks rise a couple of feet over head-height, and eerie. i like it. the designer kept the meaning of the arrangement to himself, so it's up to the individual to interpret what it means to them. sounds pretty wanky, but it's also extremely effective at the same time, making you really think about it as you go. beneath is an exhibition which i found to be quite moving, outlining the timeline of Nazi persecution, then moving on to show transcripts of letter written by Jewish prisoners, German soldiers, Nazi officials, all laid out in lit patches of the floor in a darkened room. in fact, most of it's dark in there. there's the black, unlit room where the names of the dead are projected on the wall and voices in English and German are read out, along with a brief speil about who they were, what they did and how they died. i'm told that if you wanted to sit there waiting for it to repeat it'd take 10 years to go through.
now THAT is fucked up.
then there's the room where monoliths hang from the ceiling, looking like replicas of the ones above on the surface, explaining the fates of a number of families - where they came from, their occupations, where they were sent and who survived to war. it's solemn and heartrending and completely worth visiting.
i've heard people talk about reparation and retribution for the crimes committed by the Nazis, and how the German people should shoulder the burden of the events of 1937 to 1945... and i wonder how you ever could. how can a nation ever try to make up for genocide? how can you explain to a child that actions taken by ancestors they never knew would haunt them for the rest of their lives? i don't think it could ever be done, but i'm glad that such an effort's been made to mark those times and ensure that people never forget that it happened, that monsters really do exist and that they walk the streets with human faces rather than hide under the bed.
coming out of the exhibition i wandered over to where Hitler's Bunker sits mouldering in pieces under a carpark and stood for a while pondering, and while i looked around i noticed the Mythos Germania exhibit which explains the bunkers used by Nazi officials in the area, as well as how even the underground railway tunnels were separated during the Cold War, all the way through the reunification and the final removals of all traces of the old bunkers. all traces of the bunker where Hitler and Eva Braun spent their final days have been removed specifically to ensure that it can never become a shrine for Neo-Nazis, but you can still stand over where the remains sit buried. Mythos Germaina is diagonally across from the Topography of Terror. sitting between them on the east side of the road i noticed the Berlin Souveniers store selling tshirts and key rings next to the cafe where Matti and i had stopped for coffee 2 days previously and suddenly found myself feeling more than a little cheapened and disgusted by the juxtapositon.
there's no fucking helping some people, i swear.
so i moved on and headed back past the Brandenburg Gate, circled around and along the river a little ways, then went and sat on the grass in front of the Reichstag for a bit so that i'd get a chance to see it in the daytime, investigated the Tiergarten (avoiding the nudist area), then meandered gradually back to the hostel. an interesting aspect of West Berlin is the number of open gardens you can find. when The Wall went up it prevented any access in and out of West Berlin apart from train or plane, and with the cost of air travel in those days it wasn't the sort of thing a family could do just to get out of the city for a while. this meant that if people wanted to get out into nature they hit the park. the Tiergarten is just one of these, and it's the size of a small suburb, full of patches of forest surrounding avenues of grass with statues and water features. as i cruised through it i saw families having picnics, people lying around reading books and sunbathing, couples having quiet moments cuddled up together. it seemed a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, and reminded me of London in no small way.
as i walked around aimlessly i came across a cluster of big rocks sitting in the grass with a plaque nearby which explained that a Berliner had sailed himself around the world picking up massive chunks of rock from the various continents and dragged them to this spot, leaving "sister" rocks in the original locations which he polished up on their Berlin-facing sides so that on one particular day the sun would hit them all simultaneously and bounce the light back to the ones in Berlin, linking Berlin with the rest of the world. i looked around the field and noticed a chunk of red stone with a couple of guys sitting on it so i wandered over and, recognising their accents asked
hey boys, d'ya reckon this is the Aussie stone then?
"What's that?"
so i explained what i'd seen on the sign and they looked at the rock speculatively
fuckin' crazy, isn't it?
"I reckon. Who'd've thought it? You come half-way around the world and wind up sitting on a rock from bloody home!"
i'd had about enough by the time i tramped back down Unter Den Linden to the hostel, so i killed the last couple of hours sitting around getting a few things organised on the net and making sure i got to the right train station good and early. some time soon i'll pass into Poland, and by the time i'm done there i reckon i'll have had about as much Holocaust history as i can stand. i've really enjoyed Berlin, although i can't help but feel that i'm nowhere near done with the place. when i first visited Amsterdam i had a long conversation with SpeedFox about whether or not we could live there. he'd just interviewed for a job there so it was a bit of a hot topic for him, and by the end of the day we'd pretty much agreed that neither of us would really enjoy it that much. Berlin, on the other hand, has probably knocked Paris out of my Top European City To Live In charts. i don't know if i'll get the chance, but i'll definately have to find some excuse to come back at some point in the future.
meanwhile it's time to see how well i sleep on a rocking, clicking train. at least neither of the guys i'm sharing the cabin with are snoring, so that's a bonus...
a fellow traveler who'd passed through these parts before i did was asked what his favourite city in the world was. his response:
"East Berlin."
me, i've not been all over the world so i'll hold my tongue at this point. still, i found it to be an interesting assertion. certianly, lying in my bunk on the night train to Krakow, Poland, it occurs to me that i spent FAR more time in East Berlin than i did in West, but then i also have a certain fascination with Communism and its artifacts. by the time The Wall went up the population of East Berlin had dropped by a sixth from people getting the hell out of the Soviet-controlled area, which is why it was erected in the first place. on one night in
UE is, basically, checking out old, disused parts of a city. in its purest form it's very much a "leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photos" sort of activity which is dangerous only in so much as that you want to make sure you avoid security guards and that your tetanus shots are up to date. Matti's plan for yesterday was to head out to an old abandoned amusement park in the East called Spreepark, then move on to the old abandoned military airfield. we picked up a couple of people at the Expats Drinks evening the night before, met at Alexanderplatz and rocked on. alas, Maia stopped every 5 seconds to take photos which kept us from moving too quickly and the Spreepark had far too many people in it to really get into and explore when we were there, and our lack of pace meant that by the time we'd walked around it, got in, evacuated at great speed and got back to the train station we were out of time to get to the airfield. it was an interesting expedition though - checking out what we could see through the fence, and exploring an old building nearby which seemed structually sound, but long-disused.
it's the sort of thing i'd like to try again in a smaller, better equipped group - specifically where everyone understands the idea of "time limit". hell - i reckon that with a bit of research i could spend a week just checking out old installations and facilities that have been abandoned and lie in wait of some developer with some spare credit to come through and transform them into something new. one way or another, out of time and getting hungry we made a beeline for the shop which allegedly introduced the Berlin-style kebab and stuffed outselves silly for all of 3.50 Euros. Matti went his way and i went mine to meet up with some of the Busabout folks and chill out for the evening. we'd done a lot in two days seeing the WWII artifacts and memorials, checking out the Charlottenberg (like a smaller Versailles) and meandering down the East Side Gallery - a 1.3km stretch of The Wall left intact, covered in a mixture of commissioned artwork and vintage graffiti where, if you know where you're looking you can find bars set up between the wall and the Spree river who truck in tons of white sand and create little beach-bars. we spent an hour or two in one of those drinking dark hefe wiezen and enjoying the sunshine before moving on to vegan food in Freidrichshain.
today i flew solo. most of the people i knew had left on the bus that morning, and with my train at 9:45PM i had the day to myself, so i plotted some points on the map and attacked them. i found the Stazi Museum (which was unfortunately closed), passed through the Trend Mafia Markets which were cool, if small, then screamed down to Potsdamerplatz where the Harley Days motorcycle meetup was parked up and down the road, then headed back to the Topography of Terror Holocaust Memorial to have a better look. it's an interesting memorial - 2711 concrete blocks of various heights built on an undulating piece of ground which you can walk through. it's laid out as a grid, so you go through in straight-lines, but as you go you see people passing through on different lines, only to disappear when they change course. in the middle of the city, it's quiet in there where the blocks rise a couple of feet over head-height, and eerie. i like it. the designer kept the meaning of the arrangement to himself, so it's up to the individual to interpret what it means to them. sounds pretty wanky, but it's also extremely effective at the same time, making you really think about it as you go. beneath is an exhibition which i found to be quite moving, outlining the timeline of Nazi persecution, then moving on to show transcripts of letter written by Jewish prisoners, German soldiers, Nazi officials, all laid out in lit patches of the floor in a darkened room. in fact, most of it's dark in there. there's the black, unlit room where the names of the dead are projected on the wall and voices in English and German are read out, along with a brief speil about who they were, what they did and how they died. i'm told that if you wanted to sit there waiting for it to repeat it'd take 10 years to go through.
now THAT is fucked up.
then there's the room where monoliths hang from the ceiling, looking like replicas of the ones above on the surface, explaining the fates of a number of families - where they came from, their occupations, where they were sent and who survived to war. it's solemn and heartrending and completely worth visiting.
i've heard people talk about reparation and retribution for the crimes committed by the Nazis, and how the German people should shoulder the burden of the events of 1937 to 1945... and i wonder how you ever could. how can a nation ever try to make up for genocide? how can you explain to a child that actions taken by ancestors they never knew would haunt them for the rest of their lives? i don't think it could ever be done, but i'm glad that such an effort's been made to mark those times and ensure that people never forget that it happened, that monsters really do exist and that they walk the streets with human faces rather than hide under the bed.
coming out of the exhibition i wandered over to where Hitler's Bunker sits mouldering in pieces under a carpark and stood for a while pondering, and while i looked around i noticed the Mythos Germania exhibit which explains the bunkers used by Nazi officials in the area, as well as how even the underground railway tunnels were separated during the Cold War, all the way through the reunification and the final removals of all traces of the old bunkers. all traces of the bunker where Hitler and Eva Braun spent their final days have been removed specifically to ensure that it can never become a shrine for Neo-Nazis, but you can still stand over where the remains sit buried. Mythos Germaina is diagonally across from the Topography of Terror. sitting between them on the east side of the road i noticed the Berlin Souveniers store selling tshirts and key rings next to the cafe where Matti and i had stopped for coffee 2 days previously and suddenly found myself feeling more than a little cheapened and disgusted by the juxtapositon.
there's no fucking helping some people, i swear.
so i moved on and headed back past the Brandenburg Gate, circled around and along the river a little ways, then went and sat on the grass in front of the Reichstag for a bit so that i'd get a chance to see it in the daytime, investigated the Tiergarten (avoiding the nudist area), then meandered gradually back to the hostel. an interesting aspect of West Berlin is the number of open gardens you can find. when The Wall went up it prevented any access in and out of West Berlin apart from train or plane, and with the cost of air travel in those days it wasn't the sort of thing a family could do just to get out of the city for a while. this meant that if people wanted to get out into nature they hit the park. the Tiergarten is just one of these, and it's the size of a small suburb, full of patches of forest surrounding avenues of grass with statues and water features. as i cruised through it i saw families having picnics, people lying around reading books and sunbathing, couples having quiet moments cuddled up together. it seemed a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, and reminded me of London in no small way.
as i walked around aimlessly i came across a cluster of big rocks sitting in the grass with a plaque nearby which explained that a Berliner had sailed himself around the world picking up massive chunks of rock from the various continents and dragged them to this spot, leaving "sister" rocks in the original locations which he polished up on their Berlin-facing sides so that on one particular day the sun would hit them all simultaneously and bounce the light back to the ones in Berlin, linking Berlin with the rest of the world. i looked around the field and noticed a chunk of red stone with a couple of guys sitting on it so i wandered over and, recognising their accents asked
hey boys, d'ya reckon this is the Aussie stone then?
"What's that?"
so i explained what i'd seen on the sign and they looked at the rock speculatively
fuckin' crazy, isn't it?
"I reckon. Who'd've thought it? You come half-way around the world and wind up sitting on a rock from bloody home!"
i'd had about enough by the time i tramped back down Unter Den Linden to the hostel, so i killed the last couple of hours sitting around getting a few things organised on the net and making sure i got to the right train station good and early. some time soon i'll pass into Poland, and by the time i'm done there i reckon i'll have had about as much Holocaust history as i can stand. i've really enjoyed Berlin, although i can't help but feel that i'm nowhere near done with the place. when i first visited Amsterdam i had a long conversation with SpeedFox about whether or not we could live there. he'd just interviewed for a job there so it was a bit of a hot topic for him, and by the end of the day we'd pretty much agreed that neither of us would really enjoy it that much. Berlin, on the other hand, has probably knocked Paris out of my Top European City To Live In charts. i don't know if i'll get the chance, but i'll definately have to find some excuse to come back at some point in the future.
meanwhile it's time to see how well i sleep on a rocking, clicking train. at least neither of the guys i'm sharing the cabin with are snoring, so that's a bonus...
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