Wunderbar!! Impressions of Berlin

Lucy and her unhappy cat

The forces of lethargy have so far been winning the war against my productive urges. 
I'm going to make an effort to write more about the different places I've travelled and thoughts I have because it's good to get the creative juices flowing. More updates about other countries soon. F

Already on this journey I have seen and experienced a lot of stuff. Some cities and towns charmed me instantly while others grew on me and there were a couple that I thought were a bit crap (Paris underwhelmed me).

Kunsthaus - a cool area where Artists hang out

Berlin falls into the first category. I would go as far to say that its the best European city I have yet visited.

First thing to know; It is MASSIVE. Seriously. It would take many, many hours to walk through all the districts.

The public transport is excellent and rarely inspected (which suited me ;) so you can get around the place very easily.

Here is why Berlin rocked my socks....

Dynamic mix of old and new:


In the newer parts of Berlin such as Alexanderplatz you have giant, open squares packed with ultramodern buildings and trendy industrial art..The museums such as the Jewish History, Stasi (former  East German secret police), Deutsch History and Pergammon are all awesome. If you are a cultural buff there is plenty to get your teeth into.

 Move into some of the Eastern districts and you find something different altogether:

Some street art on a shop's doors

Grungy, dirty, fascinating streets.. Berlin is well known for its street art. The art is most common in run down areas and is beautification as opposed to destruction. I took an alternative Berlin walking tour today and was amazed to discover a side of the city I may have otherwise missed.

Street Art

Graffitti in the city comes in many varieties.. There are the stock standard scrawls "X was here" "Berliners eat cock" "Z loves Y" and so forth. But there are also much more juicy offerings.

 At the Eastside Gallery

A cartoon girl called Little Lucy (see picture at top) is dotted around the city in various outfits. In each scene she kills her cat in a creative way.. Down an alleyway near some distinctive pubs there is a giant painting of a polar bear smoking weed (as an aside, Berlin zooś famous Polar bear Knut died at the young age of 5 while I was in Berlin :( .
Banksy, a famous anonymous street artist from Bristol, had down a few pieces around Berlin but apparently his works are now so desirable people will actually chisel out the bit of concrete the grafitti is on and sell it..

Once someone points out a particular artists work to you, you start to notice them everywhere. If I had much in the way of artistic ability perhaps I would be inspired to try some of that action.

Cheap.
As a traveller, how much I enjoy a place partly depends on how much money I have to spend to do basic stuff. Fortunately Berlin is one of the cheapest European capital cities. You can pick up a meal for between three and six Euro. The living costs are low too. You can find yourself an enormous room in a decent apartment for just 200 Euro a month.

Berlin people:

There is a real multi-cultural cosmopolitan mix here. Most native Berliners were friendly and their English ability is pretty good. It feels tolerant too. People can drink alcohol on the public transport and long time residents told me that they walk the streets at night and feel safe.

World War Two History.

Some Nazi propaganda from the German History Museum

Another aspect of the city that smoked my tyres was WW2 history. Berlin was obviously a major centre of Nazi operations during that era so I enjoyed seeing the various locations of significance and rereading the stories behind them.
I saw the location where Hitler's bunker once stood. In a strange twist, the land above where the bunker once sat is now a children's playground. There are no signs to acknowledge the location because Germany prefers to commemorate the victims rather than the perpetrators of the Second World War. The bunker was collapsed in on itself and the concrete was reused to make the soviet-style apartments that now surround the area where the bunker once stood.

Pergamon Museum where I dropped my camera

There are a lot of sombre exhibitions outlining the horror of the Nazis.. The former location of the the SS was one such place. To be in locations that I had previously read so much about and try and imagine the terror of the Nazi regime is very sobering. I didn't feel I could truly comprehend the terrors of that time. It's just too awful.

A view of the city from the river

Tributes to the Berlin Wall are also thick on the ground. I stayed in East Berlin and talked to a few Germans about what it used to be like before the wall came down. Strolling along next to the East Side Gallery, which is a giant section of the Berlin wall preserved as a monument that has been beautified by artists, I tried to picture what it must have been like living in divided Germany. Many people tried to escape from East to West and some were shot trying to escape.

The East German state was pretty much big brother personified with every aspect of the populaces life  under observation. In the Stasi museum - you could see the lengths the secret police went to spy on their people including all manner of spy objects such as briefcases, ties and even tree stumps with concealed cameras. Most of the people responsible for human rights abuses in the East German regime never saw justice after 1989, which is a shame.

Night Life:

Berlin is quite famous for its nightlife and you can find pretty much any type of club you want. There are even leather fetish clubs that are known for giant orgies if that's your thing. I hit a few clubs in an industrial area near hackescher markt and enjoyed strolling through run-down warehouses that are packed with interesting people, artisans and grafitti. There are some smoking bans in bars in Germany but they are weakly enforced so people puff away.

No city is perfect, parts of Berlin are pretty dirty and it certainly can have a heaviness to it from all the horrible things that happened there, but overall, awesome.
If you get a chance, go to Berlin! I will certainly return there one day.

Post script:

At the time of writing, I have been living and traveling in Europe for 11 weeks. Moving between places can wear you down but I keep meeting great people that energise me for some more. For me, travel is far more about that people you meet than the things you see. Couchsurfing is an excellent aid to that end because you get to actually live with locals. My couchsurfing blog will come soon.

Questions or comments welcome!

Life in Italy..

I´m still messing around a bit and have decided to give myself the start of the year to just travel and enjoy life. Career stuff can wait.

Having been in Italy for just under two weeks, it would be presumptuous of me to claim any deep knowledge of the culture, society etc. Nevertheless, these are some of my initial thoughts about Perugia, Italy etc.

Perugia is a very ancient city. It's in the Umbria region, about two and a half hours North of Rome by train. It has a population of around 170,000, although you wouldn't know it because the central city is quite compact.

A fairly typical street 

This is my first time in Europe and I'm already struck by feeling that I'm in a place full of history. Everywhere in the world has a history I guess but Italy brought the world the Renaissance, the Roman Empire, Da Vinci and the Mafia! Would we have had fantastic gangster movies such as The Godfather and Goodfellas were it not for Italy? These days Italy is well known for many things including Berlusconi in all his baffoonery, fashionable clothing and food. 

The centre of the Perugia is perched atop a hill and at the highest point of the city you have a stunning vista of the surrounding valley. It's winter now, which was a shock to my system after being in roasting 38 degree heat in Perth.

These days Perugia is known as a University city, with a number of language schools established to teach foreigners the Italian tongue.

Some thoughts:

Italian: a musical language with hand gestures galore:

We've all seen the stereotypes - Italians are passionate people and they flap their hands about a lot.

A view from the top

When you walk the streets and see and hear them talking you get the impression whatever they are chatting about must be important. Even if they were talking about collecting laundry there appears to be a gravitas to what is being said. The New Zealand accent sounds very pedestrian in comparison.

Narrow streets lined with houses:

Most of the streets in the city are scarcely wide enough for two lanes of traffic. The average road is lined with multiple story stone houses that are joined to one another. The cars are mostly European, which I guess is no surprise and they are a lot smaller than say on Australian or New Zealand roads. Wimmy pointed out that most Italians don't wash their cars. As strange an observation as that is, it's quite unusual to see someone driving a new BMW or Mercedes that is filthy. 

Wimmy and I 

Beautiful architecture:

There's a grandiosity to the Churches and buildings around the centre of the town that you've just gotta love. The intricacy of the brickwork or the detail of the statues, roman aqueducts, crumbling walls.. just great. Perguia is a maze of a town with little curling alleyways, steep streets and stairs everywhere. 

Wine flows like Water:

So far I haven't seen too many drunks roaming the streets but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

You can pick up a bottle of quite tasty wine for less than a Euro, beer is similarly cheap. I've heard that the Italian attitude to drinking is a little less "let's get fucked!" and a bit more "how about some alcohol with dinner?"

Cost of Living:

The Italian economy is pretty rubbish at the moment. They have very high unemployment and a typical wage is 5-7 Euro for basic jobs such as at a bar or in retail. Electricity and gas are pricey so a lot of Italians are reticent to turn their lights or heating on. Room sharing is common.

Food is cheap, most items at the grocery store are around one euro or less, so you can do a decent shop for about 20 Euro (35 NZD). 

 Ridiculously attractive women on TV

Not just in the terrible soaps but presenting serious news.. Berlusconi owns a large chunk of the Italian media including news stations and if you know anything about him, he likes attractive women. Most of the women presenting the news wear revealing tops.. (so what you say?) Well - I certainly don't get offended (quite the contrary) but as a British man said of living here "sometimes you wouldn't know the feminist movement had happened."
 

Rather silly business hours:

They say when in Rome... Right?

Most businesses open at 9am and then close at 1pm. They have three hours lunch break and reopen for an hour at four. The exception is cafes and restaurants. Apparently this comes from a time when a woman would go home at lunchtime to cook a meal for her family. That's nice and everything but a bit difficult if you are trying to get things done. Italians REALLY love their food.

Damn multilingual bastards:

While Italians may not be the greatest at English in the European Union, most of them have a basic grasp of the language. Having dinner with eight Europeans and an Indonesians reminded me of my own linguistical inadequacy and how many Westerners only speak English. I can speak about one and a third languages. The average at the table was three.

Delicious Food:

No surprises here, right? Pasta features heavily but so do olives, tomatoes, olive oil, delicious sauces, cheeses, breads etc... Wowww. I spent three months in Australia eating a staple diet of baked beans, tuna, eggs, plain pasta and microwave food (because I'm a lazy cook) and this is a welcome change.

The birthplace of fascism and a bloody legacy.

I haven't discussed this topic with any Italians as of yet but I find it intriguing that although this country was part of the Axis in World War 2 and had their own brutal dictator in the 20th century - Benito Mussolini, it doesn't carry near as much stigma as Germany. Under Mussolini, Italy was a police state. Mussolini and Hitler had a lot in common (such as ruling out other political parties, heavy use of propaganda, killing opponents, wearing military uniform all the time, hand salutes etc). Near the end of the Second World War, communist partisans captured Mussolini and his mistress and shot them. Their bodies were taken to Milan where they were hung upside down from meat hooks at a gas station and crowds threw rocks at the bodies.. A bit of crowd justice aye? 

So this is just some stuff I've thought of in my first week. Hopefully I'll get a much deeper understanding as I live here for a longer...

I´ve still got Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice and Naples to check out!

Future blogs will look at
: Berlusconi
Amanda Knox Murder Case
Rome
Venice

EXTRA STUFF::::: 

                                                                                  
Recent Murder in Perugia
Remember the Amanda Knox case?  This was huge international news in 2008. 21 year old Merideth Kercher was murdered at the end of 2007. Kercher and Knox were flatmates both learning Italian at the Universita Per Stranieri (University for Foreigners). Kercher was raped and stabbed in the throat in her flat and Knox and her Italian boyfriend (a medical student) were accused of the murder. Another African guy was convicted of the murder and testified that Knox and her boyfriend were playing some sort of weird sex game with Kercher.

The Knox case was featured in international media (even on Oprah) and there is a mix of opinions over whether she is guilty or not. Knox has appealed and her family accuse the Italian police of being corrupt and tampering with evidence. Whatever the case, Knox's has been in prison for a couple of years already.

Rant: Being groped at Airports - When security has gone too far..

I just watched a news piece about complaints in America about over-invasive airport security. Here are some thoughts I bashed out - Feilidh.

A topic which really fires me up is the surrendering of privacy and liberty for the gain of security.

The question is: Should the public forgo their rights to privacy and liberty in order to be more safe (allegedly)? 

I try not to be alarmist when it comes to this issue because I do not consider Western Society to be an Orwellian or police state.

I do however think people sacrifice their liberties far too easily. I once argued with a middle aged workmate who saw no problem with putting security cameras in every corner of a city. "You've got nothing to worry about if you've got nothing to hide" - she said adamantly. I find this line of thinking extremely worrying.

One issue that arises in the security vs privacy debate is people's treatment at airport checkpoints.
I've travelled to airports around the world and been subject to most security protocols. I've had my brand new sunscreen confiscated (I was mega pissed) as I was leaving Auckland International and in Melbourne I had a snarly she-devil tell me in a very condescending tone to walk through the scanner again because I had my hands in my pocket.

But these are not really bad experiences. I've never had someone security officer pat down near my johnson or been subject to a 'random' bomb search.

Being at airports is one of the few times I feel like a caged animal. Entering into an airport means you submit to being scrutinised, cast under a suspicious gaze, photographed, scanned and ordered around. It sucks.

America - never a country to do things by halves has taken invasiveness to a whole new level. When going to a terminal in the USA you have the glorious options of either A: Having a full body scan where an attendant can see you naked (although the image is inverted) or B: Getting a full body pat down by the TSA in which the areas around your bust and groin are prodded (just in case you've got your underwear crammed full of grenades).

John Pistole, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief said while addressing the public's growing frustration with the procedures; that those unwilling to submit to screening would relinquish their right to fly. 


Some people clearly don't mind being scanned, prodded etc because for them, the measures give them peace of mind. But how far would those people let security measures go before they felt personal boundaries were being crossed? A cavity search? 

I understand that governments have to be seen to take security seriously but surely this is too far.

 There is clearly some need to be vigilant against attacks on planes but do we let a few party crashers ruin parties world wide?

I think blanket bans of anything because of a few idiots are always unfair. It's penalising the majority for the actions of a few. Some people blow their faces off with fireworks on guyfawks. The result? Total ban on fireworks. Then no one gets fireworks anymore. That is bullshit. 

One might argue that invasive security will help stop planes from being blown out of the sky. Let's be careful for sure but security measures need to be put into perspective.

The media can warp people's perception of the likelihood of any given event happening. If you bought into media hype surrounding shark attacks you would probably think at least hundreds of people were killed every year by sharks. The reality? Around five people die every year from shark attacks.

The same holds for terrorism. The risk is WAAAAYYYY overstated.

Here's an abridged exert from an article "Don't Be Terrorised" by Reason Magazine:

Michael Rothschild, a former business professor at the University of Wisconsin, worked out a couple of plausible scenarios for terrorist attacks in order to calculate the risk to the public. Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the September 11th, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered.

I think a fantastic quote that all those scared of terrorism should take note of is the following by Benjamin Franklin: "Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Safety and security are important, yes. But so is living and moving freely from place to place and not being treated as if you are already a criminal by your government.

Feedback is always welcome..