Berliner Blick

Berlin Graffiti

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 15:49:58 GMT

I've been meaning to post these pictures since August. In July I took a couple days to walk around the city and take pictures of graffiti. Everything in the city gets tagged, no matter how nice the neighborhood. The variety of graffiti in the city is amazing and the sheer amount of it is one of the things that sets Berlin apart from other German cities. It's a lost cause to prevent it anyways.

The Marine in this piece is Sgt. Ty Ziegel, who was catastrophically injured in Iraq. A photographer chronicled his wedding last year and a lot of the photos of that have become internationally known. You can see them here.

"Shit cop."

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:35:42 GMT

Well, I fly out of Berlin in a little over 12 hours. Er...15 really. I'm very sad about leaving. I have tons more pictures to post, as I took so many I fell behind in organizing them. And I spent a lot of the past weeks just out and about doing stuff. Except for this week, because I was sick and pretty much had to stay in my room from Saturday to Wednesday. And the weather was horrid. Cold rain every day. Not fun. I did get out for a bit today, which was nice, and finally got good enough weather to take decent pictures of what remains of the Berlin Wall. I also got fined by the ticket inspectors on the train today, so...whee! Fun last day.

So...I go finish cleaning. And hopefully soon there'll be pics of: the East Side Gallery, Berlin graffiti, random stuff, dinosaurs (!), German train history, and...more random stuff.

See you all soonishly.

Pic spam.

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:00:57 GMT

It's cold and rainy (wtf?), and I seriously need to spend a day organizing myself and my stuff, so no intrepid adventuring today (I do need something to do tomorrow and Friday and after that). I did go to the zoo on Monday, though. And saw lots of animals. Not quite all 14000 of them (world's largest zoo, hurrays!), but I spent almost five hours wandering around. I saw Knut!

The baby elephant was born just in June. She (?) was actually born suddenly one afternoon while a huge crowd was just standing around watching. It turned into a big drama because as she tried to stand up she kept flopping towards the water in the enclosure and eventually fell in. And couldn't get out. She managed to keep her trunk above the water and keepers were soon able to pull her out. It was in all the papers.

This is Bao Bao. He's 29. He's the only panda at the zoo now. The other one, Yan Yan ("the cute one") died suddenly in March, shortly after Knut became all big and famous. At first there was speculation that all the sudden excitement contributed, but then they discovered that she died of constipation. Sad. She was only 22. But there were never any baby pandas made because Bao Bao and Yan Yan didn't really like each other.

Has anybody else seen "Meerkat Manor" on Animal Planet? That show's awesome!

Visiting all the parrots made me miss my little one...

Oh yeah! I went to the aquarium too! Jellyfish!

lol. This was apparently a popular activity on Monday.

A Nile crocodile.

Shark!

Tiger!

I'd have been way excited if the zoo had a baby tiger. But it doesn't. There are a few in Leipzig though.

But there is a baby jaguar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D There's also a baby snow leopard, but he wasn't out. :(

Whatever this is, it's adorable and the size of my dog.

This way to Knut!

Awww...the poor little guy is only on his second week without his 'papa.' He's quite sad about it, and spent the whole time I was there crying out in the way that small, sad polar bears do. :(

Bye bye, Knut!

I've got a gazillion more pics, but I would probably break LJ if I put them up now. So another time.

A selection from 5556 piccies...

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:48:07 GMT

The non-church church near at Lausitzer Platz my apartment.

The synagogue on Oranienburgerstrasse. There are always police guards outside.

All the federal government buildings are very big...

A drain covering. The bear is the city animal.

The path the Wall took is marked throughout the city. This is near the Hauptbahnhof.

A war-damaged gargoyle from a bridge.

Taken from a park in Moabit. Which is sort of far away from the TV Tower. Hooray zoom function.

Winged Victory on top of the Siegessaeule.

The Siegessaeule. Victory looks west towards France. Hee hee.

One of the DDR watch towers. Near Potsdamer Platz. Which isn't in the east of the city, but it belonged to the DDR anyways. So until reunification, the Platz was a total dead zone. The trains still ran underneath the ground through the stations, but they weren't allowed to stop there and DDR soldiers were always on guard.

Bismarck in the English Garden in the Tiergarten.

"I am the little seal
and I like algae
In the morning I have a rash
and in the evening I [can't read that probably a 'vomit' word] blood."

At the end of the 3rd line someone's name has been removed from the history of the Luiseninsel in Tiergarten. Must find out who it is!

A little kitten at a bike shop in Prenzlauer Berg.

The side of a building in P-berg.

That is one skinny building! In Mitte.

I'm not quite sure what this is...it's just stuck in the ground in one of my favorite parks near Hackescher Markt.

All the big movie premieres happen at Sony Center. This was for Die Hard 4.

Buildings at Sony Center.

Gleisdreieck Bahnhof.

A shot of the East!

This building would be so awesome if it were fixed up. But right now it's abandoned and falling apart.

Near Museum Insel an an evening in June.

More random peek-tures to brighten your morning with!

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:43:18 GMT

"This city is sold out."

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...döner kebap.

There's an exhibit of French art at the Neue Nationalgalerie right now. All on loan from the Met in NY. 125,000 have visited in the first month alone. The lines are way long. Good exhibit, though. Mostly. Needed more 20th century art.

Roman emperor in the Pergamon Museum.

The famous marble facade. It's really big.

Mesopotamian.

The famous bust of Nefertiti in the Altes Museum.

Christopher Street Day. Aka Pride Parade.

Alte Nationalgalerie.

Marx and Engels.

The Spree!

"Berlin - Poor but sexy." So true.

Schloss Bellevue. Where the president lives.

Oooh...wonder who's pulling up.

It's the Queen of Thailand!

Oh...that's nice. Walking on planks of wood in the tunnels underneath the Siegessaeule.

Pond in the Tiergarten.

Bunny!

"Drinks lady, you're mean." :( Referring to the oh so lovely lady who works in the drinks shop that this is scrawled on the wall of.

That's it for pics today. I have to rotate a bunch of the photos I took yesterday. Ugh.

MOAR PICCIES!

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:02:25 GMT

So...I also went to Kassel in mid-June to see the contemporary art exhibition Documenta. This is #12. It happens every four years. The collection was not so great overall (don't get me started). One of the exhibit halls is terrible (overgrown potting shed). I am glad I did spend money on the catalog.

This way to Documenta.

Museum Fredericanum. The main exhibition space.

Some of the temporary pieces of art aren't so temporary. Like the 7000 trees in the city that have these stones in front of them. They were all planted by an artist a couple of decades ago. You can get a tour of these trees in the city and visit all of them. Exciting!

This carousel bit of art is about power and the like. It has been banned from Dresden. Why? The artist who does it likes to assemble the piece around large monuments to famous, dead powerful people. Like the Furst in this picture. In Leipzig he wanted to put it around one the Golden Rider statue of King Augustus. And the city said, "No, no, no."

Art stuck to the outside of the building. Hurray.

Dance set to a tune by the Grateful Dead.

Tanks. Or something like that.

Why, yes. A loop of a two minute video of a tiger cub playing with a toy does count as art! Duh!

Have an octopus!

Or a dog wearing a hat!

Or, if you prefer, a badly stuffed Palestinian giraffe! The story behind this poor giraffe is that it died at a Palestinian zoo during an Israeli raid when it panicked and ran into an iron bar then collapsed. And now it's a piece of art. And badly stuffed at that. I didn't think it was real at first.

That low building in the background is the Aue Pavillion which is housing a big portion of this year's collection. It was purpose built by a French team of architects. It was supposed to be a big, glassy greenhousy type thing. But it's not. Because it leaks. So there are all sorts of protective curtains on the inside and it's rather dark and FAR TOO LARGE and basically sucks as an art viewing venue. On the far right end is a wall of very clear glass that you can't really tell is there. I saw an old lady try to walk through it.

Boat made out of oil cans.

Sculptures.

A room of guitars all strumming on their own.

Ummmm. Okay, Lee Lozano.

HVAC repairmen take note! Your duct works could get you into an art show!

At least there was a pretty view from a hill.

"You come to the heart of Germany on only the word art to read under your own shadow."

Harvey Keitel in a really crap piece of film/art/suck.

Kassel city hall.

Train station! Time to go home!

Long time no updatey. Again. HERE ARE PICTURES TO MAKE IT ALL BETTER!

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:20:12 GMT

I'll upload a bunch of pics today. I should be studying for exams tomorrow. But I'm not. The internet is faster at university than at home. Anyways...here is a Random collection of Barcelona Day 4 and Ruegen.

The Sagrada Familia. Gaudi's unfinished cathedral. It's been under construction for 80 years already...they're predicting a further 50 to go. It's about half done.

The columns inside. They are meant to look like trees and they are absolutely stunning.

The other side of the outside.

Gaudi's Park Guell. The architecture is all sort of crazy. It's pretty but I'm not fond of it. I much prefer this:

BARCELONA PAVILION FTW!

The inside.

There was also a sweet feral black cat!

I did more in Barca...but I've got about 400 pics of my last day there alone...oy.

RUEGEN:

This is actually the town hall and cathedral in Stralsund...which is the last city on the coast before the island.

Obligatory stuffed penguin picture.

This is the new bridge to Ruegen. It is very big and very long, but it is not open yet. It opens in October. The deck is high up so that ships can sail under it. Currently there is a drawbridge. And it causes lots of traffic backups.

The beach near our hostel on the island. This pic was taken about 10.00pm.

Hiddensee! A tiny island off the coast of Ruegen. No cars are allowed! You have to walk or bike or use a horse. Our group did a bike tour of the island. We saw baby sheep.

The lighthouse.

Pier at Sellin at night.

Nazi-build KdF Bad in Prora. A 4.5km long building...meant to sleep 20,000 good Nazi workers. Now empty and has apparently been bought by a company that wants to build a resort to have about 4000 beds. I know lots more facts about this place.

The beach...

...and more beach...

...and finally 4.5 km later, the beach ended and we were all in the touristy town then.

Just for you all, bbs! A pic of me! With my dinner. It was a catfish filet. Yummy!

Time for class again. More pics in a bit!

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 14:40:26 GMT

Pictures are coming. I've got Barcelona Day 4, Ruegen, Kassel/Documenta 12, and random shots of Berlin all to post. School's just been really busy the last weeks with presentations, essays, and too much reading to do. And it's been raining almost nonstop since the solstice. We're getting spring weather in summer. Ugh. Everything's green, though!

I also bought some PLO scarves at the revolutionary store next to my building. I'm so dangerous.

I've only got four weeks left! I'm sad.

They're making moo-vies.

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:31:53 GMT

Apparently, Tom Cruise is in town and has bought a villa on Wannsee. He's filming/producing "Valkyrie" in Berlin-Brandenburg this summer about the failed plot to assassinate Hitler and its main plotter von Stauffenberg. The article also says that for the Babelsberg studios where it will be shot, he spent 300,000Euro on installing air conditioning because he doesn't like to film in temperatures above 69 degrees F.

Meanwhile, the Wachowski brothers are filming "Speed Racer" this summer, and that started last week, so Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci and Matthew Fox (!) are in town too or will be. I've heard Susan Sarandon is supposed to be in it as well.

Another film occasionally shoots in the streets near my apartment, but I don't know what that one is. It's been going off and on since September.

In other news, I could really go for some BBQ right now.

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:36:51 GMT

I'm back from visiting the Baltic coast for a few days. Went to Insel Rügen, which is an island way up on the north coast of Germany. Saw a lot of the pretty and even got a tan. Sort of. Pictures a bit later when my internet at home decides it likes eljay again. Or I go to a cafe.

Good things come in threes.

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 15:27:32 GMT

I planned my attack and got off the train in Barca at a station on the west side of the city so that I could get to the Picasso Museum faster. It's housed in a pretty typical renovated palace for the area, so I took a picture of the musicians who were playing outside. Cello and some strange drum of some sort. Whatever, it was good music and had a very ethereal, sort of spooky sound to it. The line was sort of long to get in, but since it was the first Sunday of the month, the museum was free! It's a decent collection. It's strongest in Picasso's early works, and everything is presented chronologically, so you can see how is style evolved over the years as he was influenced by different artists and such. But since practically all of his really seminal pieces are housed in other collections in Europe and the US, this is sort of full of leftovers. Not that the art's bad...it's just not spectacular. There is a room full of naughty drawings that the did that is highly amusing, though. Hee hee.

It was only 6pm by the time I was out of the museum, so I wandered the side streets until I got to Citadel Park. It's also home to the Biology Museum and another museum, but I did not visit them. I just wandered around.

Awwww...cute!

An arc in the background.

Lo, Barthelona has its own Arc de Triomf.

All the old people were out and about, dressed in their finery, promenading around, or just bowling.

Keep on promenadin'...

I think this is the Palace of Justice.

Yes, it is.

Remember, kiddies: if you don't bomb your cities during war, you don't have to rebuild everything from the ground up after. A good thing, y/y?

I think this was put up for an international exhibition, but it basically just says "Spain is awesome."

Did I mention the palm trees?

I sat in the park and read for a while, then wandered back over to the Gothic Quarter. More old churches abound.

Unlike Berlin, where most churches turn out to be museums, most of them in Barca seem to still be fulfilling their original purpose.

Did I mention that this is, like, original 15th or 16th Century?

And then it was sort of late, and I was tired, so I found dinner and went back to my hostel to pass out. And prepare myself for Day 4's total onslaught of stuff: Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Gaudi's buildings, and another trek out to the Barcelona Pavilion. And only 7 hours to do it in.

Stay tuned for more...

Day 3. Part the second.

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 14:55:04 GMT

I finally found the Dali Theater Museum, as it's officially known. It's a big building he took over to install his artworks in and present stuff and just generally be really weird.

It's sort of hard to miss, really, considering that's it's brightly colored, has a big dome on part of it, and is covered in these strange little bread roll type things.

I'm sure the gift shop makes a killing selling fridge magnets of these.

The front entrance.

From what I gathered, Dali was different his whole life and began to see the world strangely when he was a little boy. So it's not like he had a bad acid trip when he was 20 or something. Maybe it was his mom.

This is basically the first thing you see when you get inside. There's a courtyard you walk into, and then you see this.

The museum is nice and lets you take pics of the artwork. This is an enjoyable thing to do. Until your camera runs out of batteries. So I don't have that many shots of the art. :(

There was also a special exhibit of jewelery that Dali created during his lifetime. This piece is called The Eye of Time.

Instead of hurrying back to the train station to catch an express train back to the city, I decided to hang around for a few extra hours and wander around the city. I decided to visit Dali's birth house. Again I tried to follow the signs and couldn't find it for the life of me. I knew I was on the right street, but I couldn't find it!!!! Argh! I hiked up and down it a few times. Then decided to take a picture of the ghostly type thing hanging from an old building.

I finally found when I saw a sneakily hidden sign at a street corner that pointed to a spot across the street. I guess I was expecting a big to-do about the house, with something that said, "OMG! This is where Dali was born, y'all!" That happens with most other places where somebody super important was born.

Instead there was just the tiny little plaque.

I still had a couple hours to kill, so I walked towards the main square area. I badly needed lunch, but it was more of an "Eat a proper lunch before you eat more gelato!" train of thought. So I stopped in the little restaurant on the right, which was the place where the locals were eating. I got a "Valencia style" seafood paella. It was very yummy, and I took care not to burn myself on the pan.

It's quite a pretty little town. A lot of the buildings are original, and quite a few are from the 1700s.

The building on the left was built in 1765. Or thereabouts.

It was then time for me to head back to Barca, as I needed to squish in a trip to the Picasso Museum.

Girona again.

Here endeth part the second. Proceedeth to part the third.

Day 3. Part the first.

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 14:12:22 GMT

Despite how *absolutely* captivating the coverage of the protests in Rostock is, I'm giving you another pic spam of Barthelona. Day 3. Dali Day. With some Picasso thrown in for good measure.

So I woke up at the ungodly hour of 8am to get myself ready to get to the main train station in time to get a ticket for the 10.25 Catalunya Express that goes up the coast. It stops in Gerona (Oh hai, doping scandal cyclists) and Figeres (Dali's hometown) along the way. Makes lots of little stops in small towns. It takes almost two hours to get to Figueres, so visiting the Dali Museum is sort of takes up most of the day.

Hauptba...Main train station! Again, old and sort of run down, but functional. I never actually saw the outside of it because I got to it from the underground Metro stations and when I got back to town got off the train at a different station. Anyways.

Gerona from the train. I took a lot of pictures out the train windows. I am a dork. But it was preeeety!!!!

Teeny, tiny Figueres station. Follow the signs to the museums.

So I'm walking along in the town and I'm hearing all these cars honking, and then I see a bunch of cars all along a little street, and I'm like, "Woah...traffic jam." Turned out it was a convention and little parade of these cars.

A Dali. This was sort of a cool statue or installation or whatever. As you can see, there is a Dali "face" stretched out all weird on the ground and a large, shiny column set at the appropriate angle, so that when you look at, whatever angle you do so from, you have see Dali's happy face! Which will then forever haunt your dreams.

Bet you can't guess who this is.

Pretty building.

So I got lost, as usual, trying to use the signs to navigate my way to the Dali Musuem. Anyways...I stumbled upon some sort of traditional celebration type thing. And this is what they were doing:

And the kid makes it to the top!

My eagle eye spotted a sign to the museum, so off I went...

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 15:26:07 GMT

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

I'm watching the protests against the G8 going on in Rostock on TV.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!1111!!!!1eleventy!!!!1onez!!!!

Barca part 2b.

Fri, 25 May 2007 22:06:48 GMT

The second part of Day 2's adventures! I am an intrepid explorer!

Ahhh...the quietness of the park. So, after the Miro disaster, my next stop was to be *cue drumroll*...Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion. CAN YOU SEE ME JUMPING UP AND DOWN AT THE OPPORTUNITY TO VISIT ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECES OF ARCHITECTURE KNOWN TO MAN?!?!?!?! So, I knew it was relatively close by, so I sat down with my map to plan in detail how I would walk to it. And this was what I figured out: walk back to the Catalan Museum, go down the first big set of steps, go left, walk along a little ways, go up some more steps, past a fountain in a little plaza, then soon on my right there would be a little street that I would turn at, then *voila,* I'd be at a place I never thought I'd actually get to see ever in my life. Sounds easy, right? Noooooooo. Again, I managed to somehow lose my way, even though I followed my map. I ended up on another trek that took me the long way to the pavilion that lasted another 45 or 50 minutes. Fun times!!!

At least my never-ending trek was pretty!

More steps! Barcelona's quite a hilly little city. It's nestled right between the sea and some hills. It actually reminded me quite a lot of the foothills in Colorado, especially the ones in the more arid areas in the southern or west-of-the-Rockies areas. *tear*

Not entirely sure, but I believe that pointy thing is from the Olympic Stadium.

Another picture from the opposite side of where I wanted to be. This is a gate at the Poble Espanyol. The Spanish Villiage. It's a tourist trap that recreates life in a traditional, vaguely medieval sort of way.

Ooooh...getting close!

Oh, gee...look what I see. The Catalan Museum and a part of the giant convention center that's in front of the musuem. I've only walked by this exact location about six times previously.

Hey! What's that between the trees?

Why, a seminal piece of modern design, of course! And it was...closed. WTF? It was supposed to be open until 8, and I got there at like 5.30. And it was most definitely closed. So I took a few pics, and left, very dejectedly, not knowing if I would have time to go visit it again before I left on Monday afternoon. *tear* But at this point I did figure out that I was indeed right in front of all the steps leading up to the Catalan Museum and I felt very dumb, because I was basically 30 seconds from where I had started out from 45 minutes earlier.

Placa Espanya. I got lost here a lot too, because the street signs, if indeed there are any, are posted on the buildings, so you have to really look for them, and they're not terribly big. I have no idea how people drive in this city.

I hopped on the subway (it works, but it's über rundown) and went back to Las Rambles to just wander around for a while. Yay ungodly masses of people. Everybody watch your bags!

There are quite a few stalls selling small animals and birds along this street. Some baaaaaaaaby bunnies for sale.

I'm not sure if this is Spanglish or Engrish.

I continued wandering the side and back streets. Saw this pretty building tucked away in a small square.

Need any ninja gear?

Local government building.

And a Cat Lady to round us off for the day. I made my way back to the hostel to relax for a bit. Then I went back to the previous night's restaurant for some tapas and sangria. I had a nice chat with an older English couple before heading to a bar called Badas for an incredibly stiff martini. It was then shortly after midnight so I headed over to a club called Moog, as I was told to check the place out. But the doorman informed me that even though it was open nobody was inside and people wouldn't start showing up until 1.30. I asked him about another place called 242 that I was told to visit but hadn't found any info on, and he said it was an after-hours club and didn't open until 6. Yay. I was really tired and couldn't hold out much longer, and as I wanted to get up early the next morning to catch a train for a day trip outside the city, I decided to shove it and went back to the hostel. :( The cover for the club was 15 Euros, anyways, which buys an entire t-shirt or a weekend's worth of gelato. I've gotten very used to the inexpensiveness that is Berlin.

Day 3 to come before the next ice age. I went to Figures to visit the Dali Museum. Oooohhhh.

Barca part 2a.

Fri, 25 May 2007 22:03:40 GMT

*Apparently Eljay couldn't handle the original amount of pictures in the post, so I've had to split it up.*

Yes, I am writing this on a Friday evening. I'm a dork for not being out on the town at the moment. But I had to watch the season finale of "Lost." So there.

So I started the day out with a trip to Barceloneta Beach. Here is the harbor area.

This is a pic of the beach from a concrete blocky outcropping.

To get to that outcropping I had to walk along this narrow little "path." I put my balance skills to the test, especially as I was trying to avoid having to discover if I had any swimming skills or not.

More beach area-ness. And some buildings.

Ummm...this is the Mediterranean.

After leaving the beach I went back to my hostel to reapply my sunblock (can't ruin my *gothic* complexion), and I encountered this group of Spanish musicians. They were pretty hot in their breeches. They were a very lively bunch, and I have video of them as well that I should post sometime. Then I went to more art museums.

I first went to the Museum of Catalan Art, which is the big, big, big, big, palace on the top of the hill. It houses works from Roman to early 20th Century art, all of which are from the Catalan area or produced by Catalan artists. Very interesting, and the collection was quite enjoyable.

But first I had to climb the steps to the top. But I was rewarded by this view of the city. I think it's the western end.

This is inside the entrance foyer. You can sort of get an idea of the size of the palace.

There's a very large space (ampitheatre, actually) in the center. It was being set up for some sort of banquet when I was there. But anyways, it's massive. This is the organ on one end. I was dumb and didn't get a picture of the entire room from in front of the organ, but from looking at this end it's easy to see how *big* it is.

This is the inside of the palace's dome.

So after the Catalan Museum, I wanted to go here. Which is the Joan Miro Foundation. If you don't know him, he's a really important modernist artist who was born in Catalonia. Some of his works can be found in really big museums outside of Spain, but the large majority of his works, especially the super important ones, are here. Now, to get the this place, one needs to only follow the sidewalk around the side and back of the Catalan Museum and then walk about ten minutes down a street through the Park Montjuic, following the handy dandy signs along the way. Did I do this? No. To say I had some difficulties orienting myself on the map here would be an understatement. What I did was walk down the front of the Catalan Museum, then around the park to get to the museum from the other side. And of course I got lost along the way. What should have taken me ten minutes took almost an hour. It was also rather hot. And I lost count of how many sleazy guys whistled or honked their horns at me as they drove by. Something also dropped onto my head along the way, and I was never quite sure if it was bird poop or not, even as I was cleaning it out of my hair.

As I was climbing a rather big hill the entire time I was looking for the Miro museum, I did get some nice views of the city. This is looking towards the east, and the big brown thing is the ultra-famous Sagrada Familia, the cathedral that is still under construction after 80 years. They estimate it has another 50 or so left until completion.

The Cathedral close up (from very far away). Don't worry, I've got plenty pics of it from very close up and inside it. Probably about 400. Why yes, I do have a big memory card for my camera.

Er...the Catalan Museum from the back side, where I could have been 45 minutes earlier had I used my brain when looking at the map. I blame the heat.

Hmmm...the Miro Foundation. I was actually really disappointed with my visit to it, but not because of the art, which I adore. But I reached it way later in the day that I had wanted to (didn't get there until about 3pm), so it was overrun with noisy tourists. But the worst part was that there seemed to be screaming children in every room, strollers everywhere, and clueless parents. I was in and out in 30 minutes because I couldn't take it. And it made me really pissed off because it's a museum, and you're supposed to use your library voices and be mindful of people who are trying to take in the exhibits and enjoy it all. This was one of the places I went specifically to Barcelona for. I can deal with crowds, but I can't deal with idiots who have no awareness of their surroundings.

Proof I went to Barthelona...

Sun, 20 May 2007 15:02:47 GMT

Here are pics from Barca. Finally. Day 1, Friday, was me getting up super early for a 6am flight to Palma de Mallorca, where I got to change planes for the flight to Barca that was just long enough for the plane to reach altitude then immediately start descent. At least that meant that I didn't have to wait ages for the snacks to be brought around. So I got to the city about 11 am, checked into my hostel (after I finally found it), then went wandering around to try and figure out what to do. And I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I also had to decipher a lot of signs written in Catalan and Castillian. Did I mention the tourist crowds? Throngs of people everywhere and I think every other person was British. I also ate lunch at what turned out to be a sort of fancy restaurant. Well, fancy in a trendy way. Not the best experience because I was sort of fresh off the plane and they, heh, put me in a corner that wasn't readily visible to the rest of the restaurant. They had very good cod dumplings, though.

Mallorca from the air. I lurve window seats.

Hello there, F1 car. Yeah...I get to the airport and am suddenly hit by the realization that had I only waited a week I could have gone (in theory) to a Formula 1 race. *grumbles*

This is the Barcelona Cathedral, not to be confused with the Sagrada Familia which is the really famous one. I stayed around the corner in a nice little place called the Itaca Hostel. This is right in the heart of the Gothic Quarter, so there are lots of old buildings and lots to do. Very close to Las Rambles, which is the most famous street in the city and is now pretty much a massive shopping and tourist extravaganza.

Lots of street artists on Las Rambles, too. Be prepared to give them money, as they get a little miffed about too many people taking pics without donating and then won't do their little actions.

The natives in the city are inherently cooler than you are. Even the police are cooler.

Some medieval bits of the quarter.

Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona. I sort of "ooohed" when I saw it, but not because it's an excellent building. I was not wearing my sunglasses when I came around the corner, which was a mistake, because the building was so blindingly white in the sunlight that it was painful. Nice building though.

The inside. Oooooohhhh.

A very typical old street in the rain. The older sections of the city have very narrow side streets and alleyways everywhere.

This artist lady wouldn't let me take her picture unless I gave her some money.

When I got back near the Gothic Cathedral I saw some tango dancers. I took video. Which I still haven't uploaded because it takes so long. You'll get that soonishly hopefully. They were really good.

I had dinner that night at a nice little place called La Xerinola. I got the seafood paella. And promptly burned my finger on the hot pan despite the warning from the waiter. He also applauded me on my choice of reading material, which was 100 Years of Solitude.

More stuff later.

Yet another public holiday...

Thu, 17 May 2007 15:02:35 GMT

Today's holiday is Christi Himmelfahrt. That's Ascension for us, but the German word is way better. It's a public holiday in quite a few countries around here, and I think it's also Father's Day in Germany. And so everything is closed. Again. Didn't we just have Easter where everything was shut for like four days?!?!?

Whatever...it's a day I don't have to go to classes! Horray! I get to...do laundry and clean my room.

Barcelona pics are coming...I now just have to feel like sitting around long enough to upload them to LJ and all that good stuff. I've been trying to upload some videos to YouTube or DailyMotion, but they just take soooooo long.

And I looked at my calendar...only 10 weeks left! NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!

Tue, 08 May 2007 14:07:46 GMT

I'm back from Barcelona. It was warm and sunny the whole time. I did quite a lot of stuff. And I did indeed come back with an obscene amount of photos, not to mention a t-shirt with something obscene written on it. Photos posted when I get around to rotating and sorting them.

It is raining and hailing in Berlin. Whyyyyyy?!?!!?

The revolution will not happen today.

Wed, 02 May 2007 20:08:33 GMT

So...yesterday was May Day. Formerly a big Communist holiday, but now mostly just an excuse to demonstrate, party, and throw bottles at police if you're so inclined. Berlin has been home to some very bad May Days, especially in my neighborhood Kreuzberg, but the creation of the Myfest street party a few years ago has prevented any large scale riots. Boo. Anyways....

My street! With a parking ban. No setting cars on fire for you! Around the corner, my bank was completely boarded up. Just in case something happened. Which is sort of always a possibility in this area.

Communist pirates spotted at Lausitzer Platz.

Hmmm...what are these strangely dressed people up to?

Dancing with tomatoes! It was some sort of play, but about what I'm not entirely sure, as they weren't very good at shouting out their lines. All I caught was "humanity" and "Communism." *shrugs*

Police...

...and more police...

...and some more...

...ooop...a big scary one...

...and some more just watching the revolution go by. I heard there were 5,000 officers on duty, including about 1,000 that the city borrowed from other places for the day.

Speaking of the revolution...there will be no freedom without it. (The words that look like an alphabet exploded on the sign are Turkish.)

This was apparently the "demonstrate against anything demonstration," as this one had various signs for many different things, including one guy proudly waving his Basque flag. Other demonstrations were also held as well yesterday, with various themes like anti-communism, anti-G8 (very popular this year, what with the summit in Germany in June), and anti-reduction of wages.

The truck which featured a girl loudly screaming into her mic various slogans of probably a left-leaning attitude which I wasn't able to fully understand because she was rather loud and screechy. The truck also played punk music in between her rants.

A Maoist-Communist party from somewhere.

This being a street party, there were lots of crowds milling about and lots of music, much of which was put on the the local punk store.

Somewhere back there is a stage with some musicians on it.

The best slogan that came off this truck later in the evening was "Give a big middle finger to the police in Kreuzberg."

Not everyone is happy. It says: "My fest? And what should we celebrate? 1 Euro jobs? HARTZ IV (social benefits reforms)? Existence fears?" (The last question on the wall really reads "Existenz Angst," but there are about 50 different ways that could be translated, depending on how philosophical one wanted to be. Take your pick...)

And I'm off to Barcelona/BarTHelona on Friday for four days. I got a new Speicherkarte (my English is failing me at the moment), so I'll probably have way more pics when I come back than I really need. I hope it doesn't rain for all four days. And my hotel will be minutes away from the beach!!!

Yesterday's wanderings

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:01:42 GMT

The strange DDR-era fountain at Alex.

Get your free Scientology stress test! You only have to give us your soul!

Police at Alex. Something happened there yesterday evening, but I don't know what. I was on the U6 heading towards Friedrichstraße when the driver made an announcement about the U2 and U8 not running on schedule due to police activity. Those two lines only meet at Alex so obviously something was going on there, but by the time my curiosity and me got there, the police were just standing about. No riots for me yesterday. :(

They removed the wrap from the Rotes Rathaus (city hall) in January, I think, but this is the first time I remembered to take a pic of the building and its rather oddly tall tower.

It just seems so out of proportion...*shrugs*

Helloooo, TV Tower!

The Neptune Fountain is running! I sat here a while and read while I was waiting for a friend. Surprisingly quite despite the massive intersection not too far away. Did I mention the two guys who propositioned me here yesterday too? At least they were polite about it and went away when I lied and said I was waiting for my boyfriend. Welcome to Berlin!!!

Fountain at the Volkspark. Had some drinks and sat here for a while before heading back to Alex and finding yummy gelato along the way.

No shortage of Wiis in Germany. Saturn had a massive pile of them.

Hah...there's a town in Turkey called Batman!!! And I took this picture at 4.15am. And didn't go to bed until 5. Heh.

Updatey!

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 21:03:25 GMT

Eh...long time no update.

A little while ago: Spring arrived in the city, so I went and bought shirts and shorts for summer. I spent a day wandering around the Tiergarten and taking pictures and whatnot. Also planned a trip to Barcelona in early-May.

Two weeks ago-ish: Weather was still nice and I spent many days doing absolutely nothing other than going to the gym and then going out for coffee. Usually going out for coffee means 3 of 4 hours at least and a few different places. I bought a DDR army hat and wore that around the city for a few days. Got many strange looks. I also discovered verrrrry good sushi. And visited the graves of Marlene Dietrich and Helmut Newton. Then one of my very close friends moved back to Australia. I have to find a new partner in crime.

Last weekish: Went to the bookstore with the most awesome name (Hugendubel) and bought more books than I had originally wanted to. I bought them in English because I want to have fun reading out in the parks. Classes started again. I'm doing three this semester and one lecture. Two days a week of school. I like all my professors this semester, unlike last semester's where I had a couple that I couldn't stand. Weather got cooler and I became ungodly tired and had nights filled with very strange dreams that were in both English and German. I was told that my gym would be closed on May 1 for "police reasons." My veggie/fruit seller asked me if it would be legal for him to grill brats and sell them to the passing demonstrators on that day as well. I'm beginning to wonder what my neighborhood will turn into on May Day (riots and demonstrations are standard fare). Sunrise is now before 6am and sunset is about 8.15pm.

Today: I sat around for a while after waking up about 10am from another very weird dream, one that was partly influenced by a book I'm currently reading and had a mysterious appearance of Peeps in it. In the late afternoon I went for coffee with Chris, die Spreeprinzessin. I need to remember to bring my MacBook to the cafe we went to so it can make friends. We then went wandering, not particularly knowing where we were going. At one point we cut through the Charité Hospital campus then got truly lost. We stopped to ask a nice looking lady how to get out. She started by telling us how to get to the street then went on and on about going to Alexplatz then taking Unter den Linden to the Tor. Then as we were trying to leave she kept going on and on about the hospital and it's history and whatnot. After listening politely for about 5 minutes we were able to leave. We decided that she wasn't crazy...just a little lost. I turned around to look at her and she was still standing where we left her, staring off into space. We wondered if she wasn't experiencing some sort of early-onset dementia as she looked only in her early 50's at most. After getting out of the hospital we wandered down along the Spree, admiring the new buildings and we decided to rent a car sometime soon and drive to Poland. We sat in a cafe for a little while again then headed towards the Tor. It was all blocked off for some sort of festival, but we got around the ticket gates by cutting through on a different path. It was and international kid's festival. The band playing at the moment was Lexington Bridge, who are supposed to be the next Tokio Hotel. We watched a few minutes then wandered the rest of the festival, or what was left of it. We got there about 7pm when it was beginning to wind down. After deciding to head back to Alexplatz, we wondered about the new US Embassy being built right next to the Tor and how they might be able to protect it (none of the surrounding streets can be blocked). I said I wasn't sure, but in any case the architecture was really boring for it even if it fits in with the surroundings. We then argued about the location of the current embassy. He said it was the big blocked off building with the flag in front near Friedrichstrasse and I said, no, it was down in Zehlendorf (20 minutues SW). So we went over there and discovered that it was indeed the embassy and joked that they were building the new one so they could have proper air conditioning (instead of the window units the current building has). Then we went back to Alex (almost four hours after our excursion started) and went our separate ways. I got a Turkish pizza on the way home for dinner and had a chat with the nice guy behind the counter who doesn't proposition me every time I go into the store. I sat down on my couch at home to eat my pizza but then was distracted by the daddy long-legs crawling on the wall behind me. So I killed it with hairspray, but I'm still working up the courage to actually get rid of it. Maybe I'll get one of my roomies to do that. If I ever see them again, as they're hardly ever here. Now I'm trying to decided how dressed up I can be bothered to get for a noise party in an empty warehouse tonight. Tomorrow I should make an effort to go to the gym and prepare for a WWI poetry presentation on Thursday. We'll be hitting almost 80 degrees this week.

"Mut vs. Knut"

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:12:50 GMT

Our little Knutchen is having teething troubles. It's cute. Anyways, the city's obsession with the little bear is somewhat funny to many people, as we are treated to daily photos of him in one of the papers, video updates on the trains, and this weekend a special album/magazine was published. I went to go buy one, but they were all gone by the time I remembered to go to a newspaper stand. And I'm still waiting to go see him. The zoo is getting 20,000 people a day still. Anyways, the Hamburg ad agency "Den Mutigen gehört die Welt" (The world belongs to the courageous) has made a Knut-spoof. It's rather funny.

And one more gratuitous picture of Knuteness...

And I think all the trees bloomed in the city overnight. It's great, because now there's shade in the parks, so I can go sit and read under trees when I'm not in class, because I've got five-day weekends this semester. Ha! Take that, responsibility!

A public service announcement brought to you by your local malcontents

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:52:53 GMT

"May 1st: Cars burn, cops die."

There are weird things in this land.

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:40:53 GMT

Apparently last fall Heidi Klum released an album exclusively in Germany: x-mas themed music written mostly for use in advertisements by some retailer chain out here. Anyways, here's one of the songs: