Berlin Trip

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Big Entry ... rest your eyes for a second first...



Friday at school was hectic, we were shoved into groups (luckily, I’m in a good group of three, everyone is great there, but these two especially I get along well with so I’m happy to be in a good group!) assigned the assignment, told what to get started on, and left alone; a lot of the program is being left alone. I guess its all part of the master’s thing - but its really interesting to see how responsible everyone’s become in such a short time, and how ready for action we all our, such a good group of people working together!!! Friday afternoon Amanda and I headed home, and began packing for Berlin. Our bus left at 22:30 so we had to leave the house around 2100. We piled on to the bus, and began the Looooooooooooooong journey to Berlin. Its only a 9ish hour drive but it felt like forever, considering there was an insane storm outside, the bus was travelling well over 110km an hour, and then we had a ferry ride, where no one could walk because the ship was being tossed around like a toy. We finally got to Berlin, ragged, tired, and happy to be on dry land! We made our way on to the underground and headed for the Reichstag and Brandenburg gate. Ah, before I go on, if you go to Berlin, get the “Welcome Card” comes in 2 or 3 day packs, for 2 days it was 17 Euros, and included 48 hours of any kind of public transit you want, and a huge coupon book that we more than made up for the 17 euros with.

Reichstag & Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial & Potsdamn Platz

The Brandenburg Gate was huge, covering an entire street block, probably a lot more than that, and was quite impressive, even that early (8amish). We headed over to the Reichstag, reading little signs of history as we went, and met a fairly large queue to get into the Reichstag, which opens at 8 so we thought we’d be early, apparently so did everyone else. Our Berlin book (that we nicely borrowed from the school library) warned us of this queue but it still took over an hour to get in. It was incredible once we got in however, and well worth the wait. Apparently there is an interactive tour of this at www.berlin.de/berlin360 . The main area is a huge mirrored structure that visitors walk around in a spiral until they reach the top to see stunning views of nearly all of Berlin, all the major sights can be seen, however, with the wind nearly knocking us over, we left pretty quickly after taking a few cloudy pictures. The newer parliament buildings are incredible structures, works of art, that are all different materials shaped and carved into beautiful architectural wonders, with circles, lines, and rectangles dominating the horizon in every direction. Whites, steel and glass is used extensively and its really quite stunning to view all the buildings. We saw a much better view the next day… more on that later.

We made our way up the street to the Holocaust memorial, which is basically a lot of cement blocks placed into rows, and apparently made to look like a wheat field (apparently). Upon first approaching it, it looked like a bunch of tomb stones, however, once you begin walking through it, and the pillars go from being a foot high to seven feet high, and are placed in different areas at different heights on different paths all around you, the effect is awesome, its like being in an endless labyrinth where one can see their way out in each direction but it looks like a long, long windy walk, even though its relatively straight and short. One tourist asked me, ‘what is this’ - I explained that it was a Holocaust memorial to remember all the people killed, and he said ‘why aren’t their names on the stones’ which is also what I had thought initially - something to remember these people more than just blocks, but the terrible reality is that…too many, far too many people died, and there isn’t records of exactly who died, how, when, or why. Simply millions of people died, that’s the harsh reality and I can think of nothing better to represent it, than a field with an optical illusion of foreverness, in cold and harsh concrete.

We had lunch across from this at a place advertising the official dish of Berlin, “Curry Wurst”. This was a sausage in a curry sauce, fantastic, and cheap! Only 4 euros.

We wandered over to Potsdamn Platz, the newest structure in Berlin, acting as an architectural landmark, and as a memoriam to the Berlin wall. Giant parts of the wall are reconstructed in an altogether underwhelming fashion, separated by stories of the era of the wall. This would have a lot more impact if it wasn’t shadowed by phenomenal ultra-modern architecture rising up behind it. All of Potsdamn Platz, which included two Daimler centres, a Sony Centre and a shopping mall is simply put…shiny. Everything is cut on unique angles, the buildings reflect off each other, and the Sony Centre has an incredible roof which looks like a giant white circular fan, encompassing a piazza of film entertainment, lego-land and restaurants. Within this huge area was a part of the old hotel that Kaiser Wilhelm the…something visited often to have meetings, and visitors can see that it was an incredible hotel in its day, extravagant and beautiful.

European Friends and Their Crazy Style

Amanda and I had to leave at this point to meet a friend of a friend. One of our classmates just happened to own an apartment in Berlin (Welcome to my “I love Europeans” club). He generously gave us use of it for the weekend, and we just had to meet his friend to get the keys. After a few dodgy encounters at Kottbusser Tor station where we were to meet her, (it’s the equivalent of Hastings and Main) we finally met up with her after receiving the following text message “I’m in a bright blue cloak outside the station entrance, where are you?” a)there are three station entrances b)a bright blue cloak? But sure enough, there she was in the style that can only be pulled off and look amazing by these crazy Scandanavian people, a red dress, bright blue cloak, black leggings and canvas skater shoes; yet utterly beautiful, and stylish - I just don’t get it; if I wore that in Vancouver, I’d be run down to preserve the gene pool, but this girl looked like a blonde Alexis Bledel and managed to pull off the same Scandanvian look (she’s Danish) that many of them do pull off; hopelessly uncoordinated clothes paired with shoes I would never, never, never, ever consider buying, and leggings. But they all look stunning. I’m confused. Back to the story. She took us to the (huge) and gorgeous apartment, and then left us, with the invitation of “we’re meeting around 12 (am) to go out, the party won’t really start until 4 or 5, but if you’d like to join us that early you can”…. Everyone it seems likes their late nights here. Amanda and I settled for some more shopping, some mojitos, capihinarias, and a blistery stumble back home as we had just bought new boots that day, and were experiencing our stupidity at wearing them out that night in the form of giant painful blisters. We passed out around 11 - well before the ‘early’ start that Nynne had invited us out to, but after the 6am start we had, we needed it.

Sunday in Berlin:

The next day was much more historical and beautiful. To start with, the weather was a hot, less windy 20 degrees, and the day was awesome. We first went to the Bauhaus museum, the seed of all Design Evil. I mean… the inspiration for designers everywhere. it’s the opposite of design that I like. Horribly simple, painfully uniform, and bland colour options. However, it has inspired millions of designers and housing complexes, and movements, so we had to see it. It was just as painful as when Russell was shoving it down our throats in first year of Interaction Design, and we bought post cards to amuse ourselves with the memories of it all.

From here we went to a main shopping area which turned out to be closed as it was Sunday (Friedrichstrasse for future reference) but we happened on the way, to find not one, but two fairs! One for children which was fun as it was, it covered all of Potsdamn Platz, and we got to try some tasty pretzels and check out loads of fun stands and events. Following this we came upon a university which had awesome old buildings on truly old roads, and opened up to the big museum, and the Cathedral Dom of Berlin. Along this road was another fair, but this time, a second hand flea market type thing - except in this case, it wasn’t old junk so much as really amazing old books, photos, pins, and things from old time Berlin. I picked up a gorgeous book of Berlin’s past, with photos and paintings of Berlin, its very old, yellowing pages and all, and I love it. We wandered through all the treasures, resisted buying the very trendy gas masks for sale, and continued on to the Bode Museum which starts out Museum Island, a huge line of museums, and old buildings that is being built up in the area to make it more accessible to visitors. A bridge crossed over the Spree Canal which on the one side had trendy restaurants in old and new buildings, and on the other side had all the buildings including the Dom, which are hundreds of years old. The contrast was fantastic and we quickly boarded a recommended boat cruise, for only 4 euros with our discount card. We settled on to the boat, ordered some beer, and waited for the cruise to begin. It was an amazing cruise, an hour long, and it was such a nice day, with the heat of the sun, and the slight wind, and all the awesome architecture and historical sights that we almost didn’t notice that the entire tour was IN GERMAN. Unfortunately we had picked the wrong time or boat or something, and once we were going there was no stopping, however, as I have forget to previously mention, I had a surge of German knowledge left over from classes and speaking it teeny bits with my family, and I actually understood a few things, mainly numbers, years, and a few words in between but enough to know where to look when they were explaining about something, and later in the day, enough to have an entire conversation about where something was, and then how much change I should be giving the cashier. It was great, now if only my Swedish could come at least that far! Anyway, the boat cruise went past all the parliament buildings, which, imagine the sea wall, but as a canal, with people laying in the grass at the side, joggers, people strolling, restaurants, cafes, patios galore, and wickedly amazing new and old buildings everywhere, it was fantastic. Kind of like being on a ride at Disneyland only it would be “ArchitectureHappyLand”.

From here we went to a restaurant called “Noodle” which was very similar to Wagamama in the UK but far swankier and I had probably one of the best restaurant meals I can remember ever (maybe the blind restaurant and Il Gardiana compare) I had roasted duck with eggplant, zucchini, and well here : Ped Phad Khi Mau ½ gebackene ente mit Thaiaubergine, Bambusstreifen, Basilikum un grunem Pfeffer. So basil, bamboo, pepper, etc, but the sauce was just incredible, the pepper came on little stalks of pepper-balls(?) and everything was presented in a most spectacular way. Spoiled! Annnnd 12 Euros. YAY!

We wandered down to Alexanderplatz and Hackercher Markt where we found to our sadness, all the shopping we’d been looking for, but it was far too late to go. We had found our boots, a lot of Euro later, (but they’re leather, and they’ll last, and they’re nice, and that’s my argument, plus, hello? Sweden! Need boots!) so anyway, we went to the grocery store, bough approximately 60 euros worth of alcohol, and went on our merry way. 60 Euros worth…what is that, hmmm 5 bottles of wine (3 red, 2 white, Germany, France, and Spain), 1 bottle blue curaco, 2 bottles Absolut Vodka, 1 bottle Amaretto, and 1 bottle Campari. Plus some chocolate, kinder surprise and juice, 68 euros. Yes, I love Germany. :D We gave one bottle of Absolut to our classmate who had loaned us the apartment, and are quite happy with our…modest collection.

We got back to Malmo at 6:30am, got back to Lund around 7:30am, I showered, made coffee, ate oatmeal (check out reference to awesome diet after weekend of chocolate inhalation) and went off to school to begin a field study of people taking transit. After a full day of interviewing, having a design lecture, interviewing some more, I came home, cleaned up, went shopping for groceries, and then sat down to write all this. Its been busy!

Sustainability:

Of note: Its interesting, we are doing a project on Sustainable Transportation. Malmo has hundreds of bicycles in use every day, if people don’t bike, they take the train or bus or just walk. Few people drive and yet, we’re trying to make it more sustainable. Its bizarre. Vancouver is like…hell compared to here sustainability wise and we’re apparently better than most places. I was talking to a friend this afternoon over pizza, about this. I said, oh Vancouver put in a good thing in the past few years where idling your car is now illegal. He goes… what? That’s been illegal here as long as I can remember, why would you idle? What’s the point? Sweden is the leader in sustainability and I think I’m going to learn a lot that I can bring home with me. We discussed more interesting points as we watched a couple taking photos around the picturesque Lilla Torg - if tourists visit Sweden, and they can take just a sense of the sustainability home with them, be a bit more aware of their own actions at home, and consequently make even small changes in the way they do things, will Sweden essentially be creating a wave of sustainability? Another for - instance. At home, Superstore just started promoting those canvas bags for $1 (yes I know they‘ve had the other bags forever, but they just started this big promotion). Safeway picked up on the trend immediately after. Here, everyone brings their own canvas bags everywhere, its expected. At the store, they sell canvas bags but look at you like you’re a bit of a nutter if you haven’t brought your own. Its just expected that plastic bags are not used. Also, my apartment building has a bigger room and more facilities than a typical “Recycle-It” depot at home, the options are endless, there are bins for everything. Amusingly, compost is not one of them. I asked about this, and they’re working on a plan where compost bins will be set up so that when compost is collected, the gas it emits will be used for fuelling gas run machines so its still in production though a lot of Swedes do compost on their own for their gardens. Commercially they’re just waiting until this gas production thing is ready to go, hopefully within the next year. All this and I have trouble convincing a certain police department to recycle. Its amazing the difference culture makes. My school has bins everywhere to separate everything, as do most work places and public venues I’ve seen. At home you’re hard pressed to find a place to recycle properly with the exception of the often question and confusing ‘bottle holders’ on garbage cans lining downtown streets. They’re for RECYCLING, people, not for Starbucks cups!!!

And on that note, I have to go and listen to some of my interviews, where people talk about how they’d rather bike than take the train because they’re worried about the environment. Driving - not often considered. Everyone is aware of the environment here, its pretty amazing. Take a look around Vancouverites, what can you do TODAY?

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