Walls and Squats

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Berlin, what an incredible city. There is so much culture there because of it's history and the berlin wall. We started out in the city by watching the germany vs spain match in the world cup. We didn't just go to any bar to watch it, instead we headed down to the city center where they had screen set up and thousands of fans dressed up and watching the game in the streets. They take 'football' veerryyy seriously over here! There was a spanish guy in our hostel who searched a spanish bar just so he could go there and be able to cheer for spain without worrying about germany fans assaulting him! Some other people from our hostel had some germany paint sticks with the colors of their flag so we got decked out in the country colors and watched the game with them (fellow canadians!). Unfortuantely, spain won the match and took germany out of the running for the world cup. They played last night and ended up getting bornze so that was cool, but the disappointment went through the whole crowd, definately not happy campers.
There's a tour company called neweurope and they do free tours in all big cities in europe, it works on a tip basis for your guide. So usually it's a 3 hour walking tour and they take you around to all the sights and explain some history. It's great for the pocket book because tours usually charge around 12 euro, but when it's a tip basis you can toss them a 5 and not feel too bad. We're backpackers! So we've been doing this in as many cities as we can and they're usually really good. So we did the newberlin tour on our first full day there and we got to see a part of the wall where it still stands, and one of the only checkpoints going from east to west berlin called checkpoint charlie. There's also a huge jewish memorial in the middle of the main part of town that is over 2000 cement blocks all the same length and width but they vary in height. It's weird when you walk through there and it's so quiet, but you're in the middle of town. And people are walking within the blocks around you but they appear and disappear. It's a very vague memorial that you're supposed to try and interpret yourself.
Very close to the memorial is the location where hitlers old bunker was. You wouldn't know it by walking by. There is a small sign that explains it was the previous location of his bunker and where him and his bride commited suicide by taking cyanide pills followed up with a shot to the head. Part of the bunker remains underground but nothing is showing and that spot is just a parking lot and some weeds where people take their dogs to shit. Very fitting.
Since it was getting close to Alyx's final days, we did some shopping. I can't believe how hot it got in Berlin, the last couple of days have been in the mid 30s, with no sort of breeze or anything to help with the heat! It didn't help that our hostel had huge windows where the sun rose right into our room, making it unsleepable after 7 or 8 in the morning! This is no good when you get to bed at 5:30 in the morning. This was the case last night so at the moment i'm slightly sleep deprived. Sorry if this blog is a bit all over the place for that very reason!
So when the wall fell, the east side was so poor and no one wanted to live there so there were many (and still are) abandoned buildings. The poor artists and musicians of the city would 'squat' in these buildings. Meaning they would live in them illegally and work on or even sell their art there. There are still people squating in some of these old abandoned buildings. So the city has a very alternative scene and we found another free tour that took us to some of these buildings where artists sell stuff and even have art galleries. They also brought us around to see some amazing street art and told us about some of the local artists who are well known for their street art around the city. There was little to no graffiti in these location, but the walls were just covered with street art from big paintings and murals, to small drawings. The street art and sqauters are such a huge part of the berlin culture that the city will actually protect some locations so people can continue to live there 'illegally' and sell their stuff. Just like the walls outside, the entire building was covered with posters and street art. It's really something to walk through a building that is dirty and not maintained at all but having the walls covered.
There are also giant murals on sides of the buildings that are blank. Just massive and done by talented artists, they're so interesting to look at.
There is also the longest stretch of the berlin wall still standing and dozens of artists were brought there to paint murals as a memorial, it's called the east side gallery. These murals are so amazing, ande they are all different. I took lots of pictures becase it's not something you can really explain.
The majority of berliners love the culture and alternative lifestyle of the city, so when there's talk of demolishing the abandoned building and putting in highrises there are huge protests. We were lucky enough to be there when one of these happened. You could hear the protest coming from a mile away, pretty much like an unorganized parade with banners and DJs pumping out the music with people dancing and just following the whole crowd. This was in the middle of the afternoon and was happening all over the city, people just dancing and loving life. There were police everywhere incase things got violent but it was a totally peaceful protest.
Last night we did a alternative pub crawl which took us to some of the local bars instead of the big touristy ones, also bars that had something really unique or just a cool look inside. There are ping pong bars where there is just a ping pong table set up in the middle of a room and you move around the table getting one hit on your turn, being eliminated when you miss. People used to use these ping pong bars to talk about political issues when you weren't allowed to do so in the streets. But they're still around because everyone loves drunk ping pong! 4 nights was definately not enough time in berlin, and i probably would have stayed longer if i didn't have a hostel booked in prague. but oh well, gotta keep moving!
Right now i'm in the train to prague, or praha. One this i love about the train is the countryside and mountains and cute litttle town you get to see. Even old castles! I'm blown away by how pretty the czech landscape is. It's so pretty with little towns tucked away into the hills.
This train ride is a little bit different because i'm a lone traveller now. It was a sad farewell when Alyx and I got on our trains heading in opposite directions. It's bittersweet to think there is only 2 weeks left of this european holiday. I know end of this trip is going to go sooo fast, but that's ok. It's getting to the point where living out of a bag is getting really old! Loving the whole thing, but a shower without flip flops and our bed at home is going to be like heaven on earth. I might be ther third wheel with adam and tyler for a little while but i'm sure we'll adjust fast to all of us living there together.
From the looks of the blue sky and not a single cloud, czech is going to be just as hot as germany. At least it's preparation for the okanagan in august!

I'll let you all know my sort of plan for the next couple weeks. prague is booked for 4 nights and vienna, austria is booked for 3 nights. I'm thinking of going to a little town in the austrian alps for a few nights as well just to get a taste of the mountains and do some hiking and possibly water rafting and stuff like that! Then I'd like to go back to munich for a night or two, possibly spend some time in cologne, or maybe rotterdam before going back to amsterdam. The only problem is that i fly out on the 27th but my eurail pass is up on the 22nd. that means i'll have to pay for tickets for a bit, so i'm going to want to be close to amsterdam . I'll keep you posted as i book.
Wish me smooth travels without Alyx looking after me! hahah

As a litte addition I did make it to my hostel A-OK!! It seems awesome so far and i'm excited for the next few days!

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