Being creative

Now that I have been berlin a week & gotten over being sick, i have found the time to be a little more creative with some of my pictures and have uploaded a few different things. By no way complete, but a little closer to what I plan to create from the experience. I have taken about 2,000 pictures so far, so need some time to create some work from these.

The Wall

I personally find it a little creepy for tourists to search out such horrible things as the remnants of the wall, & I myself have avoided doing such things, but sometimes when exploring you come across a piece here & there, usually in out of the way places, & then I can’t help but think what it would have been like, & if anyone had died, or succeeeded in crossing this artificial boundary. Yesterday I was at a canal taking a photograph of a beautiful sunset over urban decay & then found a little plaque which explained how a bus load of east germans once tried to ram thru the checkpoint in order to escape to the west. Unfortuentely they failed, a few got shot dead, others wounded, & the rest were taken away to an unknown future. It makes me sad to think that the world was once like this, so many times in history, & right now there are walls in the world for such purposes, & again will they eventually decay and become part of the past? I would hope that they never exist, but something tells me that there will always be walls.

Dr.Pongs

Last night I went to a most unusual bar, a small and out of the way place at Ebeswalder Strasse, called Dr.Pongs, which is infact a ping pong bar. It was a little hard to find, a very non descript building except for a large poster featuring some cool people surrounding a table tennis table. I had planned to meet some couchsurfers there, so after waiting a while i was eventually greeted by some familiar faces of people i have met in previous meets in berlin.
Now Dr. Pongs works like this.. When you arrive you pay a 5 euro deposit at the bar for a bat, & when a new round begins anyone who wants to play joins a large circle around the table, you then each shuffle and get a hit of the ball when you reach an end of the table, If  you miss, then you are out of the circle, which, as the game progresses gets smaller, & faster, until there are 4 or 5 people left, then they have to run around the table in order to keep up. This keeps going until there are only two people left, at which time, it turns into a regular game with the winner being the first to 5 points. The winner then thumps on the table with their bat, signalling time for a new round to begin.
It was a hell of alot of fun, and although I am very bad at such games, I really enjoyed myself. Towards the end of the night everyone was getting drunk, & there was a dj playing some great tunes, & the whole atmosphere was electric. It is great how such games can bring a room of people together. Much more exciting than playing pool or Fussball because everyone is involved.
I will have to go back, but next time I will make sure I am wearing sweatbands & some groovy tennis gear, & although I sux, I will try my hardest to look the part. Someone should start one of these bars in Melbourne, because I am sure they will pull a decent crowd whenever these events are on, I for one, will certainly attend.

cooking chicken & feeling fine.

right now I am roasting a chicken in my berlin flat, drinking a beck’s beer & thinking how much better I feel than a few days ago. The flu has almost cleared up, bar a slightly sore throat, & a buch of mucus every time i feel the need to cough up. Last night I was well enough to go out for a bit, meeting up with about 20 fellow couchsurfers, & all heading into volkspark friedrichstien park to see a movie, ‘die welt’ (ie/ the world) under the stars.

We were informed that it would have subtitles, seeing it was in german, but as it turned out, it did not. so I managed to understand about 10% of what was said, but thankfully the ‘language barrier’ i had previously learnt to overcome, had me understanding the general plot of it all. It was basically about a school teacher who starts an experiment with his teenage students, to create a group/society, much like how hitler did with germany in WW2. Without giving much away I can say that it had unforseen consequences, & I can say it reminded me of a cross between ‘lord of the flies’ & the UK tv series ‘Skins’.

I will have to see it again with subtitiles, because the audience laughed lots & i didn’t get the jokes. But it was still great to meet a bunch of couchsurfers from around the world, & I sat next to a very classy & retro looking english girl, who contacted me today suggesting we have more drinks early next week.. hehehehe… I have to say I found her pretty cute, so of course I said Sure thing..

I also found a massive stuffed dinosaur in the park, which i ended up carrying around & taking home with me, which was funny because soo many people laughed when they saw me dragging this huge thing around public transport. I have now named her Frieda & given her alot of tattoos.. It is nice to have something for my room.. She will of course, feature in a photoshoot in the near future.

Tomorrow I am meeting up with a melbourne friend, rutter, who is a performance artist from melbourne currently touring europe, will be nice to see a familiar face & have some drinks & a laugh with her.

The Room

Now that I am here and loving berlin so much, I have decided to stay for a month (at least), renting a room in the flat with these guys, justin & sam. Mainly because it takes me back to my dream, of the bike & the guitar, I had found the bike in lubljana & since then had begun to wonder where I would find the guitar, coming to this place & meeting these musicians had made me realise that staying in this flat for a month is the guitar, it is important that I spend some time in berlin and see what happens. I am also considering taking a short course in german so that I may speak it better than I do because I make so many mistakes when trying to communicate. for example in a club I went up to this girl & tried to tell her that her tattoo’s were ’sehr heiss’ (very hot), but now I have been told that ’sehr heiss’ is another way of saying I am horny.. eeek.. I think i will also try to find some work here, so that I may stay for a while longer. I am now in the process of changing my flight details so that I stay in europe at least until the end of september. I was due to go in 3 weeks time, but that is way too soon for what I had planned my overseas adventure to be. I still also have promised friends i will visit them in london, & spain, so fingers crossed I can fit these journeys in as well as experience berlin like I am destined to do.

The berlin flat

The flat is beautiful, it has white walls, two rooms & alot of space & light, It borders East/West berlin & is right next to the ‘kill zone’ a 100 metre wide area of sand, which existed before the berlin wall, so that anyone who entered that area, would most likely have been shot. Looking out my window at this zone, imagining where the wall once was, I wonder how it would have felt to have lived here at this time, being able to see the west, the people, but never experience it. This also makes me think back to the time when i was younger that I watched the wall fall, & meeting east berliners, I get a feeling of how good it would have been to take a hammer to this wall, & destroy the awful cage surrounding them. But it is a beautiful flat, nice people & this has bourght about a change in plans for europe.

Berlin Flu

My Australian friend, Agnies, had hooked me up with some melbourne friends of hers, musicians living in berlin, who had kindly offered to put me up for a few nights. I was suprised when I got Justins facebook request, because It also said that they had other melbourne friends in common. So I packed my things, now feeling like shit because of the flu in my system, & struggled my way to schwartzkopf platz to rest, which was a shame because on this night was, ‘fuckparade’ - a berlin party which was in response to the lack of the loveparade exisiting. It sounded like a totally wild night, & would have had plenty of photo opportunities, but at this point i was so sick all i wanted to do was to sleep & hopefully heal quickly. The guys also went off to see a gypsy punk/ska band, something I would have loved to have seen (& I am told it was pretty awesome gig), but all i could do at this point was to sleep.

My first nite in Berlin

I last visited berlin about 13 years ago, & have to say i was rather amazed at the degree of change I discovered. When I last visited I was about 19 years old & travelling with my sister, which ment we mainly stuck to the west & although the wall had recently come down, I think she was a bit hesitant to explore the east, thinking it may be dangerous. Now, upon my return I can see a good degree of unification had taken place & although the east still contains many derelict & graffiti covered buildings, It also contains a great, vibrant alternative scene, & in my travels I feel now I have been in much dodgier places in the east.

I spent my first few hours exploring whilst I waited for my couch to become available with my host, doreen. She lives in an eastern part of berlin and after lugging my pack through runious, graffiti soaked landscape I eventually found her flat. She seemed a nice person & I really appreciated her hosting me at such short notice, but she also had a bad flu & apologised for being unsocial, spending most of her time in her room watching the olympics. There was also another older french guy couchsurfing her place, so I had someone to hangout with. He was typically french, if i can be so cliched, preferring wine over beer, and often snacking on bread & cheese. He was also a very new couchsurfer, and like many of us involved with the system, had nothing but good things to say about it.

So on the couchsurfing forums, I had found a video installation exhibition going on, so myself and the french guy had a few drinks & went on our way to find this place. It was very nice to have found an art exhibition, hanging out with a few other couchsurfers and some local artists. The exhibiton was great, the video aspect was done by an american couchsurfing artist, living in berlin, & consisted of a variety of video works featuring her son, & expressing the concepts of child exploitation, & the coming of age. I did like her work , but the other work done by an artist whose name I can’t remember, had me entranced & wishing I had bourght my camera along.

His work consisted of a floor of thousands of matchsticks, all neatly arranged into a grid on a piece of wood so that they created a carpet of matchsticks, through which he walked, with flints on his cowboy boots, so that every step created a trail of flames. He strutted his stuff for several minutes on this large carpet of flame, occasionally almost setting himself on fire, but always maintaining his composure. The resulting work was a slightly random collection of burnt out & alive matches.

After this event, I was slightly drunk after a fill of free beers & the french guy frustrated, because the girl he was talking to did not want to give him her number & he felt that there was no point in continuing to stay out (FAIL), so I left him with my map, watching him walk down a dark street, map spread out in front of him looking like a totally lost tourist in the ghetto. I hoped that he didn’t find any trouble on his way home. By this time I had made friends with three other couchsurfers, two berliners & a (cute) israli girl who had lived for many years in australia, & was now living in berlin. So we went off to find another bar, where we had several more beers & some food. Now feeling alot more drunk, to the point that my budget didn’t matter, nor the fact that I was wearing summer clothes, & it was fast getting cold. We bid goodbye to the girls & the berlin guy & myself set off to a club on the other side of town to drink even more. By 5am I was very wasted but suprised that I somehow managed to make my way home, & I awoke several hours later, feeling hungover, but also with this ticklish throat & stuffy head. I suspected that a flu, not unlike my hosts, had managed to enter my body.

Krakow

Firstly I have to say that 95% of polish women are drop dead sexy, after a few hours walking the streets of Krakow I found myself with a sore neck from consistantly being distracted by these adorable creatures. Also english is very well spoken in poland (at least amongst the younger generaton) and I found every polish girl I met was very interested in speaking to me, which is not such a bad thing.

The couch I had found was with a polish IT guy who works for a big petrochemical company. He makes great money & was in the process of applying for an australian work visa, not such a bad thing ’cause I think IT skills like his are much in demand in australia.

He met me at the train station, where I was watching a large group of locals practice their capolera and drumming skills. I took some great photos of these and was eventually met by a smiling polish guy who informed us we must hurry as another couchsurfng mate of his was in much need of a place to stay and we would have to meet up with him on the way to his place.

We met the guy, chilly, who I found to be rather cool then went back to the flat, hung out for a bit before preparing to go out for a ‘few’ quiet beers… Quiet beers often get out of control, & although I ended up falling asleep on the couch in the bar, the two other guys took home some sexy polish girls and had their way with them, whereas I just slept. This travel thing can become rather exhausting at times.

I spent 3 nights in Krakow, before heading up to warsaw and catching a connecting night train to Berlin. For a change I decided to spend an extra 3 euros and book myself a sleeping compartment, something I now wish I had done for every other night train, as the good sleep was well worth the small extra amount of money.

Train ride to Krakow

Only 400km’s but the journey lasted 9 1/2 hours as the train took a very indirect route to krakow. The trip went without incident, other than sharing a beer & broken conversation with an old polish man with bad teeth & listening to people in the compartment next to me discuss american politics & the war in Iraq, a conversation i have noticed comes up everytime someone meets an americian. I too am guilty of such discussions, & next time i think i will try to avoid bringing the topic up as I am sure this would be just as frustrating as the typical conversations people start up with me for being austrlian ie/ kangaroos, sydney, the beach, dangerous animals & surfing. Still, thank god no one pays much attention to our politics as I find many such things to be embarrassing.

everyone thinks obama will  become president & then get assassanated. If this is the case, then i hope such an awful thing will bring about change.