Aug 2006

After an excellent nights sleep, we went down to consume our first bland hostel breakfast and plan the next few days in Prague. Bec and Nicky are friends from Sydney Uni - Bec was one of my mentees from ArtsNetwork in 2003, and Nicky I know though O-Week and mutual friends. They are both in Europe for exchange as well - Nicky to Potsdam, Germany, and Bec to Aix en Provence, France.

It's amazing how different things are when you travel with others. We ended up doing very little 'sightseeing' today, but we had an excellent time nonetheless. We've all had our fair share of museums etc, so it was great just to wander around.

That being said, we did spend rather too much time in the Internet cafes and cafes. The food, though, is fantastic. We all had traditional Czech meals of pork, duck and dumplings and they were amazing! Quite cheap too - everything is roughly Sydney prices, not 2x it as in the rest of Europe.

The one Museum we did go to, however, was the National Museum, at the end of Wenceslas Sq in the New Town. It's an imposing building and well worth a visit, but the museum itself is largely dead-boring. I've had more than enough of 'ologys' for a while!! Palaentology, Zoology, Anthropology and Mineralogy all got a mention! The guestbook and architecture were the highlights.

We walked all through the Old Town, marvelling in disgust at the large number of English hen's and buck's nights around (my personal favourite: "I'm 40 and very naughty" on a group of rather large females. Eek!). They really are horrible tourists! But we caught an awesome sunset from the top of Charles' Bridge tower and had another great dinner (celebrating Nicky's 21st) with lots of cheese! (Sorry Nicky! - she's lactose intolerant)

Woke up at 8 to say bye to Julia - my host for the past few days - and received calls from both Mum, Dad & Flis and Angela! yay!

After packing and dropping my bags back at Hauptbahnhof, I headed to Warschauer Strasse to visit the East Side Gallery, whcih was AWESOME! So much to see, and the Grafitti was really impressive. Some cool stencils too.

Unfortunately, that ended up being all I really did today, as I spent some time in the afternoon looking for the Stasi Museum (unsuccesfully, it looks like it no longer exists), and buying souvenirs. I did get to visit the Berlin Wall Memorial though, which was great, although somewhat more of the same.

And yet another dodgy exchange rate from Pounds to Czech Crowns... ah well, such is life.

However, today was destined to be good: I was meeting with Bec & Nicky from Sydney and we were all headed for Prague!!

I met Bec on the train and we had a great time catching up over a few beers in the restaurant car. We finally arrived in Prague 80mins late and proceeded to get hopelessly lost looking for the hostel! It was totally my fault, however I can't be totally to blame when there are two streets named 'Skolska' and 'Sokolska' within 2kms of each other.

So finally, at around 1am, both exhausted, we arrived at our hostel. It actually ended up being really close to the exit to the Metro, which made it all the more annoying!! So we knocked at the door and were greeted with a Czech couple who knew nothing of our reservation, names, or anything! Only after 10mins of exasperation on all our parts, and Bec asking for 'her Blonde friend' (to which they replied, 'Ah!! Blondino!!!') were we allowed in and found an equally exasperated Nicky.

The hostel (Centrum II) is VERY centrally located, but dodgy as. The shower curtain is, well, covered in a mix of brown and red substances that I don't even want to think about, and the beds squeak. The breakfast is OK, if very bland, but it's safe and the other guests are friendly. Nicky even scored (no pun intended) free accommodation in Naples through her new-found Italian friend Valentino.

We FINALLY got to sleep at 2am, exhausted and kinda over Prague.

PS: For photos of Berlin, click here.

Somehow today ended up being totally German-centric, and by the end of it I really got a feeling that Berlin played a hugely important role in the 20th century. I guess that isn't totally surprising given that I'm in Berlin, but somehow today was different. For example, the Soviets conducted the Berlin Blockade, leading to the Berlin Airlift because it distracted the US from the Chinese Communist Party coming to power in 1949.

I finally got around to doing a walking tour of Berlin this morning and it was fantastic (with Insider Tours). I really like all the different aspects of this city - from the subcultures, to the food, and the history - and this tour gave a great run-down on all of them. Our guide was a British guy who'd lived in East Berlin during the Cold War, and added loads of personal anecdotes, which made this far better than any museum exhibition. He also felt quite nostalgic for the 'old times' and quoted a survey undertaken in Berlin in 2002 that stated 10% of East Berliners and 25% of West Berliners wanted the Wall back. Interesting given everything I've read so far have said almost the opposite! I even got some tips for negotiating the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from others on the tour.

I spent this afternoon in the Deutsches Historische Museum, which covers the entire history of 'Germany' in its many forms from 2000BC to now. After 1900 its fairly repetitive (given that I've studied the past 100 years many times), but learning how Germany has changed so much was fascinating.

After dinner, Julia and I met up with Anne, whom Julia is going to Ecuador with in a few months, for cocktails. Awesome drinks, and great company in a quirky Spanish bar in the middle of Kruezberg. Yay!

Random YouTube video:
Pussycat Boys hilarous!

As promised, I'll write a bit about the museums I visited today.

First stop, the Jewish Museum. In one word: amazing. I walked out 3 hours later with a new level of knowledge of Judaism. I guess that should be expected after visiting a Jewish Museum, but I learned far more than I expected. What I also appreciated was that it wasn't all about the Shoah (Holocaust) or persecution, rather it was a celebration of the Jewish faith. Yes, they discussed the Holocaust and other forms of persecution, but with a focus on the future, not the past.

The museum itself is architecturally stunning, which seems to be a trend throughout Europe. The Jewish Museum only has one square feature in the entire building, and that is the memorial garden, which itself contains non-square colums. The Axes in the basement are moving, and really well-presented, covering both the positive and negative repecussions from the Shoah - i.e. migration and death.

There was also a Freud exhibition on at the time (Mum you would've loved it) which attempted to shed some light on his life, his theories and why people attend therapy in the first place. Essentially they couldn't explain it, so they just showed it from his perspective, which was just as effective. The room with all the couches, where you can sit and listen to psychology depicted through film was great - you'd be surprised how often 'the couch' is used in films!

Next stop, after a massive downpout and lunch of currywurst, was Checkpoint Charlie. CC served as one of the checkpoints between East and West Berlin, and became the most infamous one because it was the location of the tank stand-off during the Cold War. The checkpoint itself has been moved to a traffic island in the middle of the road, but the whole area is dedicated to the Wall and the people who lost their lives trying to cross. It's another example of the ever-changing Berlin, as the district is entirely new (since 1991). They are also attempting to create continuous and coherent relics and monuments to the Wall, and there is now an exhibition at CC showing how this will be done. Interesting that they've waited this long to do that, but when a city is completely broke, it's not totally surprising.

From there, I checked out the Topography of Terror exhibition, which covers the SS & Gestapo, their prisons, and the Nurnburg Trial that followed the end of WW2. Fascinating stuff, and not covered in any of the other museums I've been to so far. Free too!

Finally I visited the Jewish Memorial - the one you may have seen with all the uneven stones. As opposed to the Jewish Museum, this memorial is entirely dedicated to remembering those lives murdered in the Shoah. It doesn't mince its words, and it definitely sets out to emphasise the enormity of it all. Definitely confronting, particularly the use of the word 'murdered' not 'died' as in many other places.

After that I felt a bit numb so I went on the internet and booked all the boring necessities for the rest of my Europe trip - train tickets and Edinburgh Tattoo tickets.