View from Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany

Corporate structures, Isola

From Garibaldi station, Milano

Quick Berlin Guide

This is a little late but I've been away, but here it is :)

Berlin is a big city and not easy to immediately get a feel for especially when staying only a few days. With big modern buildings and wide streets and a very extensive public transport system it can be quite overwhelming at first,  if it rains it can be grey and with its history a little heavy; but with some wanderlust and some tips from people who know something one will definitely discover what everyone is going on about.  I decided to write a little quick Berlin guide to narrow it down at least a little bit 

1.        All trips is better when done with a partner in crime –  a besty  is the best travel companion and can  turn even the grey days into fun.

2.       Cheap accommodation – a trip always feels more successful when the accommodation offers value for money, in this case we felt very content with our hostel Amstel House. One gets a double room at 17.50 euro  p/p a night, with clean facilities, very sociable  foyer and bar. It is situated in the more quiet Alt-Moabit area and is close to a metro which makes it easy to get around.  

3.       Do pack an umbrella and a coat, it was in the middle of July but we had two days of cold wet weather.

4.       Kreuzberg, a hip, grimy area with quaint cafe’s, vintage shops and design and fashion concept stores. The most people here dress in vintage and that weird mix of trashy  I would compare to the band Die Antwoord.  In this area you can find all the things deemed cool on hipster blogs: old records, vintage, craft, design posters and cafe’s with mismatched antique furniture.  We were particularly drawn into one which also happened to show a Bollywood film in the background.  It is also close to the area Friedrichsplein which is full of nice places to dine and has beautiful trees.

5.       Mauerpark market – where you can find amazing second-hand clothes and stuff. I for instance found the knitted waistcoat for 3 euro, leather bag for 8 euro and this very different necklace .

6.       These paintings by Caspar David Friedrich at the Alte Nationalgalerie.

7.       Berlinishce Galerie for contemporary art and also to go see a permanent collection of the Fluxus movement.

8.       While going to the Alte National Galerie also go hang around in the park at the Berlin Cathedral. Such a beautiful place.

9.       Hamburger Bahnhof museum – lots of art which can be considered the start of contemporary art as we know it today.

Ps: Stole some layout from Miss Moss, although mine is slightly cluttered in comparison, love that blog.

Berlin: First Impressions

- At the Berlin Wall -

One great thing about living in Europe is that it is so easy to travel around. With our summer holidays here I am taking the free time to do just that. This pas week I met up with my best friend in Berlin. After everyone has told me about how amazing the city  it it seemed right to go see for myself.  

My  besty Lise and  I met up at our hotel as we both got to Berlin  at night.  My flight got delayed which got me arriving at the hotel at 1 am. The excitement when two friends who have not seen each other in a few months  is one magical thing that this earth offers us, and so it was for us. Having too much to talk about (as it goes one always ends up talking in the dark) we ended up falling asleep just before dawn. We arose the next morning after the cleaning lady knocked on the door. We rushed to finish considering the fact that we are in another city and fought of the rain and freezing wind like true determined tourists. Like all typical tourists we headed for the centre first.

 Berlin is a big city and not easy to immediately get a feel for, this is especially true for the centre which has big modern buildings and wide streets. It was pouring down and so cold and we have not yet had breakfast, this made us feel unwelcome in the city at first. We rushed in to a place that offered food and tea and after that we rushed towards ZARA who had a sale to see if we can find perhaps another jacket. Warmer and fed we  felt more courage to trump the weather and go see what the city had to offer.

Berlin can seem very grey at first, there is the Holocaust Memorial, a beautiful land art piece but kind of depressing, then you find Check Point Charlie and the remains of the Berlin wall. This combined with bad weather was about enough that we could take and we ended our day with a piece of cake and tea at a Starbucks of all places. The cake did not disappoint. After that we accidently stumbled across the area around Alexanderplatz and Hackescher market where you find the Dome and the museums and green gardens. Even in the greyness we were convinced, we actually do like Berlin. We ended our day in our hostel room with Prosecco and a kebab and  with the good conversation and giggles only a best friend can offer...

A short break - Friendship and stroopwafels

I have had no time to write lately, also sometimes just not the inspirations and at most time just not the energy.  But it is Easter holiday now and I am writting from Amsterdam while stuffing my face with stroopwafels. It is my fourth visit to this city, and everytime I arrive I am happy to be here, I love this city.  People on bicycles (the air here is way cleaner then in Milan), a language where I recognise the words and well this city with its canals is just so picturesque.  But the best part of it is that I am vistiting my besty Lise who has been living here since 2008.

One often has very romantic ideas about travel, and in a lot of ways those ideas are true, but when one moves to a country for a longer period then a touristic visit one is also faced with the harsh realities of dislocation. It is not a temporal sense of dislocation that one enjoys and then returns home and put in a photoalbum to look back on. One is living alone far away from home, with people often being so different from you in culture, language and belief which hard as it forces you to confront you own ideas, beliefs, culture. While this is not a bad thing, the process in itself can be quite disruptive to the system, it is a series of breaking things down and building things up, finding an idendity in another space. One does not have the same luxury of quickly calling a friend who believes exactly the same as you to call when you are experiencing an exitstentialist crisis. It is a challenge one can not foresee or understand unless you have done the same.  And one that will not leave you unchanged.

By then one has this realisation that by the time you will return back home, that home will probably not feel that home anymore. One has this fear that when you get there you will be so different that one wouldn’t find your space there either.  One also has a fear to somehow betray yourself, and its a violent process of holding on to things and letting go of others.In this half way there space is a longing to just touch base somewhere.

 What amazing thing a good friend is. We have not seen each other in months, and in the time we have been changed.  We share a tiny mattress sleeping “kop voet” (the skill of sleeping with on head on the one side of the bed and the other on the other side) like one needs when one doesn’t have enough beds, something we learnt already in the early years of our friendship at University. One can be happy with so little. And now many years later, older, two very different people from our original wide eyed days, we can still find honesty, I can still feel like myself and I am able to piece together little pieces of myself, albeit a little rearanged. And we can still laugh at each other’s jokes; we still understand each other even though we are different. A good friend brings home, no matter where you are.

Venice (Final part -finally)

Here is the final and very late part of our Venice trip, I've been delayed by a million other things(some of which I will share at some point), including internet problems. But here it is,Venice Part III!!!

When you walk out of the train station at Venice you are imediately transported to some other dimension in time. Venice is truelly beautiful with its canals and old buildings and gondoliers, one’s imagination runs back to thoughts of old romantic courtships on balconies and love letters. At the same time the aesthetics becomes almost a bit artificial as these old buildings are maintained in contemporary times.

With the carnival there are also the costumes and the masks. You find a range of costumes from period costumes to just plain bizarre costumes – a man in a snail suit and a creepy man with many hands to mention only a few.  Between crystals, feathers and bizarre characters it feels more like one is in a fantasy.  Perhaps it is this strange feeling of unreality that gives way for the strange behaviours and excess that people allow themselves at carnival.  The memories of the day seems slightly unreal as I remember us squatting in the streets, wandering aimlessly, seeing to much, my friends kissing strangers and me attacking someone...

Most of the day we spent wandering the streets; gazing at the dozens of people in costumes. By sunset we found ourselfs in the big plain overwhelmed by the spectacle. By then most people has already been drinking all day and it is with these strange surroundings that events started turning in to craze.  By now it is not strange anymore that random people take pictures of random people. Everything is spectacle there is Darth Vader, a Jedi, a very tall man, a women dressed in gold, name it.

We did not think it strange shortly after sunset when guys dressed as prisoners asked to take a picture with us (even though we were not dressed in costume). As we were posing for pictures with these random men one of them seemed to find a particular liking in me. Of course one does not think anything at first, being a little intoxicated by wine and spectacle one isn’t immediately aware of the events that could follow. So when the man put his arm around me and looked at me with a big smile I did not anticipate that his lips would all of a sudden move in towards me, and if it was perhaps just a kiss I could’ve accepted it, but what was to follow was so absurd that I did not exaclty know at that point whether I should laugh of cry. As his lips came close and my head slightly bobs away his tongue shot out with determination to enter my mouth.  In disgust I pinched my lips togehther pulled away as much as possible.  The resitance did not seem to discourage him, infact he just readjusted his plan and instead of sticking his tongue in my mouth he opted for licking my face instead. My dear friend looked on and we can still not really know why she just stood there looking at us and why I myself seemed to be so passive in the process of escaping him. I did dodge him after that but my face felt kind of sticky for the rest of the night. What is funny though is that his friend seemed to have tried the exact same thing with my friend Winnie.

As the night progressed the fools became more.  One of our travel companions of the day got lost at some point during his search for a bathroom and was only able to find us two hours later.

When the night got really late we moved from the events of the big plain in search of other parties, food and bathrooms.  We wandered the tiny streets, found a slice of pizza on the way and found plenty of strangers to have strange conversations with.  It was after one when reached a club that played strange regae music.

The club filled up more and more as night (or by this time morning) progressed.  There were tons of strangers making out, and tons of men trying to pull their moves on any girl that might have accidently cast a glance at them. There were plenty of men making an effort to come bump and grind (gosh I had that, why would I want to dance like that?), and plenty of men groping at me at random points.  I don’t know if it was just a little bit too much alcohol, tiredness or the strange atmosphere but all the groping and people pushing, but it got me feeling a little aggressive.  I at some point remeber using really rude language which I could never repeat to tell a guy to please leave me alone. In my defence, this guy continously touched me and stood way to close to me, and he was creepy and had long dreadlocks which looked like they might carry 300 different lice species.

Perhaps before I describe my next moment of craziness one needs some understanding of my reality to gain perspective on the event that followed. Now, for South Africans, crime is a reality, we all know someone personally that has been affected by violent crime at some level.  Guns to me is not something you play with, it is a weapon of destruction.  At some point after  I have been groped at too many times and I was already extremely tired a man appeared out of nowhere into our little dancing circle and pointed a gun into my face. My first reaction was of such complete terror which made me jump at the guy to grab the gun from his hands.  I completely aggresively attacked the guy, only to realise that it was infact ofc ourse a plastic toy gun. But at that point I was so angry I grabbed the gun from him anyway and try to break it and hit him with it.  I got such a fright that I was completely angered by the sittuation and needed to go outside to breathe and I almost broke out in tears. 

By then all I wanted was to go home.  Eventually I manage to get a free bottle of water from the barman (I think he could see I was in a crazy state) for me to calm down. By then though we found it time to leave and find our way back to the train. It took friendly strangers (well the one was making out with my friend so he had to be friendly) to direct us, me sort of carrying,sort of dragging my other friend who found her capacity to walk slightly affected at that point, but we made it to the train , happy to finally sit down. 

# Please excuse me for typos, spelling and grammatical errors - internetlessness = posting from library which closes in 15 minutes, no time to edit#

A holiday in Malta.

I spent the week of Christmas on the beautiful historical island Malta with two Italians. The girl I am currently sharing an apartment with invited me to spend Christmas with her and father in Malta.  I of course took the opportunity to see another place.

Malta is beautiful! Its rich with history and the mythical landscape with ancient stone and traces of old civilisations take you to another time.  Most of the buildings there are from limestone and with its history of Catholicism there are plenty of old churches to explore (one even sporting two works by Caravaggio).  It is also small enough to explore the entire island in a short stay (you can drive from the northern tip of the Island to the Southern tip within an hour), although a short stay is probably not enough to really experience everything.  The people of Malta are wonderful; so friendly and receptive! Most of them could speak Maltese, English and Italian!  On top of that Malta is one of the safest places to live in.

The holiday however did not come without its challenges. Sharing a small hotel apartment with strangers (one being a 66 year old  man), even if they are kind, can be a little overwhelming at times, when they are from another language, even more so.  

My roommate’s father was pretty much the stereotype of the Italian man, he looks like one (not the hot ones, Danny de Vito type), he talks like one and eats like one. His eating and drinking habits, which he dearly tried to enforce on me, dominated his orientation of the trip and most of what his day was about was about planning the next meal (breakfast not included as then it seems eating Panetone and milk is sufficient). When we were driving around in the car for sightseeing, most of the time it felt for me that we were chasing after what we would have for lunch.  For lunch he often made pasta. With this then he would dish up a plate for me the size of a hill of which I have to request in my best Italian to reduce the portion. Against this request he protested with passion: “Ma no tu mangi poco (NO you eat very little)!!! No, tu devi mangiare,aperto la bocca (no, you must eat, just open your mouth wider)”, and then ended it with which is probably the only English expression he knows: “EETSA GOOOOOODHA (it is good)”! This was probably the first time in my life I’ve ever experienced heartburn.

Apart from the food there was the driving challenge. In Malta the steering side of the car is like in South Africa on the right side which of course also required the Italian to drive on the opposite side of what he is used to. This of course led to its fair share of comical events such as him driving up the wrong way around the circle. His daughter sitting next to him becomes all histerical! “PA-PA”, she shouts which then follows with a series of Italian swear words coming from both father and daughter while then breaking out in a fight about his driving abilities.  Every now and then I hear: “MAA-MA MIA, SANTA BERNARDA.... this sentence continues with a series of saint names and other names from the catholic church. After a while I found it best just to listen to my iPod and try not to think of the danger my life could be in.

Tension between father and daughter did not however stay in the car, it spilled into lunch, dinner and every other moment which often led to the girl leaving the room and slamming doors, and leaving me alone with the signore to talk  (all in Italian) first about the difficulty of raising teenagers, then about politics. Do not get him started on the leftist party and the gypsies.  Some of his comments had hints of xenophobia written all over it.   At the least talking politics in a new language pushes you to improve it.

I have not yet mentioned how I was tricked into this holiday.  I was invited to come with, and after I have booked and payed for my plane ticket I was informed that I will have to pay hundred and fifty euro for this holiday.  Don’t get me wrong, I would be happy to pay for my own holiday, but had I known all this, I would’ve booked myself a room far more economical than the one they’ve booked, and then I would’ve at least have my own room. Here I slept on the couch.  This little tension reached breaking point on the 26 December when I was also informed that I must pay for my Christmas dinner, which is 19 euro plus half of the price of the bottle wine we drank which was 10 euro. Once again for me it is not that I am a rat that likes to feed of others, but it’s about the principal of inviting someone or, you know, informing them upfront of all costs involved. This led me to strike up my own argument in the best Italian I could possibly think up in an emotional state. I was pretty close to tears that morning; actually I did break out in tears on my own in the hotel lobby. Anyway, the rest of the day we spent driving around the Island with father and daughter striking up regular arguments while chasing to find an open supermarket to buy food for lunch. The continuous fighting between father and daughter was probably the most exhausting thing as my family never fights, so I am not used to such a life full of drama.

The rest of the week I took a bus and spent it strolling through the cities Sliema and Valetta on my own. Valetta surprised with its almost Spanish type architecture and ancient feel. I also discovered a church that had a Caravaggio in its collection. Also one interesting thing the bus driver told me was that scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean were actually shot in the harbour of Valletta.

In Sliema you can find lots to buy, but it was on the deck looking out on the harbour and Valetta that I started talking to an old man from Wales who told me how years back he was there at the same harbour where it was used as war base camp. This was probably my favourite day as I got to strike up conversations with some Maltese people as well as other tourist. The day also ended with me entering the hotel lobby to find the entire football team from Padova there. Very attractive boys! Pity they were on their way to practise and I was on my way to pack my suitcase to end an exhausting holiday.

I was happy when the week came to an end, nevertheless I am grateful that I got to see Malta and at least I got to practise my Italian language skills. But a warning to all, pick those who you travel with carefully.