Why do my eyes hurt?

"You've never used them before."

So, we've been in Berlin for 8 days and have run out of time. I've been trying to write this post for 5 days now, but we just keep moving. So now we are on the train, on our way to Munich. Yeah, we're now leaving Prague.

Where to begin?

The 25 hour flight, plus the 5 hours on the ground between flights? Yeah I hear you... diddums... but 3 showers later and I still only "just" feel human. Yeah I know, water restrictions, but after that long cooped up in a seat, in an artificial environment, you need that many showers!

The flight to Berlin was the least painful at only 85 minutes, but was the worst for my stomach as I forgot to take my travel sickness medication, so I spent most of the flight feeling VERY ill. By the last 15-20 minutes of the flight I was starting to feel OK and could begin looking out the window.

My first look of Berlin was the huge wind turbines scattered across the countryside. It looked amazing, like a small coupes of windmills here and there. They really looked very cool, and I wish I was able to take a photo of it.

After touching down at the Berlin airport, we caught the bus to the hotel where we stayed.

After settling into the hotel, buying some food etc, we took a walk around the area where we're staying. I have to say I was a little surprised at the area that we're in. Think the "Paris" end of Collins St in Melbourne. Labels, labels, labels darling. Gucci, Mont Blanc, Louis Vuitton, Valentino, Hermes, Cartier, Chanel, YSL, Bvlgari... the names just keep going. Trust two gay guys to pick a street like this to live on.

As we walked down Kurfürstendamm Straße, one of the main streets of Berlin, towards the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church, we came across one of the many Christmas markets around Berlin at this time. Unlike Melbourne, the people and the city are alive with a festive warmth, as they drink their gluhwein (hot spiced wine), eating their bratwurst, crepes & pastries and perusing the wares on sale from the various market stalls looking for gifts. So when in Berlin, do as the Berliners do! We drank, ate and perused.

Stalls of crap appear to be a universal constant the world over.

Day 2
Our first full day out in Berlin we woke up to no hot water. Thank the gods for the 3 hot showers we took the day before. After a quick brekky in the apartment and packing a cut lunch (this only lasted a couple of days as brekky & lunch is very cheap here), we headed for the U-Bahn station for a train to our first destination, KaDaWe for a spot of shopping!

KaDaWe, one of the largest department stores in the northern hemisphere, with one of the largest food halls in the world! This place is just HUGE. The first thing we did was look at leather jackets for me. Of course, as soon as David saw one he liked for himself, his old one at home needed to be replaced. Go figure! Anywho, no jackets for me a this stage. Just nothing that took my fancy.

So up to the 6th floor we went, to the food hall. Oh god, I think I have just died and gone to heaven. Without going into much detail (I'll cover this in the next post about the food of Berlin), we spent over 90 minutes just walking around the food hall, before we ordered a coffee and petit fours for morning tea.

After KaDaWe, it was off to Nollendorf Pl, one of the "gay" quarters where we had coffee in Cafe Berio. Cigarette smoke, coffee, chocolate cake and a hint of perfume from the woman sitting next to us, surrounded by an art deco decor with paintings of Madonna, Bette, Barbara and Audery on the walls. This is cafe Berio, oh and it is VERY warm in here, or maybe that's just the whiskey from the Irish coffee I was drinking. But seriously, Berlin stores & cafes are heated to within an inch of it's life. After the coffee and some writing, we took a walk around the gay quarter for the rest of the afternoon, before heading back to the apartment for some dinner and sleep.

Day 3
Pergamon Museum, WOW! This place is just a little impressive and overwhelming at the same time. As you enter the museum you're confronted by the Pergamon Temple entrance. A massive Roman construction of marble and stone. Majestic stairs lead up to the altar area and the entire structure is surrounded by columns and a stone relief depicting a battle between the Olympian Gods and the Titans. Words do not do it justice, take look at the pictures.

However, this is not the only thing to see in the Pergamon Museum, this place is packed with so many beautiful pieces you could spend days here. Some pieces invoked tears from there beauty while others invoked anger, not due to the pieces themselves, but by what had been done to them. There are Roman marble statues that have been desecrated or even castrated if you will, by having their genitalia chiseled off in the name of modesty and the shame of the naked human form decreed by the catholic church.

Why are we so ashamed of what we are? It's part of our very being.

AAAAARRRRRRHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

It makes me so fucking angry!

Day 4
Memory card for the camera is full. Time to put photos to CD, unfortunatly this takes half the day! So we sent the rest of the day shopping... :) We pick up the lether jacket from KaDaWe for David and I find a cool streetwear jacket too! Happy now, but I'll have to wait till we get to Italy for my dress jacket.

Poor me ;)

Day 5
We succumbed to the tourist "sight seeing bus tour" today.

1st stop - Kultureforum (Philharmonic building & art galleries)
This one was more for David, interesting architecture, but we didn't go inside. However, there was a very interesting solar powered obelisk. It depicted the changes to the earth due to global warming and played sounds such as a male choir, and other voices which were mainly in German so I have no idea what they were saying. Next we walked over to Potsdammer Platz.

2nd stop - Potsdammer Platz
We walk over to a square on our way to Potsdammer Platz and came across two interesting modern urban art sculptures, "two men boxing" and "balloon flower". You can check them out on flickr. (www.flickr.com/photos/escapethematrix/) We also came across another Christmas market, these things are everywhere! :) Across from the market was a street called "Marlene-Dietrich Allee" named after the 1930-50ish singer/actor. She made German accents and smoking very sexy during the war, and she's also a bit of a gay icon. So, of course, we had to stop and do our gay duty and get a picture.

3rd stop - Jewish museum
We caught the tour bus to the Jewish Museum. I can see where the inspiration for Federation Square came from now; they are very similar building styles. Having watched South Park & The Simpsons for many years, I thought I knew what to expect here. I was wrong, and under prepared.

It's an interactive museum, that celebrates the Jewish faith and outlines the struggles & oppression of the people throughout history. It shows the resiliance and strength of their faith and, of course, it tells of the Nazi regime.

At this point I was begining to feel sick at what we can do to our fellow man. All in the name of racial purity & human betterment.

There are two parts to the museum which I found particularly difficult, the Holocaust Tower & the Garden of Exile.

The Holocaust Tower is a large concrete tower with very little light coming in, so it takes a couple of moments for your eyes to ajust. You can hear the world outside the tower, but the tower itself is devoid of anything inside. However, you are two levels below ground so can't see anything of it, all you have is the world inside this dark & oppessively cold tower. The effect of this tower was so complete that I wanted to sink to the ground, hug my knees to my chest and cry like a baby. Thinking back on it still makes me feel uncomfortable. I was only in the tower for a few minutes, I could not imagine being in that sitituation for years. The artist's intention was to create an environment were you could hear and sense the outside world but be unable to interact with it. You're world became the cold & dark place of the camp.

After the tower, the garden sounded like a good place to get some air and pull myself together. If anything the garden was totally disorientating. The garden is made up of 49 concrete columns, each filled with earth and a dwarf oak tree planted in the top of each. Each of the columns is on a slight angle, as is the ground. This creates a very disorientating effect as you walk around the area. This of cause, was the artist's intention, create the effect of disorientation that the Jews would have felt about being dislocated.

Needless to say my experience at this museum was not what I expected. However, it was very moving.

4th stop - Check Point Charlie & The Wall
Wow, this place is a little difficult to put into words. I found the remains of the wall & the history of CPC to be very interesting, but the place is SO Americanised that it's just awful. That's not to say CPC and Berlin are awful; it's not. However, it's like all of the German culture has been bled away and replaced by a mini America.

Once again we run out of time, so we hopped back on the bus and took the rest of the tour back to the hotel.

Day 6
As it's our second last day in Berlin we thought we'd spend it walking through the Tiergarden, which is a huge park (500 acres) which used to be the hunting reserve for King Fredirch I. This place would look magnificent during spring & summer, with it's bird life, creeks, bridges, lakes and trees. We soon make our way to the Siegessãula or Victory Tower. It's a dizzyingly tall obilisk topped with a golden bronze statue of the Goddess Viktoria which stands at a height of 56.3m. After climbing the 285 steps up the spiral staircase to the viewing platform, just below Viktoria's skirts, we were exhausted. However, the view was something very special. OK, so I didn't go out on the platform, but David did & I could see the view from the doorway to the platform. Our legs took their revenge on us later that afternoon. Next we walked down to the Gemãldegalerie (art gallery), which is a part of the Kultureforum. We grabbed a spot of lunch in the gallery cafe before heading in. This later turned out to be a huge mistake as I got a mild dose of food poisoning, which I have still not completely kicked. Even now, leaving Prague, my tummy is still a little delicate. :( There are some very impressive paintings on display at this gallery including one by Rembrandt titled "Man with the Golden Helm". To be honest, I think I only glanced at this one before walking away. It wasn't until David asked me if I had seen it, I took a second look. Let me try to put this into some kind of perspective for you. There are so many great pieces in this gallery it's so easy to just walk past such a modest piece. It's not full of colour, or large and dramatic. It's a portrait of a man cloaked in shadows, wearing a golden helmut, but it's not until you've looked into the shadows for a few minutes that you begin to see the real depths of the painting and you begin to understand why this man was a true master.

Day 7
It's our last day in Berlin, I can't believe it's gone so fast! Today we took it a little easy and revisted some of our fav places, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church (thanx Wendi), lunch @ KaDaWe, Nollendorf Platz & Cafe Berio.

Day 8
Leave for Prague... Sad now...

More on Prague in a couple of days...