Wednesday 25 August 2010

Lakes, nudists and prostitutes...

14th August



Weekend! I woke up at a fairly respectable time, did my washing, then hung it up on the makeshift drier created by Charlotte (2 brooms across 2 chairs.)


Eventually I left the house and headed to the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum) via an art fair. The museum was pretty massive, covering German history from 100BC- 1994, so I knew I was never going to cover it all. After seeing the temporary exhibitions on castles, and German reunification in 1990 I went round the modern half of the museum, covering 1918 onwards, which still took me a couple of hours with skimming some sections, so who knows how long it would take to go round the whole museum properly... After writing a couple of articles I went round Kate’s flat with some of the other girls for pizza, then quickly checked the internet at Rosenthaler Platz.


We headed out fairly early to CCCP Bar, a supposedly communist themed bar in Rosenthaler Platz. I wasn’t entirely convinced by the communist theme- the main quirk of the place was a rather odd 70s porn movie projected on to one wall. It did resemble a Communist state in that whilst people tried to convince us we were having a great time, as soon as we left we appreciated just how shit it was. After wandering round Berlin for a bit- everyone wanted to go to some big dance club, but a few of us decided we weren’t going to pay 12€ to listen to shit techno- Kate, Andy and I ended up at White Noise, an indie night in an underground club. I had a great time- it was like being at Fun Factory at the Union on a Monday night, except underground with less snakebite and more Germans.


15th August


Despite our late night partying, Kate and I managed to leave the apartments by 11.30 to head to Charlottenburg to visit the royal palace. On the way all the lights on our U-Bahn went out and the engine shut off, so we had to rethink our route slightly... We made it to Charlottenburg quite late, so decided to just go to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and Erotik Museum and then come back another day to do the palaces.


We had lunch at this amazing restaurant that sold beer in litre glasses, so had quite a lengthy and relaxed meal! After our beer we were ready for the Erotik Museum, which was quite hilarious. Highlights included an interactive ‘find the G-spot’ game, a selection of chastity belts and a ‘guess the fetish’ game. Kate and I were also quite amused by a 50 year old man wandering round the museum by himself, who spent quite a long time reading the erectile dysfunction display...


Afterwards we headed to Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, a church which was heavily bombed in WWII, and the half-destroyed tower has been left un-restored as a memorial. Next to it is a new church with windows created from the shattered stained glass of the old church.


We then got the U-Bahn to White Trash Fast Food, a restaurant above the club we went to the night before. The décor was very eclectic; an old Irish pub with a Chinese twist, covered in random pictures and old paintings... The food was good though. Afterwards we headed to B-Flat, a very cool jazz club, for a rather sophisticated evening of live jazz.


16th August


After language class we went to Schloss Bellevue, the presidential palace, then I saw a memorial to Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn in Tiergarten. I exchanged some money as was running low on funds, then proceeded to buy out the souvenir shop to get rid of my 100€ note. After finishing off my articles I headed to the internet café to send them off and check my emails. A fairly chilled day!


17th August


Language class was extremely satisfying today, as I had a German grammar and tenses breakthrough. Unfortunately this proved to be the highlight of the day. The afternoon trip was a visit to the Stasi Museum, which should have been fascinating but we had a tour guide so dull he managed to make spying seem boring... After 45 minutes I couldn’t take anymore, so snuck off and covered the rest of the museum alone, looking at secret buttonhole cameras and notes hidden in clothing and tyres. The evening was pretty dull as I was just editing articles- the next few days won’t be much fun but it is what I am here for!


18th August


No language today as it’s Wednesday, so time for our workshop with Caroline. My articles weren’t completely ripped to shreds, which was nice. The rest of the day was pretty unproductive, and I got very little done, but I did eat a lot of food in the name of helping Kate with her restaurant reviews. We also went to the chocolate shop, which has huge chocolate versions of Berlin monuments (and Titanic for some reason). After a late dinner I got a much-needed early night.


19th August


Today we had our progress meeting for the travel guide. Unfortunately half the group didn’t turn up so it was difficult to ascertain just how much progress had been made, but it seems like we’re going to be ok. I am writing the 600 word overview of Berlin’s history, which I am almost certainly going to regret volunteering myself for... As we now only have a couple of days to finish writing, Kate, Adie and I headed to Charlottenburg Palace to explore and take photos. We didn’t have time to go inside so decided to head back in the last week. We then headed to Museum Island, as all the museums there are free after 6 on Thursdays, to go to the Pergamon Museum (which we had been referring to as the Pokemon Museum.) The Pergamon Museum is difficult to describe, but it was absolutely amazing. Essentially they’ve just excavated ancient sites, taken them and rebuilding them in a museum. There was a massive Greek temple entrance, a Roman market gate, massive columns, and the entrance gate to Babylon. Everything looked amazing, and it was nice to be able to appreciate things without having to read loads of information.


In the evening I was going to go out, but with so much to do Friday I just went for pre-drinks, managed to get fairly drunk by accident, then went to bed.


20th August


I woke up slightly drunk, but still managed to make it to language class. Today’s trip was to Müggelsee, a large lake with a beach. Luckily it was a nice sunny day, so it was a great afternoon. Kitty, Katre, Kate and I went straight into the lake, swam to the nudist beach and had a brief naked swim until the boys started following us... There were lots of rocks which hurt my feet when I came out, but I thought I was just being a bit of a wimp. Ten minutes later I looked down to see that my toe was covered in blood. After washing away the sand and blood I realised I had a massive cut in the side of my toe, and that now I had noticed it, it actually hurt quite a lot. Fortunately there was plenty to take my mind off it. Unfortunately the main distraction was being constantly chased by wasps. Kate and I would be chatting, then one or both of us would have to leave and run about for a bit until the wasps went, then we would resume our conversation. When we left I tried to put my shoe on but it hurt too much, so I just walked with one shoe off until we got back. Later I had the not-so-enjoyable task of removing the blood-covered grains of sand from the cut. In the evening I had intended to finish my articles and do some editing, but ended up mainly just watching Mad Men and doing a bit of writing on the side, so vowed to be productive tomorrow instead.


21st August


After greatly enjoying our trip to Müggelsee we decided to check out another lake, so went to Orankesee. I had chosen this on the basis it had a big slide going in to the lake, which proved to be a excellent decision. In the evening Jack, Dustin, Chloe, Kate, Claire and I went to random reggae bar, where Claire and I ended up playing foosball with two random Germans. My German (who I can’t remember the name of) and I won, although I think my contributions were mainly just flukes as I was fairly drunk at this stage... We then left in search of a club via McDonald’s, but ended up wandering the streets for quite a long time. Eventually we stumbled across a random gathering of people round small fires playing guitars, and hung out there for a bit before getting a taxi home at 5am.


22nd August


Another sunny day, another trip to a lake. This time, Weisensee. A fairly relaxed day, although I unwisely got persuaded to swim across the lake and back... I managed it, but did think I was going to die at one stage. The evening was meant to be serious getting down to work time, but after a bit of editing, writing one article and starting another I got distracted by Mad Men. I was pretty knackered so figured would just go to bed, but then was presented with a load of new articles to edit... After ten minutes I gave up and went to sleep.


23rd August


After all the editing I had been given yesterday, as well as the fact I hadn’t finished my main article, I had to miss language and headed to St. Oberholtz for a day on the laptop. I was there for about six hours, so by the time I left I could barely see properly.


In the evening Jack, Chloe, Kate and I went to A-Trane, a jazz club in Charlottenburg that has a free night on Mondays. We then headed to a bar, where a random man started chatting to us. He had been raised in Leicestershire, lives in Berlin but works as a professor in France, and was quite interesting although extremely drunk. He bought us all a round of drinks though so we were happy! After a trip to Burger King we got a taxi home, and got in at about 5am.


24th August.


Despite my limited amount of sleep, I still managed to make it to language class, although my German skills were slightly affected. In the afternoon I went to the D.D.R Museum, a museum about life in the German Democratic Republic, which was good fun. You could sit in an East German car, listen to G.D.R radio stations, look around a typical G.D.R house and play with G.D.R toys among various other things.


After a power nap and some dinner a few of us attempted to go back to the Reichstag for look at Berlin by night. Unfortunately we got there slightly too late, so we headed to a Singapore-style bar and restaurant on Oranienstrasse for some cocktails. After two tasty but sickly cocktails Andy, Nicola and Charlotte went home, whilst Adie, Kate and I headed to another bar, lured in with the promise of free shisha. We then discovered they sold absinth, so duly ordered some absinth and beer and spent a couple of hours trying to work out how to blow smoke rings with the shisha. Whilst sat at the bar we’d noticed quite a few people who were clearly prostitutes wandering past, and when we headed off down to Rosenthaler Strasse we saw a prostitute every 10 metres... A group of German men started talking to us, enlisting our help as they were fed up of being harassed by prostitutes and they were left alone whilst they walked with us. We were then befriended by some 18 year old English guys, who had only been in Berlin a couple of days and were quite terrified by the onslaught of prostitutes! After helping them safely negotiate the prostitute zone and leading them to a club we headed to get beer and chips from 24 hour food place in Rosenthaler Platz. Adie was pleased when an Aussie girl befriended us, as she got to hear another Melbourne voice for the first time since she’d been here! At 4am we decided we couldn’t be bothered to hang around an hour for the first tram, so got a taxi back.

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