Day TWENTY TWO

Aaand we are out of Germany! 

With Tyler down again with a bad case of food poisoning - a German parting gift from a sandwich at the Berlin train station - Sebastian and I decided to leave him in bed and take a 'Prague alternative walking tour'. Now, being a born and raised West Coast American, Sebastian was attracted to the guided tour like a moth to a flame. Nothing wrong with that. I, however, had never been on a guided city tour, and had no desire to ever go on one. 

I am so glad I went on this one. 

I can't do it justice on here, but I can tell you that the tour is run by Prague Alternative Walking Tours, and covers Czech (youth) society after the fall of communism, the current street art scene and graffiti areas, other local art and art galleries, urban bio gardens, and a brief look at the (secret) headquarters of the Czech branch of the hackers group anonymous. I haven't included photos here, but the hacker HQ has an eco cafe on the first floor, where the only way to buy food or drink is to use bitcoin, or physical labour by form of washing up the dishes. 

Our tour guide is one of the only female graffiti and street artists in the capital, a documentary maker and political thinker. She gave us insight into the 'illegal' punk scene before the revolution, contemporary hip hop and graffiti political jigsaw, the  Prague grime and D&B scene, and she even showed us her old block of apartments, which were being demolished that very day, where her and other international artists lived and created. At the end of the tour she took us to the Cross Club, a steampunk style club with yet more interesting backstory.

Even though this tour is clearly aimed at foreign tourists, it has a feeling of originality and authenticity to it, which I feel is missing in many of these 'tourist activities' the world over. I think we have forgotten that we (the tourists) go to visit a location or landmark because it is unique, and it is a real thing that has both historical, political or cultural (and sometimes all three) importance to the place it belongs to. Far too often the 'attraction' has been engineered to fit the tourists' wants and needs, and a catch 22 ensues; are we here to look at something interesting, or has something interesting been engineered for us to look at? And pay money to do so? One of the reasons I have no interest at all in visiting Disneyland.

Our party included our bossy but strangely motherly Eastern European guide, Myself, Sebastian (loud American accent and giant camera in hand), a gay guy form our hostel who seemed shy of everyone else's extroverted personalities, and a gender-free American goth woman called Sybil, who was both a source of amusement, mainly for her humorous questions to our guide, and annoyance - again, because of her questions to our guide. A lively bunch in all.

We started in Prague 1, the most historic, affluent and touristy part of the city. We then went north west to Prague 6 and Prague 7 to see a different, more modest side of Prague, and I was able to imagine what life in the capital is actually like away from the buzz of the town centre. 

^ Most of the churches in Prague were sold after the revolution to private foreign buyers with the only requirement being that they maintained the buildings. this has resulted in a lot of beautifully restored and well kept private churches which are not open for public services, but can be rented out for private functions, such as birthday parties.

^ The Prague TV tower, voted ugliest building in Europe, the black dots on the coloumns are actually sculptures of giant black babies with no faces, representing the fragile new Czech Republic and the unknown direction for their future.

The apartment block formally known as home to our tour guide

I thought I would include this last picture as I felt it was quite well juxtaposed to our interesting and alternative day. Sebastian's Netflix-ing was compromised. Never mind, Tyler was better in time to join us for beer and cards. Naturally.

And no. This is not an ad.

Find their website here:http://www.praguealternativetours.cz/prague-alternative-tour/

and our tour guide's HBO documentary on female graffiti gangs in Prague here: http://www.girlpowermovie.com/

next: Prague | Day 23

Berlin | Day 21

Day TWENTY ONE 

On our last day in Berlin I really wanted to go to a market, and of course see the Berlin Wall. With little (me) to no (Tyler) sleep the night before, and a late start nursing our hangovers, we arranged to meet up with our main man Sebastian and a local friend of his that he was staying with, and go check out one of the Sunday Markets. 

This was the Flohmarkt im Mauerpark (Flea-market at Mauerpark) and despite being so much colder than it looks in the pictures, I enjoyed this place so much! 

^ trying to decide how many cameras they can fit in their bags

I'm sure it was touristy, all these market-type places must be, but it did feel like we were among more locals than tourists here. There were food stalls, vintage, clothes, shoes, handmade jewellery, homeware - you name it. The market is set up in lines of stalls on the cobbled part of the park under the trees, while the green park space itself is used for musicians and other entertainers to perform, and places to sit down. On the far side of the park is a hill, creating a natural amphitheater, and on top of this hill there is a small playground and some small standing fragments of the Berlin Wall.

^ made me seriously consider green hair

The photos of the Wall in this post of show another part of the wall that we got to by tram. It is a pity we started the day so late, I would have gladly spent a whole day at the market! I have no idea what the temperature was that day but it felt freezing later on in the day when we were at the Wall. Poor Sebastian had both Tyler and me yelling at him to hurry because we wanted to go somewhere warm. Sorry about that homie.

^ Sebastian directing us in some creative photography

^ I felt a bit weird about it but I put my G on the wall

And so concludes Berlin. I would love to go back and visit the city in more depth one day ... watch this space

with love from Berlin

Berlin | Day 20

Day TWENTY

Some very typical touristy places today, but all amazing nevertheless...

We went to quite a few different places, but I only took photos in a couple, including the Holocaust Memorial, Brandenburg Gate and - later that night after much beer and pool - Alexanderplatz.

The official name for this famous site is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It consists of 2,711 square concrete pillars placed in a grid pattern over a sloping piece of paved ground, located within walking distance of the Brandenburg Gate. The architect Peter Eisenman wanted to create a feeling of a uniformity and controlling systematic oppression that was also confusing and deprived of all human feeling. He is quoted to say that the memorial unexpectedly expressed how the Jewish people involved felt trapped in their situation, neither dead or alive:  "I watched people walk into it for the first time and it is amazing how these heads disappear -- like going under water. Primo Levi talks about a similar idea in his book about Auschwitz. He writes that the prisoners were no longer alive but they weren't dead either. Rather, they seemed to descend into a personal hell. I was suddenly reminded of that passage while watching these heads disappear into the monument. You don't often see people disappear into something that appears to be flat." (Eisenman 2005)In typical Gamel and Tyler fashion, we didn't find the underground part with the names of all known victims and information centre. Yet another reason to return to Berlin. As if I needed more excuses!

There was some sort of protest on while we were there, we think it was for some trade deal? lots of people holding banners and chanting, which was an interesting added dynamic on top of the hoards of confused tourists. 

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Night Time in Berlin; the other city that never sleeps

^ forever regretting the ones that got away 

Getting arty with an iphone camera, at night, while drinking... not idea conditions! Thanks Tyler, Curt and Maddy for being such good sports. None of us have promising modelling careers hahaha

We did make it out to a bar or two, a Mexican restaurant were Tyler's friend Sarah (a Berlin local) introduced us to some sort of scary fruity cocktail thing, and a pingpong bar where the music was a lot better than the typical Berlin repetitive techno, and you could drink and play table tennis at the same time. Curtis Maddy and Myself got back to our respective hostels about 5am, Tyler the Trooper Manley returned about 8.30am. Chur! All got home safe, London needs to take note and start a 24 hour weekend tube service at the earliest convenience!

next: Berlin | Day 21

Berlin | Berliner Dom | Day 19

Day NINETEEN

Right, three days in Berlin. No stress, but we have to see everything we possibly can in this short space of time. Also avoiding tourists earns you extra points. Lets go...

On arriving in Berlin we decided to walk to our hostel. This was sort of a Paris repeat as we had to walk across half the city to get there. This was totally fine though, because the route went past some iconic sites including the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz. It was quite surreal coming out of the train station, deciding which way to walk, arriving at an intersection, looking left for traffic (still hadn't quite got the hang of them being on the other side of the road), seeing a monument in the distance up the road, thinking 'that looks interesting' and then realising that I'm looking at the Brandenburg Gate. We stayed in the 'Grand Hostel Berlin' that was really good value for money on Tempelhofer Ufer next to the river Landwehrkanal, within walking distance to the Möckernbrücke U-bahn station. Having a comfortable bed in a big room can really help you like the city more! Although a pool table, like the one at the 'Heart of Gold' Hostel (further North in the city from our southern one) is always a plus! Shout out to Curtis and Maddy for hooking Tyler, Sebastian, some random girls from the middle-east, and myself up!

I wished I'd taken the time to get my real camera out of my bag instead of using my iphone, I liked the proportions of this man in a field of flowers taking a photo of the statue. The ratio and colour quality of my photo really doesn't do this justice. I had one job.

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Museum Island, Alter Museum and Berliner Dom

There is an island in the middle of Berlin, and on this island is a garden, and surrounding this garden are buildings; a museum with some amazing statues of a warrior and warrioress battling wild animals form horseback, and also one of the most impressive churches I've seen. 

After thriving on some serious girl power imagery, I left Tyler sitting in the sun and climbed to the top of the Berliner Dom, and 115 metres and 270 steps later I was rewarded with a close up view of the beautiful statues playing musical instruments around the top of the dome, and an impressive view of the city. We were in Berlin at the right time for the festival of lights, but unfortunately when we adventured there at night to check them out we were too late :(

In May 1944 an allied forces bomb hit the top of the dome and caused a fire that could not be reached and therefore there was no choice but to let the roof lantern burn out and crash to the ground, consequently creating a hole in the domed ceiling. Photos from the time show the ruined dome and the beautiful organ sitting in rubble. A temporary roof was made, but it wasn't until 1975 that the real reconstruction started.

next: Berlin | Day 20