Magical Mystery Tour (of Europe): Northern Germany and Poland!!

Hey everyone!

We're in the Czech Republic at a hostel in the small college town of Olomouc (pronounced Olo-moat). We're really loving it here! It's small, quiet, plenty to do and see; one of the better stops we've made on the trip thus far. Thats not to say that Germany and Poland weren't fantastic. They were everything we were expecting and more! Here is what we did...

We arrived in Hamburg early on September 15th. Our first day in Germany was thoroughly uneventful. We ate some food, drank some German bier and wein, and tried to track down another jacket for Ashleigh (her other one was stolen in Turkey). We went to a great veggie restaurant where we were able to eat some veggie curry-wurst. Curry-wurst is a favorite among Germans. Essentially, it's bratwurst with ketchup and a bit of curry powder sprinkled on top. The veggie version probably pales in comparison to the meat version, but we still enjoyed it.

The next day, we set out for the town to see what we could see. The first thing we did is take a train down to the riverside, to see the old Warehouse district, where goods from all over the world are stored. What we didn't know at the time was that the warehouse district is about half a mile long; the rest of the tour is through the Hamburg harbor, where one can basque in the beauty of cargo ships and Hamburg's trash dump. Oh... and the smells... oh the smells (yuck!). So, the boat tour wasn't quite what we had planned, but we got a few pictures. We spent the rest of the day walking around Hamburg, trying to take in what we could. We went to St. Nikoli's Cathedral, the Planten und Blumen Arboretum, and the Reeperbahn. We only got pictures of the former; the latter, however, is quite interesting. The Reeperbahn is Hamburg's Red Light District. More specifically, it's a street: on one side of the street is brothels and sex shops, the other is bars and a children's theater(!). On one of the side streets, there is a large gate that guards a section reserved for street-walkers; it reads "UNDER 18 and WOMEN PROHIBITED". Apparently, if you're a woman on the other side of the gate, you are considered to be a prostitute. Also, The Beatles got their big break in Hamburg off the Reeperbahn. We walked around and saw some of the places they played at, but they had all been transformed into modern night clubs, and weren't particularly picturesque. Anyway, here are a few pictures from Hamburg.

(Hamburg Shipping Yards)

(Warehouse District)

(St. Nikolai's Cathedral)

(A statute by our hostel. It's two centars fighting over a fish.)

The next day was spent walking around the town some more. We did some window shopping, went to an English bookstore, and tried to take care of some little odds and ins for the our trip to Bremen the next day. That evening we took a walk down to the Reeperbahn to see the area by night. It was a strange experience. We were able to park ourselves outside of a bar that wasn't also a strip-club/brothel to people watch. There was an interesting character trying to lure men into one of the brothels: an older gentlemen, slicked-back gray hair, wearing yellow sun-glasses (at night), and a terribly gaudy suit. We saw another guy with hair-tied back in a ponytail, wearing a similar pair of yellow sunglasses, and an all white suit. It seems the street we were on was where all the pimps hang out. Overall, the experience left a bad taste in our mouths, but we still had a good time and I'm glad we got to see what we could.

The next day, we made our train to Bremen and arrived early in the afternoon. We checked in at the hostel and immediately went to another veggie restaurant for lunch. Although it was incredibly expensive, the restaurant had an assortment of fake meats which were just amazing. I had fake-lamb in a goji-plum sauce; Ashleigh had fake- asian sausage and noodles. After this, we rented some bikes for the next two days. We biked through this fabulous park for about an hour and then headed down to the canal. The park was very beautiful, and quite massive, but it was the canal that became one of our favorite hang outs when we were in Bremen. The first night, we grabbed some drinks (top-quality German beer in my case!!), sat on a bench, listened to some street musicians playing jazz, and watched the sunset. It was such an amazing contrast to the craziness of Hamburg. It was here that we fell in love with Bremen. Sadly, we don't have many pictures of the canal from the first night, but here are a few of the park.

The next day, after spending most of the morning seeking out food, we headed to the Wesserberg Museum. This museum was easily the best we have seen on this trip thus far. It featured almost exclusively contemporary art works (i.e. mostly after 1970, many within the past 20 years). We saw amazing Fluxus works, as well as an entire floor devoted to urban art. The latter is best described the art world finally catching on to provocative graffiti. There were also a series of paintings on one floor which we were absolutely enamored by. I think the contents of the museum are best described in pictures. I'll add my own commentary for those who are interested underneath each picture for clarification. These are a few of our favorites:

This was the first exhibition we saw. It was dedicated to an artist from San Antonio. His work is something like an engineer-artist hybrid. The top picture is a mechanical human that would writhe on the ground eerily; the bottom picture is a remote controlled vehicle, the purpose of which was to destroy the walls of art galleries... we're guessing.

The book pictured here is the bible turned to the story of Noah's Ark. All the animals are the cheap little plastic one's you buy in the store for kids.

This is a photograph. We're particularly fond of the ice igloo in the freezer.

Possibly our personal favorites, this is a Fluxus work featuring a miniature statue of "The Thinking Man" with a camera on it; the television is a live feed from the camera. It's hilarity is lost in my explanation, but we just about died laughing when we saw it.

This is a work from the Urban Art exhibit. The whole painting took up the entire gallery wall. The left side features a portrait of a city in gray-scale. The rain effect is produced by paint-drips. We both think it's a really creative piece because of that.

This is me listening to "Paris Hilton's debut album", which was placed on the wall as a piece of art by the artist Banksy in the Urban Art section. It's really just a looped section of the record, where Paris is heard saying "that's hot" every twenty seconds or so. I thought it was great. Banksy's art is also worth a google if you're unfamiliar with it; this piece is definitely a-typical.

We had to add this to the blog because this is the cover of Sonic Youth's album "Sonic Nurse", which was released in 2004.

"Tattooed Jesus"

A metal cathedral built to scale.

Damn! This one is self-explanatory. We're pretty sure the woman was sculpted, which is pretty amazing. When I first saw it, I thought it was a real person.

After the museum, we biked over to the town square and took some pictures of the buildings. There is quite a bit of the Bremen city center that was untouched by WWII. There is a huge statue of a knight, a cathedral, and a sculpture of a donkey, a dog, a monkey, and a chicken stacked on top of each other. If you touch the hoof of the donkey, it brings you good luck. Sadly, they were having some sort of festival when we came to take pictures, so we can't really show the whole square. We tried to avoid it the best we could. After this, we biked back down to the canal and had a drink; we got some pictures this time around, but only one is really worth putting up.

The next day, we didn't do too much. We hung out a bit, posted the Turkey blog, and returned our bikes. That night we had another drink by the canal, and then we were off to bed. So far, Bremen was our favorite city in Germany. The more we travel, the more we find ourselves liking the less touristy, smaller cities. It's always the tinier towns that we remember the best. We had a great time just being there.

As such, Berlin was quite a change. It is quite a bit bigger, and I feel that I have to preface this part of the post by saying I don't think we got the full experience. There seems to be a whole world underneath the surface in Berlin. Upon arriving at our hostel (which was one of the most expensive and dirtiest to date), we found ourselves literally around the corner from a small art scene. The street was lined with small galleries, where artists were selling their work directly. Behind the row of buildings was another set of small galleries set up in tents. Here you could buy everything from metal sculptures to paintings. None of the art was particularly notable, but it was still cool to see that people take on a DIY approach to distributing their work. The rest of the evening, we spent walking around. We had a drink by one of the canals and then went to bed.

The next day, we woke up and went sight-seeing on the way to the Jewish Museum. Here are some pictures of us in front of the Brandenburg gate and Checkpoint Charlie.

We arrived at the Jewish Museum during the late afternoon. The best thing about this museum is the architecture; the content was cool, but after a while it began to drag on for a bit. However, there were some very powerful exhibits about the Holocaust. The beginning of the museum is laid out on three axes: the axis of exile, the axis of the Holocaust, and the axis of continuity. These axes, in real terms, are hallways; they were designed as such to show how each idea intersects. The axis of exile leads to the Garden of Exile, which has a total of 49 pillars arranged in the shape of a cube, the tops of which are covered by olive trees; the aim is to give a disorienting effect. The axis of the Holocaust exhibits personal items taken from Holocaust survivors. I thought these exhibitions did a great job of humanizing the Holocaust. So often we hear the tragedy of the Holocaust expressed as an abstract figure: "six million people died during the Holocaust". It's difficult to get a real sense of what was actually lost when your reference point is just a number. We were able to see old typewriters, letters, children's toys, jewelry, pictures, musical instruments, etc, all of which left to neighbors and non-Jewish friends by the original owners for safe keeping. Each of these items were accompanied by a short summary of the individual who died in the concentration camps; we found the exhibition moving to say the least. The axis of the Holocaust culminated in a giant concrete room, where only a little light from the street was let in (picture after the paragraph). The axis of continuity lead to the rest of the museum. It culminates in a really cool stairway. Here are a few pictures from the Jewish museum.

(The ceiling above the stairway)

(The garden of exile)

(the Holocaust memorial room)

After the Jewish Museum we went and had a drink with Bertolt Brecht and went to bed.

The next day, we set out to see what was left of the Berlin Wall. Waaay on the other side of town from our hostel, there is a significant portion of the Berlin Wall that has been turned into a public art forum. Each section of the wall has been turned into a canvas for selected artists to come and create something on. Here are a few of our favorite sections.

(Apparently this really happened. There is tons of kitch with this image on it.)

After this, we made a round-about way to a museum taking us through a quiet, slightly dilapidated park. We arrived at the museum about mid-afternoon. This museum featured works from mostly Berlin artists, with the subject of most of the pieces being about Berlin. We learned a couple of things about Berlin's subculture. For example, after the fall of the Berlin wall, there were a large number of buildings that were left totally unoccupied. These buildings became a secret meeting place for fans of avant-garde dance music. There was a great piece featuring photographs of the entrances to these meeting places. Mostly though, the significance of many of the pieces were lost on us. We did see some original Dada anti-art pieces.

(A cool piece of urban art by Blu that we saw on the way to the museum)

(Dada)

The next day, we woke up somewhat late, did some laundry, and headed toward another museum. We don't have any pictures of this museum, but it was in an old train station. We saw a bunch of great works by Andy Warhol, as well as a bunch of really neat video pieces. For example, we saw a video of a man sawing a house in half. After a few hours here, we went and bought some food for the our long trip to Krakow the next day in an awesome open market and sat in a park for a little while. On our way back to the hostel, we stumbled across a museum, which was offering free entry. We walked in to see an extensive collection of Byzantine mosaics, sculptures, and paintings, all of which were absolutely pristine works. Sadly, no pictures.

The next day we headed for Krakow. The train ride was nine hours, which was incredibly exhausting. We arrived right after sunset at about eight o'clock. Our best friend Jack moved to Krakow to study at the university there. He picked us up at the train station, and then took us out for drinks. The next day he showed us around town, and we snapped a few pictures. These are the only pictures we took during our stay in Krakow. We ended up staying there for about six days. Most of the time, we hung out with Jack. On the days Jack was working or at school, Ashleigh and I went to a few museums. We also took a bus to Auschwitz toward the end of the week. All we can say about that experience is that the Holocaust was ineffable act; literally, there are no words to describe the cruelty exhibited by what went on there. Our perspectives on the Holocaust have changed immensely since we've seen it. It's a place everyone needs to see before they die; I feel I can't do justice to it with words, so I won't try. We didn't take any pictures while we were at Aushwitz, it just didn't feel right. All the pictures we have from Krakow are from the first couple of days.

Our tour guide, Jack Zagorski.

An EXTREMELY old fortification.

This is a church in the city center. Every hour, on the hour, for eight hundred years, a man stands at each of the towers and plays a little melody. This is done in remembrance of a trumpeter from the 13th century, who was killed in the middle of his song by the invading Tartars. True to tradition, the melody stops abruptly, just as it did that fateful day in 12-something.