a couple of prenzle burgers

prenzle burgers!? that is too much.
no way - this arse above is too much.
For the record, we found this dimpled delight in a magazine - Berlin ain't that crazy anymore ... so far.

our street!

one week in berlin town - time for a roundup.

we've settled in quite quickly and easily. another small joyous experience in heating issues, with a maintenance man ringing our doorbell at 7am. at first we were all like, fucking hell, and we just ignored it, thinking that noone knows us, we don't wanna see anyone, they can piss off.
but after the 3rd (it was actually seven rings. I counted each one as I lay in bed weeping.) ring, i thought i better check and it turns out it was a dude with a brand new heater. well, it took many minutes of confusing pseudo-deutsch conversation, and a call to his boss, to ascertain he was indeed to replace the heater. i just thought he was here to fix the problem that was already resolved on friday. but, we have a brand new heater in the bathroom and it got us up early and ready to take on the day. Kent decided to let him in after the nice man gestured to the old heater, made a dripping motion, then a graphic explosion noise. Sure we got up early, but ended up mooching in pyjamas for around an hour and a half waiting for the heater to be installed, while some of us were BUSTING for the toilet.

seriously though - call for a tradie in berlin and expect them exactly ON time. this is a proposition that is foreign to me as an australian, but the two guys who have come have both been so punctual, it is scary. this second dude, was due between 7-12, which i figured out later, as he was from the actual heating company. the dude on friday was just the building manager. anyway - tradies here seem to kick ass.

let's put that whole thing to bed and turn our attention to the joys of berlin!


cafe culture

finding the perfect coffee is still a trick - but being melburnians, we expect no-one is gonna live up to our expectations. i mean, how could they?
nonetheless, there's a fantastic cafe scene here. the above image is about 5 mins from our joint, sitting in the beautiful sunshine we have been blessed with almost everyday. it's still, like, 3 degrees, but the sun is a wonderful gift. And it is WARM!! The air is positively spring-like, not spring-like as in boingy, though it does have a bit of that going on, but spring as in spriiing (waves arms in the air)!! The coffee in this picture actually tasted a bit like poo, but we have found an alarming amount of awesome cafes almost at every corner. It is still a rather exciting challenge to figure out what each cafe's version of a latte is (some are cappuccinos, some come in milkshake glasses, most of them are like massive soup bowls. I have taken to asking for eine kliene [small] everything and hoping that it will be normal size.) - all in all, it sure beats a coffee in Bendigo.


we have done a rather small amount of sightseeing, but then have become distracted by food.



This is the lovely Renee and myself after finally getting our souvlakis, or here they are durums, from apparently the best in Berlin, Mustafa's. All those people behind us are in a LINE. Yep, we waited a hearty half an hour (at the least) in line for one of these bad boys. Mine was a foot long and I ate it ALL (There is seriously something in the water here, I can't stop) and it was so good that I accidentally ate a bit of the foil too - I digested a fair amount before I realised what was going on. But don't worry guys, I am ok.

thankfully, one of the best things about our flat is the ability to cook again. well, for me it's being able to eat lucy's cooking again!


brilliant!

wow - just look at my cafe-sandwich-making skills!

oh, and we've even been to a dinner party - at a friend's flat in kreuzberg - our artist friend renee (see durum picture at mustafa's). great food was had there. their flat is like what you'd expect a berlin style squat to be, complete with shower in the kitchen, and toilet in a cupboard, outside, in the hallway. weird.
oh, and it's kitted out with kinky gay sex imagery. Stef (Renee's boyfriend) and Renee, are, to say the least, not thrilled with the homoerotic toilet situation.


but our place is all comfy and set up now. in fact, it's becoming rather productive as we plow into some artworks.


This is the outside of our building. Ugly huh? But if you look closely, you can see my lovely glass of tulips sitting in the window, cheering it all up nicely.

here's me drawing up a large scale version of a great collage that lucy made.
actually, here's her original:

pretty cool huh.

anyway, i thought i'd scale it up and then go out and paste it up on a wall somewhere.

i'll grab a photo of it once it's up.

there's quite a bit of street art around town. lots of terrible graffiti tags too. overall berlin looks pretty 'ghetto' but is not without its visual charms.


Yeeah I was!


it may be hard to make that out, but that's an elephant made out of garbage bags.


ooh - and here's our neighbourhood:


this is our street. we're down on the left, probably about where that yellow station wagon is. the street was just sweeped and 'cleaned' (more like gently lathered with dirty poo-water and an old soviet-era mop) HAHAHA so true. i'm banking on spring turning our street trees into delightful green pleasures.

train lines about 50m from our flat. we cannot, for the life of us, hear a single train, even though one goes passed every 3 minutes or so.

oh - and it might not be possible to make it out, but this house,
2 doors down from us, is riddled with bullet holes.
historic!

prams-lauer berg

final stop on the honeymoon express - berlin

there was a few little hiccups on our arrival.
as way of a preface, though, we've been pretty unbelievably lucky so far
- having had about 6 different flights all over the shop; stayed in a variety of accommodation types, from hostels to hotels to a mate's place and shared houses; we've driven through snow and on autobahns across half of deutschland (i got to 179kmh, btw, falling narrowly short of my rather testosterone-fuelled, adolescent-styled objective of 180, due to snow tyre limitations and too much roadworks nah he was just too pussy); and fumbled our way through 4 different languages.
and up until berlin, not one single, notable problem.



so, given that context, arriving to a flat with a broken heating system, LOTS of wet laundry draped across our living area and no light in the hallway was not too much of a problem.
annoying - yes; major issue - no.

...until...

we realised we could not shower, as the towels were sopping wet; that we would not have heating over night, when the temperature was going to be -1; and that there was no definitive resolutions to these problems any time soon.
well sir, that sir, become a massive fucking problem.

long story short - we got fresh linen delivered 2 hours later; we survived the freezing night rather easily, as it turned out, under doonas and with fuming temperaments keeping us warm; the landlord fetched us fresh towels in the morning, after several stern emails and a couple of calls from a freezing phone box with limited coinage; and the building manager came and reset the heating system for us. he was a lovely dude actually, who just laughed at me quietly everytime i said anything in german and we spent some time gesticulating to each other, sighing and half giggling.
anyway, now i know more about the whole heating situation in the building than the landlord does and he now wants me to teach him.

aaah - what a little saga!

Kent, of course, was the perfect gentleman, and 'dealt' with it. I spent much time muttering, swearing, yelling and crying, without actually doing anything to advance the situation. Except maybe to get change for the phone booth. That I am proud of.

here's our living room area - which is also the bedroom (bed to left, behind camera - ooh actually, you can see the bed just peaking in from bottom left)

we decided to bring some of the lucy's amazing flags to hang up when we got here, for that authentic homely vibe. and they really work perfectly.

this is the view out of the windows, into a sort of inner courtyard area.
i'm pinning my hopes on spring injecting its life force into that tree and delivering to us a daily show of freshly sprouting green shoots.
no doubt i'll eagerly advise of that development when it kicks in.

around the corner from us is a big park.
on the right there, on the steps, some dudes (small teenagers) are filming a rap video.
the amount of extremely white, apparently well-heeled euro kids who wear giant trucker caps, perfectly askew on their shampooed blond hair, frowning with serious intent, with their jeans around their thighs, imitating the ghetto stylings of poor american cities is equal parts hilarious and just kinda sad.
kids these days eh?!

i usually jump right in with some architectural musings, but let it be known, berlin ain't pretty.
i'm sure that having the red army bearing down on you from the east, whilst the yanks and poms lead the remnants of the french army into town from the west, bombing the living bejesus out of the joint in retribution for the monumentally horrendous behaviours of the city's governing arseholes, well, that sir is gonna end in a pile of broken dreams.
the fact the city survived at all is probably a miracle.
anyway, as a result, the place is butt ugly.

Which is, as it turns out: awesome! In a way it helps you to see why the place is filled with creatives - nothing to cramp your style. The rest of the places we've seen are so damn pretty, all you can do is swoon in a heap thinking 'I'll neeeeevaaaah be worthyyyyy!' Well, not here. I already bought my pencil and pencil sharpener and EVEN drew a picture of THE broccoli - yep, this place is a melting hotpot of edgy experimentia!

here's the ubiquitous tv tower from the east germans, in the background.

...but...
as melbournians know from comparisons with sydney, a city's virtue and beauty lies not in its easily manufactured syruppy appearance. tis rather the sum total of its inhabitants' behaviours.

and thus far, berlin is serving up a treat.
friendly people, funky cafes, intrigue at every turn.

today we cruised around our local area, on a scouting mission for cafes, after the morning's fiasco with the flat, and stumbled on many. you can see why melbournians dig it here, there are similarities for sure. especially the cafe culture.

it is even more relaxed and chilled than home though, it so far seems. there's a gentle, calm, but vaguely effervescent energy about the place, if such thing could be said to exist. our area is 'baby-buggy' town and there are kids everywhere. so maybe that adds to the relaxed atmosphere. and i mean relaxed, in this sense, as it is obviously safe, there are mother's clutching coffees in the sunshine, chatting and laughing, and the constant distant happy laughter of young'uns.
of course, get too close and the kiddlies voices become piercing hot shrills aimed directly into your skull and you're also liable to be plowed over by a small battalion of pram weilding yummy mummies.

ooh - check out this sweet bit of macrame art, just hanging out over the street.
beautiful.

I am just so stoked to be eating vegetables and drinking soy again I can't really get much further than that right now. It is a soothing and happy thing. Oh, did Kent mention that I JUST BEAT HIS NINJA FRUIT SCORE?!?! I am now the Sensei. He now bows to me (and runs to the iphone to try his luck. You wish baby!) I am The Master!

However, some very very cool street art is clearly in the midst - more to come I'm sure! x

not next to alphington, no sirree

Heidelberg.

The town that by this stage in the trip, I couldn’t be bothered exploring. We are seriously over travelling (already?!) and are longing for a kettle and a stovetop. And clean socks.

However, as we coast into this quaint little (or sorta big, whatever) town, there is much gasping, ooohs and aaaahs! We drive along ‘the’ river (I could check, but the book is at least 1 metre away, and well, it’s all a bit too hard. I am currently digesting multiple pastries, and can no longer condone physical activity. – it’s the ecker, which is on like every map and sign, but you’d only know that if you looked, and didn’t just leave it up to your husband all the time… ouch! [what a dick]), (haha - even more of a dick now, coz i just remebered it's the neckar!) anyway, we drive along the river, and to the left, on the other side, masses of absolutely stunning mansions (see pic!). Toorak, you wish.

Then, we hang a right, (this town is shaped like … a peninsula, and peters off into a point.) we cruise into the old town, with the local schloss (castle) towering over up on the hill. The buildings are the quaintest of the quaint and there is noone around. The sun is shining, birds are chirruping, and all is peaceful! we really struck a brilliant section of weather, clear blue skies, whopping 8 degrees!

Spring, she is coming for us!! Sprouty-goodtimes!

When we arrive at our pension, the owner meets us with hearty enthusiasm, and sits with us for a chat about the town, the natural disasters surrounding the southern hemisphere, and the earth’s core. Oh, and how much Australian’s are his favourite guests, quote “so friendly, so reliable, and like a good chat” – we’re in! His English is awesome, and gave us a map of the town with all kinds of goodies highlighted. so, so lovely. he studies geology so was pretty keen to talk tectonic plate movements and impending sea level rises etc.

The steepest bitch of a walk thus far.

We followed a walk on the map called the philosopher’s way (apparently some of the big-wig euro philosopher types, like goethe, maybe, and even an ol’ yank named twain stumbled about the place, conjuring intellectual bemusements) … Kent I think you made that up … it was only invented in the 1900s … nah way man, just checked lonely planet and george hegel was up in that shit way back in the day, and if the first year sociology files in my mind’s library are still accurate, that dude was hanging with karlos san marcos in the 1840s ... I'm not even reading this Kent, – crossing over the bridge, and basically climbing up this mountain via craggy cobblestoned passages, much moss and personal sweating. At this stage I was able to travel sans coat, and, AND, sans cardigan!! It was positively WARM!!! About halfway up, we can overlook the town of joy, and play a hand of cards on the wall. That was freaking awesome.

Then all the way to the top for some more awesome views. Everything has been super sunny and hazy, which makes for a nice change. In fact – the last week has offered up so many seasons, it’s been amazing. Got to have a go at everything!

Heidelberg is a pretty cool town – so old, the house we are staying at, is a mere 250 years old compared to the uni which is 624. It is filled with a mixture of grannys and uni students, all strutting around with take away (or ‘to go’ as they say here) coffees – it’s a thing. Our ordering skills are becoming rather smooth, and our new technique is to just pretend we understand when people talk to us in German, usually a “oh ya, gut” suffices. Lots of nodding along and smiling. So far, it’s working!

Couldn't get the patented 'Kent Jump' here, cuz the passage was too narrow and he kept kicking the wall. However, got some awesome 'looks like you are getting exploded away' shots.

The bed situation in Europe is tiring (and yet, ironically, untiring coz ya can’t sleep properly in them!) – it seems to be a mass of giant bed frames with 2 large single mattresses stuffed in. And no sheets!! I never thought I would care about sheets. But I do, I yearn for them. I long to kick off my doona and snuggle in my sheets, or gently fold the top of my sheet over the doona, deluding myself that it ‘feels’ neater. The pillows are just … oh god. If we have square pillows in Berlin, I think I will have to go out and just buy some. Every single bed we have slept in has these monstrosities, posing as giant fluffy comfort, until you place your head on them and they quietly deflate around you, the feathers bunching up in one useless corner, so that you spend much time during the night bunching it up and stuffing it into your neck in vain for some support. they are really abominable. although, having said that, i think if you fold them over thrice, them scrunch them into your neck cavity, then wriggle about for a minute (sounds healthy, no?), then maybe, just maybe, you can get some support. until the next time you want to roll over and start the whole procedure over again. and yes, we will buy some ‘proper’ ones if berlin fails us. (“Yesh deeear”)

Aside from that, we have been strolling calmly, taking in the sights, enjoying the multitudes of danishes, croissants and gigantic beer, all at low low prices (the rumour is true, beer the size of my forearm is cheaper than a glass of water) and taking much in the way of happy tourist snaps. Kent has completely blitzed me in ninja fruit, something that is more upsetting than I would care to admit (seriously, who the fuck gets up to 650 points?!?! It took me months to crack 400!!). (it’s called hand-eye coordination and primates have been developing it for many a millennia.) Cock. However, after a month of travel, we haven’t killed each other yet (yet.). (yet indeed.). Lots of cards, and lolling about watching movies we stole from Nath’s computer in France (thanks dude!). we watched one movie really, and several eps of conchords, which is gold.

I am thinking a lot about thinking about drawing, and I am nearly in the mood to go and buy a pencil sharpener (of all the very important things to forget! Cha!), so I can get going. I believe this falls under the category of procrastinating. yeah, and i’m in the same boat. lots of thinking about doing some drawings, but after walking around every single nook and cranny of each town we go to (which is great and necessary), the thought of turning one’s mind to the task of visually analysing all the sights and converting them into lines on the page, is a little too much just at the moment. BUT, i did start a little animation about talking houses that makes me cack… so things are in the pipeline.

Tomorrow is driving to Frankfurt and flying to Berlin. Oooh-wee! A little bit exciting, a little bit daunting – seems far more absolute trying to get to our little apartment there than any of the other accommodation so far. Hopefully all will go well, we arrive at the right time, everything is in order and are within walking distance to the supermarket. If I don’t get some green vegetables in me soon, I am likely to implode. You know you’re in trouble when coffee and croissants are the biggest portion in your healthy food pyramid. agreed, there ain’t nowhere near enough veggies going around in these parts and i’m craving them like I never thought possible. we’ve consumed no less than 60kg of chocolate and pastry each, I’m quite sure of it, and it’s impending arrival on bellies and butts is but a definite inevitability.

pastries in the park

Our jeans still fit! But then again, we haven’t washed them in … some time, so I believe they may just have expanded with ripeness. Ew.

And then – fun times!! Some serious museum mooching, exhibition hopping, art making and slow cooked meals are on the way.

A haircut would be good soon too – I can no longer see my eyebrows.

Until then!

x

Oh yeah, the local Schloss. Bit nicer than Melbourne's Heidelberg, no?

totally schlossed

hahaha - finally kent gives a title that makes me laugh out loud. hahaha.

ain't he cute?

into the black forest today to hunt down some castles.

armed with a pretty ancient map, which has little green circles around ‘towns of interest’ and little backwards ‘L’ symbols for castles/ruins, we took the car into the mountains to see what we could see.

about 20 minutes out of Freiburg and KAPOW! sitting up on a hill, perched like a giant’s discarded lego experiment was schloss (ie – castle) nummer 1.

Kent on the Indiana Jones Bridge of DOOM.

It is a funny thing, ruins-hunting. I think we gave ourselves some pretty serious neck trauma (with the help of shitty European pillows) craning to look through the windshield up at mountains, in the hope of one magically appearing. However you're really not prepared when one actually DOES magically appear, and it is ginormous, and the ruinsy-est ruin you ever saw. Tres cool.

p.s. I am aware that I am TOTALLY changing the style as I go here, I know Kent has this central text and lower case thing going on - I just can't abide by it. From now on, I am going traditional. I think it's because I know Jane Angus might be reading it. You truly are the Formatting-Jedi-Jane.

p.p.s - I tried right-aligning the text Jane, and I couldn't do it. It just looked bad! I had to follow Kent's text style dammit! Shame.

the weather was not really on our side today, much drizzle, in fact, constant, non-stop all day drizzle. the sort of drizzle where you can’t ever get your windscreens wipers to go at the perfect speed (particularly as a passenger when you want to take dorky photos out the front windshield and you keep getting 'schloss with windscreenwiper' as your arty shot), so you are continually having to switch between intermittent and constant. it’s a small inconvenience, but anyone on familiar terms with road trip idiosyncrasies will know, it’s a pain in the arse.

anyway, aside from that, twas a day of merry castle hunting, quaint deutschland country-town viewing, and occasional forest ambling.

Don't you love that the most annoying thing Kent found about the drizzle was the issue with the windscreen wipers? Not about getting wet, being cold, constantly standing in schloops of mud and getting spittles of rain on your camera lens, no, it's the damn wipers.

the first castle was probably the best and they kinda petered out after that, but nonetheless, we got to see quite a lot of this part of the world. (Polite way of saying that the next one was pretty awesome, the third one was slightly disappointing and then we couldn't find any after that, and that was shite.)

this was the second schloss and it was pretty sweet too.

you could get a great view way up at the top,

plus a small touch of vertigo for your troubles.

And it was the soggyiest and freezingest of all don't forget. I am actually astounded at the quality of shots here - much more spittley in realtime.

This is the view from schloss zwei. I know it is a completely poncy thing to say, but photos really do not capture it - I don't think I have ever been this exposed to such vast views, heights and death-weather! Merely by standing in some ancient dude's canon-balled bedroom (e.g. rather exploded piece of stone wall). Utterly breathtaking - quite bizarre to stand on a rock and see clouds eye to eye. Magic.

i think i mentioned the flag thing in all the towns before, and we keep seeing it everywhere still. today we saw one town that, rather than using strips of discarded cloth, or pre-made shop purchased flags, like most of the other towns, they simply hung out all their old and used clothing. socks, jocks, bras, stockings, shorts, shirts, aprons. everything in every colour. quirky and totally hilarious.

(We also came accross a bra tree [a tree simply covered

with bras ... I suppose that was quite evident huh.] on

our way into Munich - winter really does make people crazy here.)

and we’re slowly trying to improve our german, ordering almost all of our food now in german. sometimes we stumble up, but we’re doing ok. there’s other non-language issues with food though, that’s gonna take some getting used to, like, today i ordered a baguette with salami and cheese, expecting something along the lines of a roll. instead i got basically two long pieces of oval bread, each about a foot long, with maybe 100g of salami covered in, seriously, about 200g of melted cheese which hung out over the sides of the bread. kinda like a pizza made by a cheese fetsishist on the bladder of a sherrin football. (mmm, nummy.) plus a side serve of potato salad, and pasta salad, and saurkraut.

you can’t say you don’t get value for your money with your food here though. it cost less than $6 australian.

MOSSSSS!! and other twirly wirly plant life - very oceanic.

we climbed up and down many mountains, slipping in and out of fogs, up above the snow line (around 1100m above sea level) and deep into valleys that all have streams running through the middle.

all crystal clear, babbling brooks, with water gushing very quickly along into each town, where it is often syphoned off into canals that run along the backyards of the houses. so damned civilised.

Speaking of civilised? Jesus Kent, what a way to wreck the flow 'oh I know, I'll put up that freaky-arse

old lady witch mannequin!'

except maybe that’s where the clowns dispose of their murdered victims. i dunno, but those things are fully creeping me out. we occasionally see effigies of them strung up from poles, hanging from stretched rope across the roads or dangling from balconies. freaky shit.

And by occasionally, kent means all the fricken time! These fuckers are everywhere in many forms – for example the life sized micky-mouse hanging from his neck from the telephone wires in one town (he was most definitely not there the day before when we drove through) and midgetty hags with massive face warts and make-up explosions perched in people’s windows. Clearly, winter really does make Germans crazy.

P.S. WE FOUND BABY GOATS!!! AAAAAAAAAAH! THIS ONE WAS ONLY THIIIIS BIIIIGG!! Unfortunately I think we have on film me saying to baby goat "wait don't run away, we can be friends" before mama goat bleats aggressively at me. We are in an amazing land, where we can walk out the schloss-driveway and bump into some goats.

And another face-picture. This dude has a gimp eye, poor bastard. Either that or a regular eye with another creepy mini-eye inside, like something out of the Labyrinth might have. Maybe we need a separate blog for all of our building pictures with faces?