Berlin and Prague Part 1!

When we last left you, we were in Berlin. We had a few more days there which were filled with all sorts of awesome.

The first day after the last post, we decided to do a few museums. We started with the Pergamon Museum, an absolutely amazing museum containing all sorts of classic archaeological finds. There was not only the usual glut of Greek and Roman things, but there was also lots of history there from farther east, from the times of the Persians and the Ottoman Empire, among more. The Greek stuff was still amazing though; the namesake of the museum is the city of Pergamon, from which the museum had a huge frieze, of more than 80 metres. In case you didn't know, a frieze is like a relief sculpture that usually extends around a temple. This one depicted a myriad of gods and goddesses locked in a struggle with snake-limbed titans. Other highlights included a huge gate that served a market town connecting the east and west of its day, and a set of huge Babylonian gates. Really, I could go on and on about the things in that museum. It's amazing. If you are ever in Berlin you must go. We also went to the Bode Museum, a museum focusing on more 18 and 19th century artifacts. The museum may have been interesting, but the huge amounts of religious art depicting Mary and Jesus all starts to look the same after a while. It did contain a fascinating collection of coins from all eras of history and all manner of nations, but there were so many that even those became hard to focus on.

The day after that, after not doing anything overly interesting that evening (museums are TIRING), we hit up the National Gallery, with paintings by many artists, including Manet, Monet, and Beckmann. It was pretty ho-hum for me until I got to the top floor where most of the names I just mentioned were, along with some others. In fact, I am hoping Mandy keeps the post card I sent her, because I purposefully went and found my favourite painting in postcard form, and promptly forgot the name of the artist.

True to the 2-museum groove we had been cultivating lately, we spent that afternoon at the German History Museum. Since my WW2 and communist history is not fantastic, I started out at about 1919 and made my way up to about 1994 (which is about as late as the museum goes). Wow, you really take for granted how complicated everything involved actually was. I was very impressed with how unabashed the Germans presented their checkered past under the Third Reich. The facts are all there, not matter how horrifying they sometimes are, as if Germany has gotten them out into the open so that they could move on.

That night we went to go see Scraps of Tape, the Question and Division of Laura Lee, three Swedish bands doing a show together at a small club in a neighbourhood nearby our hostel. Liam wanted to see Scraps of Tape, and actually managed to get not only a street poster, but also all 5 of the bandmates signatures, a short conversation with each, and their complete discography (of the course the last came at a price). Their latest came in the form of a record, which was so much fun to mail... but more on that as we go on!

The next day, we went on our merry way to get our butts to Prague, only to run into a few snags. First of all, it was a holiday in Germany! Unfortunately, that meant Liam could not mail his record and had to carry it with us to Prague. Then! We went to go catch our train only to realize that the station closest to our hostel was out of operation for the day. In a panic, we took a "train bus," which basically took us to the next train stop, where the trains were running relatively normally. When we got to the main train station we had to perform a mad dash to our train headed to Prague.

Upon arrival to Prague we had a little bit of fun finding our hostel. The instructions on the website of the hostel gave only a metro station name, which I took to mean that the hostel was right outside that metro station. No such luck! After wandering aimlessly for a little while (but not too long because by now we have realized that it never seems to work) we dropped into a net cafe to grab the address of the place. After dealing with some mildly confusing signage, we did find the right street and address of our hostel, having walked by it a few times because it looked like an apartment building... which is basically what it was. We buzzed the hostel, got no answer, then I remembered... "Oh! There's something weird about this hostel." Wait for it... "Oh yeah, there's no actual reception. We have to get the key at the bar." So, going to a few nearby bars, we found the one who was holding our key, found out we were entitled to a free bar, then went back to the hostel and let ourselves in. It was literally an apartment building, and after climbing the whole building searching for it, we realized the 'hostel' was on the second floor, and was just basically a converted apartment. The nice part about this was that our room was huge; it had 3 beds, 2 couches, and 2 coffee tables, and there was room for plenty more. They also had free internets. Bonus! I spent the rest of the evening trying to get a hold of my mom, whom we were meeting in Prague, and had apparently planted at a cocktail bar nearby to her hotel.

We didn't get a hold of her until the next day, in the midst of our wandering around trying to mail Liam's record. We went to 3 post offices, who each told us to go to a bigger post office, but none of them had a record sized envelope or box. We eventually met up with my Mom, who is named Mary Ann, and with her assistance tried to track down a place where Liam could ship his record. Having no luck, we eventually all got stranded by some rain and hail, and my mom decided to treat us to a taxi ride to the Communist Museum. The Communist Museum is, if I remember correctly, the first of its kind to open after the Iron Curtain dissolved. The museum was not so remarkable for its artifacts so much as its clear, sober representation of the Communist Era, and the way in which it affected the Czech Republic. All of the writeups were extremely well done and paired with good visual aids, and a video broke up the exhibition quite nicely, depicting some of the police brutality that Czechs had to endure to have their demands heard. One particularly moving moment of Czech history happened when Jan Palach, a Czech youth, lit himself on fire in protest of the Soviet invasion intent on reversing some recent liberalising reforms to communism that the government made. The full story can be found at the link, of course.

That night, Liam and I decided to try and get a taste of Czech nightlife and wandered around the streets looking for a suitable haunt. After walking around fruitlessly for a good long while, we ended up at a somewhat unassuming pub that seemed busy enough that it might be decent. After wandering around the small upstairs for a little while, we noticed people were going downstairs and decided to check it out. Imagine our surprise when we found out that the downstairs was a dance club that was about twice as large as the upstairs! Having had a satisfying taste of what nightlife might be like in Prague, but feeling rather tired, we had a few drinks and soaked in the atmosphere (including the ubiquitous tobacco smoke) but then headed on back to our hostel to rest for the next day's adventure, which will be on the next post!

Dusseldorf and Berlin Part 1

On the next stage of our trip we met up with some fantastic people in Dusseldorf, namely our good pals Rob and Sarah. We were there for 2 days, and there is not really all that much to see in Dusseldorf, so instead of being super touristy, we spent the two days chilling out and getting our drink on. We arrived at about 7pm or so to find Rob and Sarah chilling in one of the common rooms with some other people they had met, which included a Newfoundlander, a New Zealander, and a fella from Essex in Britain. So, we hung out with that crew and had some drinks in the common room, then eventuallz made our way to the Aldstadt (Old Town), which is a notable part of Dusseldorf for its Altbier, which is a special, dark and crisp beer served in almost every bar and restaurant in Dusseldorf, in its tiny .2L cups.

The next day, we slept in a little bit, then got up, had breakfast, and hung around for some more time (there was a lot of hanging out going on in Dusseldorf). By this time we had lost the Newfoundlander and the fellow from Essex, but gained an Edmontonian by the name of Max. So, the group of us went to the grocery store and picked up a bunch of fixings for a picnic, and went to a park in Dusseldorf to enjoy a few hours in the sun. That night we again went to the Altstadt for a lengthier evening of drinks. The next morning we sadly had to say our goodbyes, and we moved on to Hamburg, while Rob and Sarah went on to Bruges.

Hamburg was interesting. We got there, and after having quite a time figuring out the transit system and finding our hostel, we chilled out for a bit, then went to get some supper with an American guy we met. We went our separate ways, as he intended to see what the Red Light District was like, and we wanted to get to bed so that we could go see some sights the next day. However, we didn't have our hostel booked for the next night, and for the life of us we could not find a single hostel or hotel in town that had a vacant room. Not having anywhere to stay, we decided to go to Berlin early, which meant we had to leave the next day without seeing any sights. Not wanting to leave Hamburg empty-handed, we decided to check out the redlight district as well. It was interesting enough, skin bars and regular bars were interspersed with adult video and accessory shops. After having a curious walk around outside we decided to go into one of the normal bars to get out of the rain for a bit and have a drink. It was getting pretty late by this point so we decided to get to bed.

Next day, Berlin! We spent our first night drinking a few beers and other drinks with a couple of German engineering students we met. The next day, we started off by going to the Berliner Dom, a massive, opulent cathedral that is pretty impressive. I haven't been to see that many cathedrals, but I was certainly taken aback, especially at the detail on some of the sarcophagi that decorated the main area of the church. After that, we went across the river to the GDR museum, a hands-on, eclectic, and tiny museum that was devoted to portraying life under the Communist GDR (German Democratic Republic). It was incredibly interesting to see how Communism changed Germany and how the Berlin Wall affected the world. After that, we relaxed on a boat tour along the river, from which we got to see the National Art Gallery, the Haptbaunohf (main train station), the Reichstag (parliament building), and other things.

That night at around nine we went to go check out the Brandenburg Gate, formerly a sign of peace built by a Prussian king, it also served as a backdrop to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and is one of the most recognizable parts of Berlin. Nearby is the Reichstag, the parliament building that was burnt down by Hitler's party, then subsequently blamed on the Communists so that they could declare a state of emergency and claim power. The building was completely rebuilt and a glass dome was built onto the top, which visitors can go into to get a fantastic view of the city. This is exactly what we did, and not only was the city very pretty, but we also got a fantastic view of a faraway lightning storm for our troubles.

So far, Berlin has been amazing, and I have only told you about one of our days here. Coming up are our museum, zoo, and music adventures! But now I am leaving you so I can email someone positively awesome.

Long Overdue Update!

Hey All. I realize that I am way overdue for an update, but life in Europe, as a wanderer is busy. I am taking advantage of Liam's hungover time right now though to get a post up.

I believe that I left off in Copenhagen. After leaving that post we went to the Glyptotek (which may not be exactly spelled like that), which is a phenomenal museum containing all kinds of really interesting things. It had some Egyptian mummies, some French Impressionism, lots of sculptures (of which my favourite were the ones sculpted by Rodan), and other such magnificent things. It was so large and contained so much that we actually couldn't make it through the museum all at once. Or at least I couldn't; I was getting sore and hungry so we did leave before seeing the whole thing, but it was HUGE. That, and I felt like I had seen enough to be supremely satisfied.

In the afternoon we took a fairly lengthy walk down to the part of Copenhagen which holds the Little Mermaid sculpture and an old fortification. Despite Liam's insistence that the Little Mermaid was very unimpressive (which is kind of true), we were in the area so we went to it. It wasn't overly amazing but it is kind of cool, as it's a sculpture sitting on a rock out in the harbour, as it were really a mermaid.

The next day we were planning to go to the National Museum of Denmark. Imagine our disappointment when we found out that, randomly, the museum is closed every Tuesday. Since we were leaving that day, not much could be done, so instead we took a walk through Denmark. It was a very nice walk; Copenhagen is a great city.

The very same afternoon we met up with Sarah, Liam's friend from his trip to Iceland last year, who took us by bus and ferry to Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark at about 250k. The city is very quaint and modernized, worth going to even just for a wander. Anyway, the first thing we did upon arrival into the city was go to a brew-pub/restaurant, which had great food and drink. I had some bratwurst and sausage and a light beer, and it was very satisfying. I also did not know I could enjoy saeurkraut that much. We were pretty tired so we didn't go out. Instead we grabbed a few beer and drank it at the waterline by Sarah's dorm.

The next day was probably the most frustrating in our whole trip so far. We got up a bit early so that we would have time to do laundry at a laundromat. When we got there, though, we realized that we didn't actually have any cash left, so we set out into the city, at this point without Sarah, to find an ATM. We came across 2 after not that long, but they were both offline for some reason. We then proceeded to get lost in downtown Aarhus for about 40minutes - 1hr. I consider myself to generally have a pretty good sense of direction, but the twisty streets in Europe really throw me for a loop. Anyway, after finally making it back and doing our laundry, we took our clothes out of the dryer a little bit earlier because we thought we were going to miss our bus if we didn't. Turns out we missed it anyway. So now we had our full backpacks in the heat, with some wet clothes, and we were supposed to meet Sarah at a certain time. So, we wandered around trying to find a taxi, which was surprisingly hard.

Anyway, we eventually got there, and all was well, and went into the museum by Sarah's work. It was a great little museum tucked away in the woods that had some really interesting stuff, such as a man preserved in a peat bog for 2000 years, and a huge archaeological find of Roman and Scandinavian weapons and other things from an ancient battle. That night, we met up with Poul, another person from Liam's trip, for a drink in a nice little pub. We went home a little bit earlier where I got my dose of American culture by catching up on the tv show How I Met Your Mother with Sarah before we all went to bed. The next day, we took the train to our next destination, Dusseldorf!

Train troubles

We learned a lesson: always ask if you are not totally sure what the announcements say on trains. We took a train back to Oslo from Bergen, and halfway along the train stopped and we thought we had to get off and take a bus to Oslo due to construction on the lines. Unfortunately, our train was actually going straight to Oslo and the buses were for every stop in between. So, we eventually made it to Oslo but it was almost an hour after our next train left for Gøteberg. So instead of staying in Gøteberg for the night we stayed in Oslo. Unfortunately we are getting charged for our Hostel in Gøteberg. A word to the wise: becareful with trains and don't book ahead unless you have to!

We trained through Gøteberg and the rest of Sweden to a city called Malmö right across the sea from Copenhagen. It is a very pretty city of about 250 000 people right across from Copenhagen. A family friend of Liam's showed us around one of the newer, trendier areas a bit, told us a bit about the city, the area, and the changes that the bridge to Copenhagen has brought to both areas. Apparently it's now fairly common for people to live in Malmö, which is quieter and cheaper, and work in Copenhagen, because the train takes only 40 minutes, which for a large city is not that unreasonable a commute. Malmö sounds a lot like Saskatoon in that there is a University nearby and a big emphasis on research industries. I was really impressed with Malmö actually!

So now we are in Copenhagen and today we are going to the National Museum and the Glyptotek. We went for a wander around a fairly main stretch of shops in the downtown of Copenhagen, and stopped for a couple of beer, although we still haven't met many other travellers so we went to bed fairly early. Our hostels in both Oslo and Copenhagen only had people who were pretty much sleeping the entire time. Oh well, maybe we will meet people to drink with soon! Other than that the hostel we are staying at is very nice; it is very clean and seems well-run. It seems like hostelling must be a big industry here, though, because the place has something like 5000 beds. It's crazy!

This morning we went in search of a coffee shop from Liam's guidebook that sounded good. We sat down at a place before we actually realized that said coffee shop was closed. So, we just ate where we were. My meal consisted of a boatload of cheese and breads. It felt very European. It was very quaint; the place was outside of a very nice church, which brings me to the last thing I want to say on this entry. The architecture in Copenhagen is fabulous! I could probably walk around outside all day and be perfectly content just because the city has a great look and feel to it.

So, off I go to enjoy it!

More Bergenization!

I didn't get around to finishing and posting this earlier, so it is a bit mis-timed:

Well this is our last night in Bergen and since the internet is free here I figured I would give another update.

Tuesday was not that touristy for us. We woke up and made eggs and toast (very foreign, I know!). I did get to try Norwegian brown cheese though, which is sort of a strange cheese that is very sweet, so that it ends up tasting like a mixture between cheese and caramel. We were up fairly late so we got a late start, and by the time we finished breakfast it was probably 3pm. So, for the rest of the day we mostly just bummed around Bergen a little bit, having a look at the shops, including a very value-village style shop and a mall in the American style. We were pretty tired and nothing much was going on, so we watched TV with Carl and his roommates and went to bed pretty early.

We must have been jetlagged or something, because we still woke up pretty late, at around 12 noon. We went to an art museum in Bergen which has paintings by such famous artists as Edvard Munch and Johan Christian Dahl. After that, we met up with Carl who got us on a bus to a church in the forest called Fantoft stave church. It is a recreation of a thousand year old church that was made from all wood, without even any nails, then soaked in pitch to protect it from moisture. The church was burnt down a few years ago in an incident of arson, and unfortunately now they keep it fenced in and with cameras on it. It is really sad that someone would do this such an interesting piece of history - the perpetrator was a fellow in a black metal band who was trying to speak out against christianity by burning the church down.

Last night we went out with Carl's school friends. We hung out at someone's house for a while then went to a tropical style pub. Again all of these people were super nice and good to talk to, although there were a few people this time that had a little more trouble with English. We still got along well though. We moved on to a University pub, which was fun, but there was nothing special about it except when I finished in the washroom and came out of the stall to come face to face with a few of the girls we were hanging out with. Apparently, I did not get confused, and there is actually only one bathroom in the place. Anyway, we got very tasty sausages on the way home and went to sleep far earlier this time around.

We did something a little different this morning and went for a walk up the mountain beside Carl's house. The walk took a good 30 minutes of a nearly vertical walking, then we walked over to the next mountain and took a tram down. The view from up there is beautiful; you can see almost the entirety of Bergen, including the harbour and the university, and a handful of pretty churches. It's hard to describe so I will just put up a few pictures onto Flickr!

Escapement

This is my review for Escapement by Jay Lake. This is a steampunk-like novel, set in an alternative version of earth, where the world is divided in half on the equator by a wall that is hundreds of feet tall, which no one in the novel has traversed. The northern half of Earth is codominated by the English and Chinese empires.

The book has 3 main characters, telling the story from each of their viewpoints. Each chapter contains a segment from Paolina, Al-Wazir, and Childress. Paolina is a teenaged misandrist from a colony along the wall with an extraordinary intellect (along with a little bit more). Al-Wazir is a Scottish-Arabian officer asked to command the defense of a camp along the Wall devoted to drilling through the Wall. Childress is a librarian from Boston who gets swept away by a Chinese submarine in a plot for her life.

The first thing to note about this book is that there is a book which precedes it, Mainspring, which I did not read. I am not sure if you would benefit from reading it or not, but I did not get the impression that I was missing a lot of story. You can certainly understand the plot of this book, but there may be some parts of the 'mythology' it is trying to set up that you will miss.

The world in which this story takes place is certainly very well thought out and imaginative. There are mythical creatures and places and all of them are interesting, provoking the reader's curiousity. The Wall especially makes you hungry for more information, which is presumably a good thing with more books to come in the series.

The problem is, as enthusiastic as I am about a great setting, it also needs a solid plot to move it along, or compelling characters. I really did not feel as if the book delivered on either of these accounts. The characterization was shallow at best. Other than her intellect and 'ability,' Paolina is little more than, as I mentioned before, a misandrist (man-hater). She seems to be singularly defined by the fact the she hates men and will not be controlled by them. The problem with this is it is not subtle at all. I rather felt browbeat with her hatred by the end of the book. Al-Wazir offers no depth whatsoever, and Childress is a little bit interesting, bringing in some theme such as bravery. Unfortunately, that makes her the exception rather than the rule.

The plot is unfortunately, similarly stagnant. Paolina and Al-Wazir are constantly in motion, and moving around Europe and the Wall, but the reasons are all sort of reactions, and there's no central problem or conflict pushing them along. Childress' story is incredibly remote, and seems utterly pointless until the very end. While this may sound harsh, and maybe it would not be that bad if the book had something else to offer, but I certainly had some trouble pushing ahead at points. I even have some trouble verbalizing the plot without giving spoilers, because really, there was not much until the very end.

The book was not awful. The setting is good, but the characters and plot are not overly interesting or dynamic. If the setting intrigues you enough, it may be worth it to pick up this book, especially since there are more books coming which may offer more. If you need strong plot or character to get into a book, this is definitely one to pass up. Even if you like a strong setting, there are books where you will get a more complete package.

Final verdict is a pass for most people! Go find something better. I don't think you will have that much trouble.

Arrival, Oslo, and Bergen!

Here starts my posting about our epic adventure in Europe.

My adventure starts out on my own. My dad came and hung out with me for a bit at the airport in Saskatoon before I left. I flew to Calgary and spent time at that airport. Nothing to tell here, really. The plane to Frankfurt had a few things to tell about though. First thing, I was really surprised when the first airplane meal was actually really good! Secondly, I must have been much smaller the last time I took economy class for 8 hours, because I found the seats so frustratingly small that the only way I could be comfortable was if I was sitting absolutely still. I couldn't even reach under my seat very easily.

Anyway! I landed in Frankfurt, which is a very intimidatingly large airport. It took us 20 minutes to drive to the proper gate after we touched ground. I had a brief moment of panic when a flightdesk person said she could not find my last flight to sign me in, but luckily it was found easily by the next person I went to and everything else went off without a hitch. The Frankfurt airport has English everywhere and even makes their announcements in English as well as German, so I had no trouble navigating my way around the massive airport. After meandering a bit, buying a new book, and sitting down to read for a while, Liam found me, and we chatter and did more of the same. We weren't even on the same part of the flight, though, so on the plane I just tried to get comfortable and sleep. It didn't happen, as usual, so I touched down in Oslo very tired.

After checking into our hostel and dropping off our stuff, we first we had some supper at a 'Scottish' pub, where I had some sort of pizza with reindeer (it was okay). We walked a bit around downtown Oslo. We saw the City Hall, which is a massive building with very epic statues all around, the Nobel Peace building, and some other buildings. I really like the architechture and feel of Oslo. It was fun, even at how tired I was, just to spend some time in a city that is totally different from Edmonton or Saskatoon. Speaking of tired, I was being a whiner, so I convinced Liam to going back to the hostel (this was 5pm), which I promptly fell asleep. I woke up, raring to go at 8pm, because I thought it was 8am. This was really weird, but I felt like I had already been sleeping 10+ hours, so I figured it was 8am and that we should get going. Liam told me that it was 8pm, and I found myself both disappointed and maybe also a little bit relieved that I could go back to sleep (when I realized I was not actually fully rested). So, we slept until 6am, putzed around the hostel a little bit, then went out for a walk through the Oslo castle and military grounds, where we got various pictures with tanks and cannons and battlements and such. It was pretty cool. I don't know that much about tanks, but I was pretty sure I identified a Sherman on sight.

Then we checked out of our hostel and took the train to Bergen. The train ride was uneventful but absolutely stunningly beautiful. The mountains and fjords of Norway are very pretty, and the 6 hour train ride just breezed by with me switching between reading, listening to music, eating the snacks from the train cafe, and checking out the scenery. All in all, it was a pretty great, relaxing way to travel. I hope all of our train experiences are this positive.

Once here in Bergen, Carl (a cousin of a friend of ours in Saskatoon, Ian) met us at the train station and walked us to his house, where we dropped off our stuff then went back out for food, which was a sze chuan (apparently that's two words here) place. The walk to and from this place was extremely wet! Apparently, Bergen is one of the rainiest cities in the world, so I picked up an umbrella on our way back. This was lucky, because on our way to the bar later, it was raining even harder, and I still got pretty wet even with the umbrella. I had a few drinks to forget about that fact while we met Carl's roommates and other friends. Luckily, everyone here speaks English pretty well, and we only had a few times where there was a gap in understanding, and that was mostly from me using idioms and such, or just talking like I was drunk. Carl's friends were really nice and easy to talk to, and we had a great time with them.

Apparently, when Liam went out for a smoke, he met some guys from the Norwegian military who were just tickled pink to meet a Canadian, and talk about their posts. So we hung out with those two and the couple of girls they had latched onto (who ended up being way cooler than the guys). We went to another bar and played some foosball, had some more drinks, chatted, did all that wonderful stuff. On our way out someone invited us to a nachspeil, which is apparently the Norwegian way of saying afterparty, where the host is supposed to have drinks and food, and the conversation and partying is supposed to continue. At this point, it was Liam and I, the two girls we had met, Carl, and the dude that invited us to nachspeil. The nachspeil was honestly kind of odd, as there were no more drinks to be had, and the guy who invited us was kind of odd, and I wasn't hungry for any food. We didn't stay too long before we walked the girls home and then went home ourselves. We got to bed at the ripe old hour of 4:30am.

That brings us to today! I haven't even had breakfast yet. For the next post I should have some pictures, but until then you can check out our photostream at the 'Latest' RSS feed here. I am also not quite sure how to link to our photostream, but if you go on Flickr our name is liam&colin and the account name is colin_saraka . More details on this later. I am so hungry! Time to eat.