BERLIN

we flew into berlin late on monday night. after navigating a bit we stumbled into our hostel in the mitte district, the circus. immediately great! sarah stuck around during the evening drinking in the bar waiting for us to arrive, so after we took a MUCH needed and incredible shower, we had a couple of drinks and headed right to bed. the first bed in what seemed like lives. yesterday we rose relatively late, did much needed washing in the most quirkily (sp?) designed laundromat. having done the domestics we meandered around in a nice loop getting an idea of the place we are staying in. the fashion and the people are super trendy, indie kids who totally milk the design lifestyle here. it is really great, but i cannot deny that it is quite intimidating. berlin is in a league of its own with regards to youth, freedom, grunge and design. the street art, as they will probably all tell you, is mad and out of this world. still recovering from complete debilitation of my body i was exhausted but that didnt really make much of an impact on the night that followed. lets just leave it at the fact that the bar downstairs is, well, generous, as are australians and their drinking culture which simulatenousty follows them through everything they do. this morning i woke up early due to the effects of hard liquor and half a panini the night before.
sarah and i wanted to have a jew day so mapped out a small plan. we started off at brandenberg gates which is home to the holocaust memorial about 200m from the actual gate. the place is lined with over 2000 concrete slabs placed in a huge space in the city. the slabs vary in size and magnitude as well as being planted on uneven ground. it is very interesting and moving in the way that the sun catches it, you can so easily get lost and the grid is somewhat eirily uneven. having wandered through that we found ourselves in a museum beneath the memorial. it wasnt part of our plan, since it isnt very well marketed or perhaps it was inadequately named, the information centre. well my god did it share some of the most moving pieces of information. upon entry you move along a timeline of text, explanations and images providing you with rich context and staggering statistics of a genocide still so inconceivable. the next room is dark, with rectangular lights on the floor showing up the text of diary entries found written by jews affected and most likely murdered in the holocaust. that part threw me. the next room tracked about 8 different jewish families in detail simply to emphasise the extent of the impact the regime had on normal, human and traditional ways of life. we moved on to the next room which gave testimonies of the 6million jews that died. overall it takes a certain number of years to get through, but i dont remember the numbers so cannot include it here. still, that was staggering. the last room mapped out all the different camps and ghettos throughout europe and if you wanted you could listen to a few testimonies given by survivors. all i can say is that nobody survives a genocide. and it cannot be allowed to happen again. this is serious and fucked up.
we silently moved on southward to a warehouse made up of about 5 floors where artists can work. the walls are layered with graffiti and stickers and the place smelled like pure urine. but on the top floor i saw some of the most wonderful art i have seen in europe. so unassuming and real.
after that stint we headed eastwards to the eastside gallery which is a 1.3km stretch of the original wall which divided berlin for 28 years. that was quite staggering, though i had different expectations. we walked around the area, sarah and matt drinking beer in the street, because that is legal here so long as you dont make a complete fool of yourself.
tonight we went through to some random bar. tomorrow is my last day which is seriously disappointing, though i am happy to be moving on to italy on friday too. tomorrow we hope to find legoland and i hope to find the dali museum.
photos only on film at this stage........