Berlin - a city of constant change

24 June to 25 June 2015 

Hi, all! We are just leaving Berlin on an early morning train bound for Prague (with a day stopover in Dresden), and as I've had my morning coffee, it seems the perfect time to write a blog post. 

Berlin, I must admit, wasn't like I was expecting it to be. Of course I had some idea of its history (mostly relating to the Second World War), but I don't think I fully understood how rich that history is. 

The Brandenburger Tor/Brandenburg Gate

It is a city that is constantly changing. It's history reaches as far back as Old Slavic times, because we learned that "Berlin" itself means "swamp land" in that language. It has seen immense progress in terms of intellectual ideas and ideology, tolerance and liberalism towards religion and cultures, and more recently, terror and violence during the wars. Throughout the city there are signs that tell you about that particular area and its history, whether it used to have a palace from the 1700s or even served as a square for open revolution and protest. Perhaps more relevant are the innumerous monuments, museums and memorials dedicated to the Second World War and the Cold War, along with the civic life and brutalities that occurred during those times. In the 21st century, it is so interesting to see a city that openly and publicly shares its history, shameful or otherwise. 

We visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, an exhibition of 2711 "stelae" or boxes of different heights on uneven ground in the center of the city. Walking through the memorial gives one a sense of disorientation as you move deeper into the memorial and the stelae jut high into the sky, obscuring your view and messing up your sense of direction. The artist supposedly wanted to instil a sense of what it was like to live in persecution during the war, a feeling that I can attest to having as I wandered and turned every which way. There was also an information center that focused on the victims of the genocide, showcasing diary entries and families who are largely unheard of, especially in comparison to Anne Frank (I know I missed an Amsterdam entry but I will post that soon!). 

Another memorable historical site visit was to the Topography of Terror centre, an odd name for a museum, I thought. But it's accurate. The centre is built into the former Gestapo headquarters, a poignant example of how Berlin is recycling its darker past into a reflection on the horrors that unfolded in the same space to ensure it isn't forgotten. Outside of the centre, there is a very detailed chronology of the development of National Socialism in Germany, from the lack of support of the Nazi party in the early 1920s to the roaring support in the early 1930s after the Great Depression. The timeline talked about the resurgence of anti-Semitism and the ideology of National Socialism and the "master race". I had known the general facts about the war and the Nazis' ideology and policies, but was genuinely surprised to learn the extent to which the party went to infiltrate all aspects of social and political life with their ideals of purity. They had made a pact with the Vatican and even had their own sort of "state sanctioned" pastor to align their ideology with religion. Most holidays were based on religious ones, so instead of completely overhauling the system and enforcing state holidays while removing religious ones, the Nazis simply began to associate the existing religious holidays with Nazi ideals. Propaganda was abound and anyone found unenthusiastic about the new "national community" forming would be arrested. This national community would exclude communists and political opponents, Jews, Roma and Sinti people, the disabled, homosexuals, and those exhibiting "asocial" behaviour. The extent to which the Nazis went to instil their ideology of hate was so MASSIVE it is almost unbelievable, but I have to admit they were very, very smart. 

At the Rosengarten while wandering Tiergarten.

For me, history is an absolutely integral part of traveling. Europe happens to have the most dense and recorded history, which means that there's so much to learn and absorb. Being in Berlin and standing in the same spots where kings and queens, aristocrats, and Nazis once stood is all at once humbling and chilling - humbling because it somewhat puts into perspective how we are but a speck in the timeline of human history, and chilling because of what has occurred here. 

Aside from the history, Berlin is such a vibrant, cosmopolitan city. There's a certain energy about it this I can't quite grasp, but I'm a fan. Meg and I were lucky enough to be in the city during their Pride festivities, which was a parade (that we missed) and a massive street party in the center of the city, between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column in Tiergarten. There were so many vendors of food and alcohol, I could hardly believe it! We partied until it was shut down and the street was littered with booze, bottles, and God knows what else. But it was so, so much fun, much better than any Vancouver Pride I've been to! 

At the party! 

Hoping to write about Brighton and Amsterdam so will end this here! 

London: a mixture of feelings

11 June to 16 June 2015 

We've officially left London behind in the dust so that means I can reflect on the 5 days we spent in the world's centre of civilization. I was here for a few hours last summer during a layover from Johannesburg to Vancouver, and we covered all the main sights then. I wasn't terribly interested because I was exhausted and knew I'd be back the next summer, so this time around I really got to see London more closely. The bold and italics indicate captions for the photos! I haven't figured out how to caption them properly on the app yet...

First, what I liked.

I really liked seeing the sights of central London (the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben) at night. We saw them around 9:45pm and they were aglow with LED lights projected upwards onto them. Against the night sky, they looked amazing, perhaps even showcasing the very pride, joy, and meaning of what it means and has meant to be British throughout the ages. London is certainly rich in history, both within the city walls and beyond into the world it colonized, from reigning kings and queens to colonial triumphs in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. None of this is lost on me and because I am very much interested in colonialism and its injustices, I feel very torn about Europe in general. But anyways, not the time for a history lesson and one of my never-ending tirades.

The London Eye as seen from Westminster Bridge. Excuse the photos, they're all from the iPhone 4S haha.

Next up on the "like" list: Sprinkles Gelato. Listen up, Heather, I know you're reading this. This place was about 2 minutes from our hostel on Finchley Road and had about 50 different flavours of gelato! They were open until midnight every night so you can guess where we wandered off to in the night if we got a craving for sugar. The only flavour I had was the passion fruit, which I give an A+. The other thing I had was a twisted hot chocolate, who had a nice scoop of vanilla gelato in it, making it one of the creamiest hot chocolates I've ever had! Megan was over the moon about this place and I think she's quite sad there isn't one outside of the UK. 

The twisted hot chocolate!

The Tube. When we first saw a map of the Tube system back home, Megan and I both thought we'd get lost for sure. The network is crazy! Way bigger than anything we have in Vancouver. But to our surprise, we didn't get lost ONCE! One night, after a particularly long sightseeing walk, we missed the last train on the usual line we took to get to our hostel. But we managed to reroute and figure out that another line dropped us off at another station an equal distance from the hostel, so that was cool! And so, so, SO easy to use. 

Last but not least, HARRY POTTER. A lot of things on this trip so far has somehow involved Harry Potter. In Edinburgh we visited the Elephant House where JK Rowling wrote the series, or at least part of it. I think the café has become somewhat of a pilgrimage destination for Potterheads the world over, which is a heartwarming thought, knowing that Harry Potter has touched so many lives. Then, in London, we visited the Millenium Bridge which featured in the movies. We decided against doing a walking tour that took you to different filming locations in the city, but we did have tickets to go to the Harry Potter Studio Tour just outside of London.

Dumbledore's collection of memories for the pensieve. All of these bottles have handmade and handwritten labels. All of them.

The Studio tour, while obviously crowded with many, many fans, was pretty amazing. We got to see the very same sets where the movies were filmed as well as the stories behind how they turned from paper into film. By that I mean the massive contribution of crew members involved in production, set design, visual and special effects, costumes, etc etc etc...the list is terribly long! I was so amazed by all of this and had never thought about the movies that way. Every detail, every tiny little thing was carefully calculated. The thing I was most amazed and grateful to learn about was the level of craftsmanship and dedication to quality that went into the set and prop designs. For example, in the scene where the trio steal the Hufflepuff cup from Bellatrix's vault in Gringotts and they multiply? Not CGI. At least not all of it - they LITERALLY made 7000 cups, a least 4 of which had gold leaf. SEVEN THOUSAND. For the scene in the department of mysteries in the 5th movie, they made 15,000 of the prophecy balls. Also, almost ALL the magical creatures, like Buckbeak and the dragons from the 4th movie, were first very realistic robots  that they used to film simple movements (eg. When Buckbeak is lying down in the field awaiting his death), but then CGI was used to create the more complicated movements like flying or running. We got to see the Buckbeak robot and it looks HELLA realistic, movements and all. Very impressed. Ever notice the telescope in the back of Dumbledore's office? It's a huge, spherical thing with astrological symbols on it. It was the most expensive and detailed prop they made for the whole series, and it was only seen in background shots! Crazy. Okay, last thing: the butterbeer was amazing. That is all. 

Butterbeer! 

What I did NOT like. 

The crowds. This is what drove us to seek out the more obvious attractions by evening and nightfall. I am a person who hates crowds and especially when said crowds are made up of idiot tourists with no awareness of who is around them or of any sense of manners. Why are you crowding the sidewalk?! Why are you shoving me forward when there is clearly a fence and there is nothing to see anyways because we are SO FAR AWAY from Buckingham Palace to see the actual changing of the guard anyway?!?!?!? Why is your phone in my face, what are you taking a picture of?! This was honestly and probably the biggest peeve off about London, none of which is really London's fault. Like my sister said, I hate tourists, even though I am one haha. But a polite one, right?! 

The exchange rate. Again, not really the fault of London (or maybe it is, exchange rates and economics have never been my strong suit), but hot damn is the British pound strong! I keep remembering that everything actually costs double and then I cry a little inside. For example, today in Brighton we paid £35 for lunch. It wasn't a cheap lunch, mind you, but nothing fancy either, and it included a jug of Pimm's. That means it was nearly $70 Canadian. You see where my tears come from, yeah? Anyways, we are set to be more budget friendly for the remainder of our UK trip, which ends in 2 days, then we'll be on the much more agreeable Euro! 

The hostel. Man, I was so excited for the hostel. We stayed at Palmer's Lodge in Swiss Cottage, and from the site and interwebs it looks awesome, like something from the Victorian era (is that right? Honestly I don't know my architectural eras very well either...). But it was certainly lacklustre, at least for me. The room itself was fine, sort of musty when you walk in but the building's old so that's expected I guess. The curtains on my bunk were stained with I don't even want to guess what, so that was pretty gross and unsettling. The noise level in the room was surprisingly fine for having 28 beds. Even the music from the bar DIRECTLY BELOW was tolerable. But the most intolerable thing was the EDM/rave/club music that the male staff (and ONLY the male staff, believe me I walked past the front desk while women were working it and the music was much more appropriate for receiving guests) insisted on blasting at unnecessary decibels late into the night (although once it stopped at midnight). The desk was several walls and doors away on the same level and I could STILL hear the bass through my ear plugs. I didn't get a good night's rest a single night I stayed there. No amount of free tea or shoddy wifi can change my mind on this one haha. Or amount of stolen food from the common kitchen, which also happened to us. It's too bad because I really wanted to like London but in the end, the crowds and the poor etiquette of the hostel staff were enough to make me think otherwise.

I know that was a super depressingly negative ending to this post but I had to vent! I don't HATE London, but I think it served its purpose and I saw what we I wanted to see, so now I have no reason to really go there again anytime in the near future. Half a day in Brighton and I am already happier and maybe healthier too! 

Next post will be about Brighton, so in 3ish days! 

See you later, Scotland!

6 June to 11 June 2015 

Holy cow, have 6 days gone by already?! Nuts. I guess that means that I should review our time in Scotland before I inevitably forget and become too lazy to do it! In light of that tendency, I've decided to do ONE blog post per country  at minimum, possibly more if we've done something particularly exciting. 

To be concise, Scotland was a dream and almost just as I remembered it. Though it started off FREEZING (why did we only bring one pair of pants and NO big sweaters?), it turned out to be THE BEST introduction to our European excursion. 

Touring the more rural parts of Scotland with Rory was, as I expected, fantastic and relaxing. We had no schedule and nothing to do for the first day and a half, so we spent the day just going with the flow. We saw a bit of Glasgow after leaving the airport, had a nap back at the farm, then wandered around the farm property with Rory, which was quite a trek, but it was great to see the landscape in the countryside! Our first night in Scotland in the bungalow at Rory's was the best sleep we have had yet! We were curled up on the pull-out sofa bed under a bunch of blankets to keep out the cold and had the furnace going to give us some extra warmth. We fell asleep watching Identity Thief on Netflix. The next day, we slept in and got up around 11. Another wander around the farm in the now-present sunlight and we were off to Perth to catch the train to Edinburgh at 5:20, taking the scenic route as we went along. We stopped at the Rumbling Bridge and went down an obviously less-taken path down to the small rapids of the river and climbed up on the rocks to get a good view. Later downstream, the river turned into a roaring monster, careening off of cliffs to form some pretty impressive waterfalls.

The train to Edinburgh was...interesting. We didn't get seats so we ended up standing for the hour and a bit it took to get from Perth to Edinburgh, but that wasn't too bad. I was more confused about the seating, whether or not all the seats were reserved because they all seemed to have "Reserved" signed on them! I've heard that Europeans are particular about their train seating, so I was nervous and didn't want to sit in someone's seat and die of embarrassment when I got kicked out. I later realized that the signs also read the location where each seat was reserved until, so for example, "Perth to Edinburgh" meant that it was ONLY reserved between those stops, any seats with station stops that had already passed were free! Seems straight-forward, but hindsight is always 20-20. Once we arrived at our stop (Haymarket station), getting to the hostel was surprisingly easy! It was about a 5 minute walk and it turned out to be very close to where I stayed for a night when I was in the city three years ago, imagine that! 

Our hostel was pretty much perfect. Our room had 12 beds, but was never full. The best times to shower were in the afternoon or evening because everyone likes to shower in the morning and people are usually out in the afternoons. I'm a night-showerer myself, and since we always seemed to be getting up super early, we got out and covered some ground while everyone was still sleeping and came back to nap and shower while they were gone. It was only £2 to wash and dry our clothes. And it was perfectly located - just far enough from the main parts of town so that it was quiet, but close enough that we could walk to the Old Town in about 20 minutes effortlessly. We walked EVERYWHERE in Edinburgh, until our feet throbbed from constant contact with the cobblestone streets of the Royal Mile, which I'm pretty sure we walked at least 6 or 8 times in the 5 days we were there. We took the bus only twice: once to get to Holyrood Park to hike Arthur's Seat, and once to get us and all of our stuff to Waverley station to catch a train to London. 

I wish I could write about everything I loved in Edinburgh, but let's just say that I think it's a FANTASTIC city, possibly one of my favourites in Europe. I am so happy to have been able to come back and done everything that I wished I had done last time, but didn't have the time. I loved touring the Castle again and was just as fascinated, but I am over the moon about hiking up Arthur's Seat with Meg and to have seen the gorgeous views from its peak. I guess I could say that I got to see Edinburgh in a whole new way, and that's something in itself. 

Maybe once we get back I'll do a "Top 5 things" we did in each city or country, but I don't think I have the energy to do it right now. Blogging while abroad is something that I always want to do and keep up with, but I'm so notoriously bad at it that it hurts. It probably doesn't help that the wifi isn't the greatest over here (us North Americans and our freakishly fast internet), but I can't really blame my ineptitude on a technicality. 

Anywho, that's all for now! Currently in London squished into my bunk with Meg while we figure out what the hell we're doing tomorrow. Such fun. 

Safe 'n sound!

We made it! After three flights and some attempts at making up sleep, we landed in Glasgow around 8am on Saturday, June 6. Unfortunately, my tablet is TOAST after being soaked by my supposedly leakproof waterbottle between Vancouver and Halifax. I'm choked because that was going to be the main way we stayed in contact and blogged, but I guess we just have to roll with it. On somewhat of an impulse move, we decided to buy an iPad mini from the airport to that we had a reasonably-sized device to write posts from. A reasonably-sized, $300 dollar device. 

Anyway, even though I'm pretty choked about the tablet (it's now deadweight in my pack until I figure out what to do with it), the trip's off to a pretty decent start. Rory picked us up on the other side of customs and we were off! We toured a bit of Glasgow, including climbing to the top of the Necropolis and looking around a huge cathedral and Glasgow's oldest house, and then made our way to Glenalmond, where Rory lives. 

The drive was gorgeous. I'm very excited to be back in this little slice of Scottish paradise, but possibly even more excited for Megan to see how great it is. It was great to have a place to stay in a pretty quiet area, plus I loved hanging out with Rory's cat, Ginger (Gingy); such a cute, cuddly fellow. We walked around the farm property, which I didn't get to do last time. There's so much greenery! We felt adventurous and climbed down to the river that flows through the Glen, which was awesome, though our shoes got a little muddy.

Today (Sunday) we slept in, took another wander around the farm, and set off for the city of Perth, where we'll catch the train. On the way, we stopped at the Rumbling Bridge and climbed down to the river to hang out for a bit. Once we got to Perth, we just took a walk along the river Tay and got a bite to eat before Rory dropped us off at the station. And now, here we are! Sucking up the free wifi and having a drink in the station, waiting for our 17:22 train to Edinburgh. I suppose that's were I'll next update! 

4 days!

It's been a CRAZY two weeks! So crazy that I find myself sitting in bed hardly realizing that we will be on a plane, leaving the country, by the end of the week.

Two weeks ago, I graduated. I wouldn't say it was a life-changing day, but it also wasn't entirely anti-climactic either. The ceremony was short and sweet - it was great to see friends and classmates I hadn't seen for a while. The pre-ceremony bit (where we all got our gowns, hoods, and organized ourselves into the correct procession lines) was interesting because there were so many people in my program that I had NEVER met before...but I suppose that's a downfall of IR being an interdisciplinary program! I was in the second row once we got to the Chan Centre, so I crossed the stage fairly quickly. After I did the walk, I mostly zoned out for the rest of the ceremony. Once it was over and the new graduates were led out of the building, I managed to find my family in the swarms of people! We then walked further away from the hustle and bustle to find some of my friends who came to take pictures with me. It was a HOT day, so we tried to take as many pictures as possible before I melted into a puddle. To end the day, my family had dinner at the Boathouse at Kits beach and soon after, Meg and I took off to enjoy the sunset on the dog beach, surrounded by a bunch of pups that I wish were my own hahaha.

TWO days after my graduation, we moved! Since Meg and I are both going to grad school at SFU (I'll be at the downtown campus while Meg has to commute to Burnaby), it no longer made sense to live so close to UBC. Unfortunately, things didn't end so well with our last landlords, so now we are happier than ever to have moved. We have just settled in, for the most part, into a building right at West 2nd and Cambie, overlooking the bridge and with a pretty great view of False Creek and Yaletown. It's a bit cramped for now, as we still need to shuffle things around, but I think it'll be a great place to live while we tackle grad school. The only complaint I have is that TOO many entitled jerks with their loud as hell cars and motorcycles feel the need to rip up the onramp to the bridge, only to be slowed down once they actually get onto the bridge. Our room is RIGHT beside the bridge so we get the worst of it, I'm afraid. But with the windows closed, it's manageable.

Lastly, we are making our last minute preparations before we leave on June 5th for the next 2 months! This means calling our banks and credit cards to notify them of our travels, making sure we have EVERYTHING we need to survive in hostels and on minimal budgets, figuring out what we need to do for grad school while we're away, and ensuring all of the accommodations and transportation that we've booked are in order. It's been a whirlwind of a year, and I'm both relieved and nervous that our trip has finally arrived. Fingers crossed that we don't get too lost or get too frustrated haha. We'll be blogging as much as possible while we're away, and will definitely be writing in our journals every day, so if we miss a day or two of blogging, we'll be sure to recap (however briefly) what we've missed since the last post.

Until then!