Headin’ Home – 24 Hours of travelling and whole lotta lines…

Saturday July 5th – the journey back home

We woke up early on saturday in order to pack all our belongings we’ve managed to acquire of the past few weeks, and headed across the park to another hostel where the airport shuttle was picking us up. As I sat with the luggage, Sarah revisted the Simon Meyssen bakery to grab some breakfast. Once at the airport, over 2 1/2 hours before our flight, plenty of time we thought, we got in line at the United Airlines counter and waited our turn. And thus began the longest day EVER. About four people in front of us, was a family with six boys who all had some sort of problem with names not matching the passports and thier tickets or something, but needless to say it took an HOUR to check in this one family. There were four lines of UA workers checking people into the flight…and Sarah and I stood in our line only to watch about 60 people who were in line behind us, get checked in before us! By the time it was our turn to check in, the attendant had closed her window! So we went to the next line..and she closed hers as well!!! We ended up beingthe LAST PEOPLE checked into the flight. GRRR Boo on you United Airlines! Once we got ourselves some sandwiches and sat on the plane at Amsterdams Schipol (or sh*thole as we will now call it) airport, there was a half our delay before our 8+ hour flight began to Washington DC’s Dullas airport. Okay, 8 hrs and one book or so later we cleared customs at Dullas, easily boarded our next plane…and SAT there for OVER an hour while our pilot would assure us by letting us know that he was watching the 11 planes in front of us and we would intermittently turn off the engines to save fuel. That was probably the only time i spent awake on that plane…the whole hour on the runway..anyway, once I woke up we were safe and sound in LAX…21 hours after checking out of our hostel. Finally, the highlight of our travels, as I just hung up my phone from speaking with Stan and my dad to let them know we were safe, I walked past Lance Reddick, and in shock we did a backtrack loop around the concourse to double check. Indeed, there he was, for you non-The Wire fanatics (the HIGHEST rated ANYTHING on IMDB) , the actor who played Cedric Daniels, was sitting there just listening to a walkman with his iron gaze, which I gladly met the second time around. Had i not been travelling for the last 21 hours, I might’ve actually said something. Instead we finally headed out in a daze to pick up our luggage, shuttle to the car and headed home to San Diego where I’m finishing the blog safe and sound!!! Thus ends Jamie and Sarah’s Europe 2008 Adventure!!

- Jamie

PS. in order to even board our plane from Amsterdam to the US we were subjected to the charming US security procedures that make our country an easy spot to travel in (NOT!). Every single person going on our plane was individually interviewed and, alas, in our case it was by a man with a thick dutch accent which made the interview even more stressful. When i would ask him to repeat questions because i couldnt understand what he was saying he would angrily reply “just answer yes or no please!”. Quizzed about our europe travel. accommodations. bags. relationship. mundane things. It was really awful and long and rude and i can only imagine how miserable it must have been for someone who didnt speak english or dutch. When we arrived in the us, our every friendly boarder control folks subjected non us citizens to an agonizingly entrance process which included retina scans and finger print stuff. frankly if i was a non us citizen and had to deal with so much grief for trying to visit the USA i probably wouldn’t bother. It is a testament to our sad relations with the rest of the world that travel has become so agonizing and 1984-esque. I cannot wait to move to Berlin

–The very disgruntled and travel weary Sarah Kramer

Last Full Day in Amsterdam

Friday July 4th

So, Friday morning we woke up early determined to beat the hoards of tourists we’d heard about crowding the Anne Frank house. After a quick ‘breakfast’ at the hostel (deli meat, cheese and poor quality bread with pseudo apple juice), we hopped on a tram uptown towards the house. We arrived to find a small line just as the museum was opening. I’d heard and read online about being shoulder-to-shoulder with sweat drenched foreigners dampening the experience, but we were lucky enough to avoid this. It was quite an incredible experience (I know, we’ve used this term a lot on our trip). As a child, I attended Anne Frank elementary school and remember reading her diary as early as maybe second or third grade. I recall my sister Marissa’s bat mitzvah speech mentioning the new generation of young Jewish women who are able to have thier bat mitzvah’s and feeling like they do it with the souls of people like Anne Frank who were unable to have thier own at the time. Walking through the house, again, neither of us felt it was necessary to take any pictures. At the front, there is a pamphlet with information about each room, each of the Jews in hiding, and quotes from Anne’s diary. We walked through Otto Frank’s offices downstairs and they had video clips of his infamous assistant Miep and various bits of information written on the walls, again alongside quotes from the diary. Eventually, we came to the infamous room with the bookcase which hid the entrance to the Secret Annex. I cannot begin to explain what it felt like to duck down and step up into the world which I’ve so long heard so much about. We walked through each of the bedrooms and bathrooms of all the members in hiding. In the last two rooms there were videos playing of Otto Frank speaking about his daughter, and one of a woman who was a childhood friend of Anna’s. Sarah and I were actually lucky enough to hear the woman speak in person last winter when we went to Israel and visited Yad V’shem, the Holocaust Museum. Finally, downstairs they had a facsimile of the diary for viewing (claiming the original was being restored and the room was under construction for climate control) and copies of the diary which have been published around the world in dozens of languages! I don’t even think we bought a postcard with pictures from this place. It’s truly another place everyone must expereience on thier own. Between all of the museums, memorials, and this place, my words here have surely not done justice to the will of those who lived in the annex for years, those who helped, and those who survived and perished in the Second World War.

Whew. I know. Heavy business for me too. After that, we decided since it was finally lovely weather outside, that we were in dire need of a relaxing (and romantic, oo-ooh!) picnic.We stopped by a coffeshop and the ‘Simon Meyssen Broodbakker’ bakery to get the necessary supplies, then headed to a spot in front of a beautiful lake in the middle of Vondelpark for lunch. For dessert, we walked to a cake shop and shared a hazelnut crostata before heading back to the hostel for an afternoon nap.

Later on, around 4, I met up with a friend of mine who had been studying in Israel for the past seven months. Ryan, or Hutty as most people know him, (the son of Aaron from the late Aarons Eatz in San Diego) and I just hung out in Vondelpark, and walked around the city chatting and catching each other up on our lives. We parted ways after a couple of hours so that Sarah and I could make it to Amsterdam’s famous Rijksmuseum. Again, another really neat and interesting museum experience. It was full of ‘Dutch loot’ as Sarah likes to put it, as well as some incredible paintings by artists like Titian and Rembrandt.

Afterwards, we visited the nearest coffeshop and went to an Israeli falafel chain Moes for what was probably the best schwarma (or shawarma or shoarma depending on which country you are in) from the whole trip! The rest of the evening was spent low-key checking emails and ambling around town, untill hunger set in again (dinner was too small, fourthmeal time!) and we spent some time in Vondelpark before heading to a nearby Irish dinner pub. I introduced Sarah to the wonderful world of BBQ spare-ribs (I’ve seen my brother eat an entire rack from what was probably a prize-winning bull and still be hungry for more) and after a glass of wine we headed back to the hostel, signed up for the morning airport shuttle and went to bed.

- Jamie

Cheese Market

Thursday:

We are cheese fans, perhaps even cheese fiends so i was determined to visit Gouda (pronounced How-da) to explore their notorious thursday Cheese Market. Gouda is a little town (pop. 75,000) an hour’s train ride outside of Amsterdam. It was still pretty cold and overcast when we arrived but the cheese market was in full swing. There were tons of stalls selling gouda and other cheese (but mostly gouda) in beautiful yellow waxed rounds. Live cheese auctions were happening and “Cheese Maidens” were showing off HUGE rounds of cheese.

Cheese Maidens at the market!

I bought lots of the small Gouda rounds and ate stroopwaffels with jamie. Stroopwaffels are little then waffels pressed together with sticky caramel in the center–sooo delicious. After a tasty lunch of onion soup and some fish we’ve never heard of we headed back to amsterdam.

After taking the wrong train to Utrecht, fixing that and then depositing my pounds of cheese at the hostel we headed to Spui district to scope out some more Coffee Shops and check out some funky stores.

We then had a huge and romantic dinner at this delicious italian place we’d walked past and oogled since we’d arrived. Although the waitress could not really be understood jamie heard the word lamb and ordered that and I was able to make out the words pasta and lobster and went for that. It was all sooo tasty. After to much walking, cheese eating, shopping, coffee-shopping and lamb fillet and entire lobster eating we needed a food coma and some sleep.

It had been a very delicious day.

–sarah

ps. the main death threat in amsterdam is not drugs or violent crime but Death By Bike. There are bike lanes set aside but they frequently cross paths with pedestrian sidewalks, leading to many near-death experiences and add to that the fact that bikes always have the right of way. Mopeds also speed in the bike lanes adding to the danger.

First Day in Amsterdam (Wednesday)

We got up and scoped out our humongous hostel’s included breakfast (not very good but lots of food) and then headed out. The plan was to go to Albery Cuyper market (a big outdoor market i wanted to check out), then head to the Heineken Experience and then to Anne Frank’s house in the evening. We had been unable to pre-purchase tickets for earlier in the day as they were all sold out. Albery Cuyper market was great, tons of really random stuff for sale as well as huge candy stalls, cheese stalls, pickle stalls and all manner or weird Dutch food products.

Albert Cuyper Market

Amsterdam is definitely the most ethnically diverse place ive visited in europe and this market was full of beautiful people from all over (especially from places the Dutch colonized). After a delicious lunch of falafels at one of Amsterdam’s best falafel joints we headed to the Heineken experience, cheerfully commenting that “hahaha we dont need these anymore!” as we passed umbrella stalls. This was to be our undoing.

The Heineken Experience had been really hyped up by our pals so when we arrived–and it was under construction and not open it was a bit of a bummer. So we decided to amble back to our hostel stopping at one of Amsterdam’s “Coffee Shops” along the way. As we were passing the Van Gogh Museum i felt the first drop of rain. So ran into a stall selling knock off Van Gogh Museum merchandise and shelled out 15 euros (!!!) for a Starry Night Umbrella. And shortly after that the downpour began.

now what we should have done was shell out five more euros for the large umbrella and not scrimped on the one person. Jamie gallantly insisted that I use the umbrella and gave me most of his valuables so they wouldn’t get soaked. It was raining really hard, so hard in fact that the drops pounded off the pavement to further soak out feet and legs. We should have just ducked into a cafe or even a doorway but for some reason we were really cheerful and decided to plod onwards towards our hostel. But then we entered Vondelpark and got seriously lost. It was a very picturesque lost, meandering over little bridges and next to ponds and weeping willows but we had no idea how to get out of the park and jamie was completely soaked and still romantically insisting that I keep the umbrella (which had also broken a bit for absolutely no reason at all). At one point we decided to sing to distract ourselves from the increasingly cold weather–it was pretty fun We eventually emerged to discover we were at the very back of the park and our hostel is at the very front. Armed with a sodden and disintegrating map we trekked onwards, eventually reaching our hostel.

Between no Heineken Experience and the rain we certainly didnt feel like heading across town to Anne Frank’s house so we scrapped those plans, rested while waiting for the rain to subside and then headed to the Von Gogh Museum. It was great–beautifully organized (like all European museums seem to be) and full of treasures. In addition to their Van Gogh collection the museum displayed works that had influenced him as well as works by artists who were influenced by his style. Only two things were missing: there was no mention at all of the ear cutting episode and no Starry Night. Im sure some swanky museum like the Met or Louvre has snagged it, but i would have liked to learn more about the insane period of Van Gogh’s life.

For dinner we went to a little one room sushi place which just had a counter, some stools and a really nice dutch woman making sushi. Then we wandered around taking in the city and actually had even more sushi (yah for Fourth Meal!) in Leidseplein before going to sleep.

–Sarah

Leaving Berlin

Tuesday morning we got up early and headed our to Mitte one last time to visit the DDR/GDR Museum. It was very cozy and hillarious. We were the first people in the museum so it didnt get crowded till we were leaving. Its full of these really detailed exhibits about life in the GDR complete with a kitchen and living room completely done up GDR-style with antique products. We learned some interesting facts: on holiday at GDR approved and owned holiday spots most vacationers vacationed in the nude because swimsuits were in such short supply. Then followed many shots of very happy families from the seventies playing volleyball and having bbqs in the nude. Another interesting fact: the longest running TV show ever was a GDR children’s show–it ran for forty years. Although there was a Stasi listening post exhibit the tone of the museum was remarkably upbeat and nostalgic. Overall it was short, interesting and kitschy.

Then we headed to Mauerpark for some last pictures and a final meal at a Lebanese restaurant (delicious Lamb kefta). Then popped into a very late plane with the random and strange Transavia airlines.

Checking out of EastSeven Berling Hostel

Juedisches

Monday – Last full day in Berlin

In the morning, after a brief breakfast, we headed across Berlin on a tram to Brandenberg gate, which was still mostly closed off and in shambles from the crowded streets for the ‘footbal’ game the night before.

Jamie and Sarah at Brandenberg Gate - Old Entrance of Berlin Wall

After snapping a few quick shots, we briskly made our way over to the infamous Berlin Holocaust Memorial. It was a nearly indescribable, personal expereince meandering among the varied rows of growing and shrinking monoliths that every person should experience for themselves. It was written that it took 17 years of debate before the overseeing commitee finally agreed on a design, and allowed the artist to begin constructing this brilliant design. We didn’t feel the need to take any pictures.

A short, somber taxi ride left us across the street from the Jeudisches Museum Berlin, another incredible homage to the Jewish people and their contributions to society. One of the largest Jewish museums in the world, this uniquely zig-zagged shaped museum first greeted us with a clever travelling exhibit titled ‘typishe!’ or typical. It displayed examples of artwork and expressions of all sorts of stereotypes not only about Jews, but many other minorities as well. They had everything from various interpretations of the ‘Shylock Monoglogue’ from Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant of Venice’ to the hilarious and first successful multicultural campaign (it was a native american smiling eating bread and it said ‘you dont have to be jewish to enjoy our rye bread’), to images of beauty and the rumors surrounding the increasingly nightmarish Michael Jackson and his latest surgeries.

Downstairs, the permanent exhibit consisted of three parts. It had a hollow towering room, its own sobering Holocaust memorial, a more peaceful Garden of Exile, and three wings each a certain named axis. The axis of Death, Continuity, and Exile.

Garden of Exile view from above

The first was based on family recollections and personal articles belonging to those who perished in the Holocaust, donated by friends and family;  the second on the role and identity and continuity of Judaism in the Western world and Germany in particular; and the third showed Jewish prosperity, oppression, and integration in foriegn lands during the Diaspora. We had lunch at the kosher cafe inside for a break at some point, and headed on back to the hostel after viewing everything. It was an incredibly brilliantly designed museum with such careful thought and planning. Also, it takes several hours to walk through and it is IMPOSSIBLE to read/listen to everything.

Tree of Wishes for the Future

For our final dinner in Berlin, Sarah and I both admitted to eachother that we secretly craved the thai joint from the first night, so we headed back to Mao Thai one more time.

Happy Fourth of July to everyone back home!

- Jamie

Bargains & Europcup fever

When we eventually woke up from out post-watergate sleep (it was sunday afternoon) we headed to Mauerpark to scope out the fleamarket. More specifically we went to find this awesome japanese man who has a clothing company called vampstar, wears bell bottoms and makes amazing shirts we were determined to get ahold of. Mauerpark is right along where the Wall used to be and really dingy and constantly under construction and AMAZING. You enter through this little warren of shacks and tables that sell every sort of food imaginable for rock bottom prices. There is a tent with a table in it and two grungy people selling delicious thai soup and apple juice from a big bottle–awesome. The flea market it one of the best ive ever been too and i wish i lived in berlin so i could fill a whole house full of stuff purchased there. Lots of vintage clothes and boots and GDR and seventies furniture as well as records, computer parts and punk rock gear. In the middle somewhere is a “Beach Bar”, which in berlin means a huge pile of sand strewn with beach chairs and a shack that sells fresh juice and a bizarre combination of drinks. The chairs are full of reclining old people, students, little kids in bathing suits and over accessorized japanese tourists. there is a little platform covered in musical instruments, but during set breaks they blast Fela Kuti (!!! so excited!) and The White Stripes. Jamie and i had only come for the Vampstar shirts but ender up perusing every single stall. We then headed home and snagged a falafel and shwarma on the way and prepared for the Eurocup.

For those of you who are american and therefor completely removed from the soccer/futbol world, the Eurocup is a HUGE deal. At willows wedding reception, a crowd was clustered around a table where a young boy was following a Spain game on a tiny portable tv. When spain won the entire room erupted into cheers and the table of 50-somethings behind us toasted boisterously. The final match this year was between Germany and Spain so naturally excitement was in the air in Berlin. Everyone had some sort of getup, the most common was the german flag painted on one cheek. Although we initially headed towards Brandenberg Gate to watch the game at “Fan Mile” we got waylaid by our stomachs and after the best chicken wings i have ever eaten in my life (seriously) we decided to head to our neighborhood and watch the game close to home. It proved to be the wise choice as we found out that Fan Mile was actually closed to the public now since so many fans had showed up.

We headed to a square near our hostel, and every single bar or restaurant had set up huge tv screens outside and had crowds all situated. As we passed a whole in the wall turkish-owned takeout pizza joint we saw it: a two person well padded red leather bench behind the tables facing the tv. it was ours. We plopped ourselves down and ordered a Sicilian pizza (dinner #2) and two big german beers. The game was great fun to watch except for the hooligans at the bar across the street setting off those loud popper firework things. The furniture store next to the pizza place has lent them huge wooden tables and it was a lovely evening.

Watchin the game from the sidewalk!

But although we cheered out hearts out and the german anthem was sung to the tune of “Ole Ole Ole”; germany was unable to win the cup. Everyone was totally crushed and even the painted hooligans walked sadly home. It was truly depressing as we had plunked ourselves down with the locals and gotten our hearts in the game. Everyone had been prepared to dance in the streets. It had been an exhausting 24 hours for us so we headed back to our hostel and got some more much needed sleep.

–Sarah

Watergate, in search of sunrise

Berlin is known for having awesome electronic music and jamie and i knew we wanted to find somewhere awesome to dance. Not necessarily even somewhere as swanky as Duplex in Prague, just somewhere with amazing electro and a dance floor, I had heard about this place called Watergate, supposedly berlin’s best electro club and a bit exclusive. So on saturday night we trekked over to give it a go.

the journey was perilous. it involved taking several trains and then just as we were nearly there one the U1 simply stopped. Since we dont read (or speak) german we were never quite able to deduce what had happened. jamie heroically chased down a taxi and we made it….only to be confronted with a huge line and what appeared to be a very discerning bouncer. i was depressed and anxious but jamie remained resolute. when we fiiinnnaaally reached the front this tight lipped berlinner bouncer asked us who we were there to see because “im just trying to see who is a real fan or not”. scary. we had no idea what the djs’ names where but jamie calmly explained that we’d flown thousands of miles and that we simply loved electro and knew this was the place to be. I added (with my best smile): “Please, we just want to dance”. We were in due to our combined superpowers.

Saturday night/Sunday Morning was the best dance experience of our lives.

Watergate has two floors and a deck that sits right on the Spree river. Both floors have dj stations, bars and a dance floor but the top floor is the main one and has a fantastic light show on the ceiling (pictured below).

It was amazing. By the time we actually made it in it was 1am and people were just beginning to dance. We immediately got on the floor and it soon became pretty packed. The DJs were incredible, perfect vibes. We heard:

Andrew Weatherall (Soma)
Ivan Smagghe (Kill The DJ!)
Robin Drimalski (Vidab, Watergate)

I honestly have no idea who was who or what in order they were on, the whole experience was just very magical. I have never been more unselfconscious when dancing. I just felt my whole being fill up with bliss and moved my gangly limbs with glee. Due to our exuberant dancing and friendly grins jamie and i quickly gathered a little crew who danced with/around us for most of the night. There was Peter and Victoria from France, Jose from Spain, Fernando (a dj) from Portugal and two brothers from Italy who insisted in very broken english that they were in the mafia. We definitely brought our own american electro courtesies with us and after we bought drinks for people to keep them hydrated everyone began bringing each other water–five plus hours of dancing means that you pretty much sweat out everything you drink (yeah our clothes were pretty gnarly).

Sometime after five am i headed to the bathroom, and only then did i realize the sun had come up. The club had black curtains up i guess as it got near sunrise so the light wouldnt interrupt the dancers. I have never in my entire life danced for so long. once we got on the dancefloor we didnt sit down for the entire night/morning. Gradually our gang headed home and around five forty five jamie and i decided to head home.

but before leaving we walked out onto the deck on the ground floor that sits on the river and just took everything in. I didnt feel exhausted at all, and not even that sweaty (although we were), just calm and happy and glad that my blisters from prague had miraculously survived the night unharmed. The cool morning air felt great on our faces and besides the cigarette smoke from all the germans the scene was soothing. a taxi awaited us right out in front of the club and our driver was so charming and pleasant it seemed the world was rewarding us for all our dancing and the perilous journey to get to watergate. he reminded us that today (it was sunday now) was the final Eurocup match between germany and spain and that we couldnt miss it! we arrived back at our hostel and quietly sat down and ate some breakfast and then climbed up the eight flights of stairs (oh man its tough), took much needed showers then curled up in the sunlight and went to sleep.

it was a glorious experience.

–Sarah

Photos Phinally!

Just letting all of our adoring fans know that pictures have been retro-fitted in the blog posts below, and additional photos of our adventures can be found on Jamie’s Google Picassa Web album HERE!

ich bin ein berliner

We slept in this morning and eventually woke up to a cold and rainy berlin day. This did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for our day’s adventures. jamie and i got croissants and coffees down the street and then ambled into the health food grocery store right next to our hostel. since our hostel has a full kitchen we can use we got breakfasts and some dinners we can make to save money. After grabbing an umbrella we headed off to the Pergamon Museum. It had gotten rave reviews from my mom and others and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT!! it was amazing (will post pictures after dinner). Its full of reconstructions of Greek and roman temples and we arrived in berlin just as the Babylon: Myth and Truth exhibit opened.

The museum was crammed due to the new exhibit but it was just so vast and the structures they have erected inside it boggle the mind. Now the temples and alters found inside arent fakes, they have actually lugged all the huge pillars stone by stone from their archaeological sites to the museum. This raised some questions for me especially since many of the artefacts were gathered (read stolen) during the nazi regime and the museum is a bit sketchy on whose permission they recieved to transport their exhibits back to germany.

The Babylon exhibit was organized in a neat way. the first section “Myth” just dealt with myths concerning Babylon. From the Nebuchadnezzar to the Whore of Babylon to the Tower of Babel. To illustrate these myths the museum had artifacts from the middle ages  onwards as well as modern art installations that even touched on similarities between Saddam Hussein and Nebuchadnezzar. The “Truth” section contained loads of artifacts from babylon including the huge Gate of Ishtar which had been fully reconstructed. There was also a small, white stone which had had a prophesy etched in it when the city was first built. it was said that this prophesy would follow mankind as long as they created cities:

THIS IS THE MAKING OF TOWERS

THIS IS THE MAKING OF CIVILIZATION

THIS IS THE MAKING OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

THIS IS THE MAKING OF GLORY

THIS IS THE MAKING OF FAILURE

THIS IS THE MAKING OF CONFUSION

THIS IS THE MAKING OF TRANSLATION

THIS IS THE MAKING OF DIFFERENCE

After scoping out several more rooms in the Pergamon filled with mostly greek and roman sculptures (we were too tired to ascend the billion stairs to the turkey museum on the third floor) Jamie and i headed over to the Altes Museum to see their Egyptian Collection….

The Altes Museum had an amazning collection of Egyptian art and artifacts, with the infamous ‘Bust of Nefertiti’ as thier main attraction.

In studying art and art history in school, the Egyptian from this period, known as the Amarna Period, was one of the most interesting and favorable topics for me.

Egyptian art and history as a whole is very fascinating, but this small collection had one work in particular which really captured my interest. It was a small releif sculpture of Akhenaten (Egypts only monotheistic ruler) and his family. I took a picture next to it and was able to obtain a postcard with the image at the museum giftshop.

After walking around the area briefly and perusing a side street with vendors, we headed back to the hostel to make ourselves dinner and take a nap. Who would’ve expected visiting museums to be such an exciting and tiresome workout!?? More to come!!!

Love from Berlin,

Jamie & Sarah